Jesus CHRIST at all this its GTA 4 in the West shit. FFS, relax and let's engage in some analysis here. Point by point on GTA 4 and RDR:
(Bear in mind, my criticisms are on what GTA 4 did wrong, it did do many things right)
Graphics
What GTA 4 Did Wrong - On the whole, Liberty City was modelled meticulously and was a very convincing rendition of an actual working city. The graphics fell down in two particular areas: shadow dithering and the color filter. Yes, it doesn't have AA, but most games this gen on the consoles don't. And I'm a PC gamer as well. I'll ding them that for the next gen. Now shadow dithering was not a 'large' stumbling block in the game for me but reared its ugly head from time to time. It seemed more prevalent on the PC, but perhaps that's my bias. The color filter was a much worse issue. It tended to mute and blend colors into one another, and create a hazy, foggy, yellowed out world that seemed more in place in San Andreas than Liberty City and every shadow was not black but gray. This is evident especially when you use the ENB series mods and correct the color filter in the game as it also muddied and covered up some brilliant texture work.
How is it in RDR - The shadow dithering is still in place, but it appears to have been diminished or shrunk so that cinematics tend to show it more with close-ups and such. The color filter though is probably the big improvement. An arid hot filter is precisely the one you want to use in a Western game (ala Fallout) and the world looks to be as meticulously modeled as Liberty City was, if not more. Godrays and bloom effects also look like they have been added and improved, respectively.
Characters
What GTA 4 Did Wrong - Niko Bellic, oh, Rockstar. One of the most unsympathetic, uninspiring, and downright ugly main characters I have ever played. I only began identifying with the guy towards the end of the game, and that was on a limited basis. The supporting character list was not so bad, but still suffered from some cartoonish behavior amongst them. Brucie was clearly comic relief, but the whole Florian/Bernie Crane arc was downright idiotic on many levels. Sure, the mob guys tended to be cardboard cutouts, but the all seemed one prozac away from a mental home and barely stable to even work in a criminal underworld. Some of this was significantly improved on in the Episodes though with TLAD showing much more mature grounding, and TBOGT showing a lighter, funnier feel, but with things being more subtle. Both main characters in those Episodes were marked improvements over Niko.
How is it in RDR - Its too early for a full accounting, as the game is not released, but everything seen so far points to believable characters were oddities are meant for comic relief and main characters are meant to be taken seriously. Even comic relief such as the snake oil salesman seems grounded and would exist in the world. I don't know everything about John Marsten's past and motivations, but I can already say he's more inspiring to me than Niko Bellic and definitely better looking.
Gameplay
What GTA 4 Did Wrong - Oh, this is where it hurt, didn't it. The cell phone calls from friends all the time. Had to answer or friendships got hurt. The distinct lack of diversions past the same actions you had to do with friends. Some of the minigames could have been fun if not forced to do them half the time. TBOGT improved on this a bit by adding the club features and some other minigames. The main game had only a replay feature for failed missions with no checkpoints. The Episodes both improved this with checkpoints added in TLAD and the mission scores and replay in TBOGT. Controlling Niko was a pain due to the responsiveness, but the cars handled decently and the gunplay was an improvement over previous games. Mission structures tended to get repetitive with fetch missions and then killing some people somewhere being predominant only switched up via location or the type of vehicle used.
How is it in RDR - Well, no cell phones so you don't have to worry about it unless friends use smoke signal or you carry around a telegraph with a very long wire on it. :lol The world is much, much larger, being three times the size of Liberty City. This could lead to the Oblivion problem of lot of open land with little to do, but it appears R* learned and is going the Fallout 3 path of random encounters with situations and NPCs. This is a dramatic change that is going to sneak up on people. In Liberty City you can get a small handful of optional missions from some people, but the City tends to be just a setting to look at and drive around in. This change gets you involved and provides real incentive to travel around and see other locations. No word on whether there will be mission scoring, but checkpoints and it appears replay is back.
Minigames, damn fool. Do I need to list them? And whats more, the minigames and diversion can win you money and items so it has a character incentive behind it. Want to spend 3 hours hunting game to enjoy riding a horse and gazing at the pretty world. Guess what, you can sell the meat, furs, etc. back for cold hard cash. Now that's a great diversion. Controls are still lacking in responsiveness due to the adherence to the Euphoria engine, but this sacrifice gives us a potent physics engine behind it. Last thing I'll hit on is morality in the game. No GTA game has done that, with you always playing the criminal. Now, you can play either a good or bad guy. That's a big change and will appeal to a lot more people who didn't like the codes some of the previous characters held themselves to.
Have I played the game yet. Nope. All of this is just analysis of what we know from R* and from impressions of players who have played it, but calling it GTA in the West I don't think is unfair given the type of game design and mission design used in their open world games. But calling it GTA 'IV' in the West is an inaccurate comparison at best, and I'll stand by that even before playing the game.
BTW, sorry for Wall of Text.
