I don't have my own PS3 (yet), but I was able to play RDR for a few hours on a buddy's system, and I was pretty blown away.
I awoke in a tavern. I took a few minutes to stroll around town and get my bearings. I didn't have any real direction, so I perused the town. I found a wanted poster for a local pissant gangster, and thought that sounded like fun. According to the poster, the last known location of the outlaw was Rio Lobo. I didn't much feel like walking all the way there, so I went towards the stagecoach. Important life lesson: when you want to legitimately ride the stagecoach, approach from the passenger side. If you approach the driver's side, the driver gets nervous like you're going to mug him or something. I gave him $10 to keep his mouth shut and drove off.
The road to Rio Lobo was challenging. Sometimes the trail turned into nothing more than a pair of wagon ruts in the sand. When I got close to the town, I got down out of the carriage. As you might expect, my arrival wasn't exactly a quiet one and one of the gangsters approached me. He didn't like my attitude and tried to adjust it with his pistol. I fumbled for my gun, but got tripped up and soon blacked out. Next thing I knew, I was back in the tavern and very sore.
I was otherwise healthy, so I went back to the stage coach. I used the passenger side this time, and he dropped me off a good ways from the bandits' hideout. I approached again by foot, but I was still green with my guns and soon after I encountered the bandits again, I blacked out again and woke up back in the tavern again. I'll give these bandits credit--at least they were good sports and didn't loot my stuff.
Tired of getting clobbered, I went to the train station and climbed onto the roof. From here, I got out my rifle and practiced using the scope and targeting various objects and people. The townspeople either didn't see me or didn't think anything strange of a rifleman standing on the roof. I didn't actually shoot anything, but I felt a little more confident in my weapons now.
I caught another stagecoach to Rio Lobo, and this time I approached slowly and found a great spot on a hill with a pretty clear line-of-sight. I stayed low, got a good view through my scope, and put a bullet through one of the bandit's chest. He dropped instantly. Two others came running towards me, but decided to come around the hill instead of up it. I switched to my shotgun and waited for them to come around the bend, and took them both out without too much trouble. Unfortunately, in the scuffle, my actual target managed to get away. Coward.
By this time the sun had set. I captured one of the bandit's horses and started riding back towards town. My horse startled, and soon I knew why: I could hear bullets ricocheting through the canyon. But whoever was shooting, didn't seem to be shooting at me. I watched for a telltale muzzle flash, and soon found the shooter who was shooting into the sky.
I looked up. Silhouetted against the night sky were some birds--buzzards by the way they were circling. The shooter issued me a challenge: $10 to shoot down a handful of birds. It seemed like an interesting challenge, so I paid the man and started shooting. As you might expect, targeting black birds in the dead of night is not the simplest task in the world, and in the end the man ended up walking away with my money, laughing.
That's about as far as I got in that play session. I was very impressed with the animations, and even more impressed with the nighttime graphics. Probably the most accurate representation of night that I've ever seen. When I get my PS3, this will probably be one of the first games I get.
