A fairly solid action game! The story is entirely uninspired, at best uninteresting and at worst, tedious. But everything else about it was fairly good! It was generally fun to play. The combat isn't necessarily fast-paced as most modern shooters now of days, but a very fun lass frantic version of the classic id software FPS's. The vehicle combat was not as fun but it doesn't dominate the game, could've done without it though. Some impressive enemy AI in this. Enemies being downed but not killed, will literally crawl into cover and still try to kill you, enemies with shields providing cover for allies, some cool stuff! I also have to praise the art direction. There really was some very memorable sights in this game, like the hospital in the Dead City with blood streaming down the walls.

There were some cool level designs too, they way that some of the dungeons and missions were laid out were cool, and using main mission levels for sidequests but making you do it backwards or changed a little bit was a cool way to go about in when you're clearly like on a deadline and don't have the time to make new dungeons. I was kind of into it at the start but I got tired of it closer to the game's end, which, speaking of, was kind of underwhelming. Like obviously you didn't care about the Arks or whatever, so take it with a grain of salt, but it ends with you going into this place and then you set off the Arks and then the game ends. No confrontation with the chief bad guy or any final comeuppance. The last level in general was kinda lame. It was cool mowing down guys with the minigun they give you, but it was just reskinned mutants at the end, no like special boss or anything lol. Feels like they ran out of money at the end. Still, pretty fun!

Fun, but kind of an afterthought. The missions were fun enough, the enemies having jetpacks was a cool addition and I liked the environments a lot. The mission in the refinery was a fun one, and the temple was really really cool design choice. The sewer mission right before felt weirdly tough, and the mutant bash level sucked. And I have no clue what was going on with the Sarah character, kind of a weirdly written, her getting kidnapped and almost sacrifice was treated very flippantly, and then you kind of get rewarded with her at the end in the "trophy room"? Bizarre stuff. Still had fun though.

If you asked me what my favourite game of all time is, I'd probably tell you this. The gunfighting is fun, the story is excellent, it has some of the most memorable moments in gaming to me, like when you first get to Mexico or the ride back to reuniting with your family. It has such a killer soundtrack. And the game still looks great, 14 years later!

There's something about John Marston's story that is deeply personal to me, something that few games have been able to measure up to, including in the same very series, though I know that's an unpopular opinion.