Yesterday was the day everything finally clicked for me with this game.
Granted it had taken a very long time (13 hours) and lots of fiddling with settings to get there but wow what a game now I know what it is and have a grasp on its controls and systems.
Don't get me wrong the previous 9 hours I was engrossed by it but today I was absolutely mesmerised. You can usually tell how engrossed I am in a game by how little/much I drink my drink next to me when I play and today I drank literally nothing in 3 hours before realising what the time was.
The first thing I did when starting the game up was sort the HDR issues - I had the calibration set to the recommended 100 and put it up to 400 - which improved the visual quality massively and meant the world didn't look so grey and washed out anymore. Instead the world was now full of colour, the nighttime luminescence from lanterns, wood fires and inside houses is nothing less than jaw dropping and the sky full of bright twinkling stars.
To sort my control issues out I upped the sensitivity even more and then upped the aim acceleration and lowered the aiming dead zone. It still isn't perfect but it makes the combat feel so much snappier, smoother and responsive instead of the heavy feeling, slow default option. The other more confusing control issues I had with the various menus have gone away too but I think I've just got used to them by now.
I do understand the complaints from others that they focused on the realism too much and not enough in making it a 'game' and 'fun' and I agreed with those complaints at times within the first 9 hours but now everything has clicked I'm struggling to see them manifested personally.
To me what it feels most like is Fallout. But, Fallout without all the gamey elements stripped away. Instead of the Top Compass from Fallout showing you silhouettes with points of interest on the horizon gradually becoming clearer as you get closer in this the points of interest are just houses, farms, abandoned towns etc. That you can choose or choose not to explore. They catch your eye and entice you in through light or smoke and stoke your natural curiosity to explore rather than relying on an icon to do this for you.
It just feels so organic and real. I was just riding past this house earlier, snuck up around the outside to see a guy inside a window reading a newspaper and some piles of money on the table. So I equip my shotgun, kick in the front door and take their heads off in the stairwell, then loot the place and net myself a nice healthy amount of cash.
I also infiltrated this farm which didn't go to play at all. I approached and tried to be friendly but they started firing so I shot them, then the dog started biting me so I had to kill it. Whilst I was inside reading a book I found someone discovered the bodies and by the time I came out a load of Lawmen were hot on my tail, they chased me all across the swamps and I had to gun a load of them down which led to a full $195 bounty on my head.
The hunting has grown on me too, the Eagle Eye thing does feel a bit unrealistic in a game based in realism but I get that it's probably the best compromise R* could come up with. Hunting this Legendary Bear on one of the early missions really got my heart pumping but unfortunately he charged and killed me before I knew what was going on.
It has taken a long time to get there but now all the pieces of the puzzle have come together I truly think this could be the next step in gaming and the first time a game has truly properly felt like a living, breathing, real place. I don't want to get bogged down in the hyperbole yet as it's still early days, but, wow.