A few more notes from the remainder of my playing this evening. I don't consider any of this a spoiler because I'm not giving away plot points, but if you're trying to be completely blindsided by a game, then skip the rest of this post (and why are you in this thread to begin with?):
- Got my internet access set up in the game, and holy shit are there a lot of parody sites. You can't do much with any of them, but...lots of fun stuff to read, if you're into that sort of thing.
- BenjaminBirdie, I did make it to the Steinway Beer Garden. It's not quite as mammoth as the Astoria Beer Garden, but it made me smile.
- I've now also played darts and pool, in addition to the bowling earlier. Pool is pretty unforgiving physics wise; darts is pretty easy.
- At the beginning of the game, they tell you that you can't go into Algonquin - a word to the wise: don't try. Getting near the barricade on the bridges gives you an instant unshakeable six-star wanted level. I found this out the hard way.
- The gunplay? So much better than the previous games. The cover system and the targeting feel good.
- I did find one pigeon; it had a little red light around it, much like dropped weapons do. They explode in a nice puff of feathers.
- Despite all the warnings against doing so, I did drive drunk in the game. I drove a whopping 200 feet to a diner so I could sober up.
- I wish the toll bridges had an EZ-Pass lane.
- There's a nice little tutorial for how multiplayer works. I haven't played an MP game yet but I ran through this. So many games tend to skip actually telling you how to play MP.