Red Dead Redemption 2 - now available on PC

[Barbarian]

I'm liking the game a lot. I always loved western settings and this pulls a good number. No faggotry, sjw or feminism is also a big plus. Curious that the only two rockstar games I played(this and LA noire) were both strong in that regard and highly enjoyable. Maybe I should try the GTA games eventually?

I hate prequels as much as the next guy, but since I never played the first game... I'm basically indifferent to this game being one. I'm playing it having no idea about what happens to Dutch's gang, my knowledge is limited to the fact that John is the protagonist of the first game and will survive this one because of it.

 

[Rahdulan]

Great (and funny) analysis of RDR2's linear mission design:

He's not wrong. It goes with what I talked about at some point about how true open world games have to finally go beyond "there's mission A and mission B - you must do them in sequence, but you're free to screw around in-between and do whatever in the world because the story is on indefinite hold until you've had your unrelated fun". Problem is the "open world" part is fluff where occasionally you get brilliance when game systems interact instead of being the meat of the game. Even good side quests aren't really what I'm talking about because it's still a mission, you just have more freedom in choosing whether you tackle it or not.

Basically, Avellone was right once again.

 

[Machocruz]

#TeamAvellone

 

[Machocruz]

Arthur with long hair and a long beard can look great, codexers just don't know shit about style.

Dis nigga gettin' all da ol west thots.

 

[sullynathan]

Just got teh game, we'll see what it's about.

 

[aweigh]

All of this technology just to render the bearded face of the patriarchy!!!

#TimesUpForGaming

 

[sullynathan]

Got both

 

[ColonelTeacup]

I hope Rockstar adds in a trapper in the northern, mountainous area, where it is snowy, or at least a small village or town with a butcher or shop, to sell pelts and make the area a viable place to hunt and relax. It is easily the best place to get lost in and relax.
Though it's possible the inclusion of a town will attract people who are unwilling to deal with the travel distance for pelts and ruin the peace and immersion of being in such a solitary place. It's hard to decide.

 

[Vaarna_Aarne]

Well having reached the epilogue now, it seems completely stupid to have killed off Arthur in such a slapdash and unsatisfying manner (really, it seems the Pinkerton grande armée just decided that they were bored and went home, you have an incredibly shitty and poorly realized "bossfight" with Micah, and then cut to Marston and his goddamn family). Arthur's a better character anyway than Marston, and if we spent the epilogue as he's turning over a new leaf it'd also work a whole lot better (and we wouldn't have to endure Marston's goddamn family). Not to mention I don't take too kindly to a game pulling the sequel-take-your-stuff-away (okay it didn't take my guns away, maybe it will give my cash and satchel back too) after most of it is done.

That does bring to another overall massive problem with the game, while the game lacks narrative focus in general beyond Arthur's character arc (since it just hops around without a clear goal besides it) it's also much worse in regards to never wanting to give the player any sense of satisfaction in anything. The one time Milton doesn't teleport out of a gunfight, Abigail shoots him. You finally get to kick Micah's ass, and on top of it being done in such a shitty manner you don't even get to beat the fucker, etc and etc. The only times it dares give you that is with throwaway sideshows like Bronte, Catherine, and Favours. The big payoff never happens. The final fate of Micah is just the final slap in the player's face.

Both of these would have just been fixed by Arthur not dying from TB (it's not absolute 100% mortality), have him stand up after "dying" (just toss Micah over the mountain into the river or whatever, geez), music swells, and have him punch in some of Dutch's teeth and kick him in the balls for good measure like the pretentious jackass has had it coming (really, it's rather annoying how enamoured Rockstar seems with Dutch), and then have the epilogue showdown with Micah years later. You already did that protagonist-dies thing in the first game, and at least had the courtesy to do it at the end of the game, no need to redo the same mistake twice.

 

[Falksi]

Just started the game, around 3 hours in and struggled to stay awak through the ultra-dull & lifeless Chapter 1. "Press X to move cart for 10min" Yawn.

Finding it hard to get in to as it tries to be realistic, yet doesn't adhere to any real laws of reality. For example, I was in the Sherrif's office, and had unknowingly trapped him in a corner with where I was stood. He got aggressive & shot me. I mean WTF? The lawman who's meant to hold things together shoots someone after 5 seconds coz they're stood somewhere awkward for him.

So far very poor.

 

[Vaarna_Aarne]

Trust me, you're going to be REALLY fed up with how oversized the gameworld is before third-way point of the game.

 

[Sentinel]

Well having reached the epilogue now, it seems completely stupid to have killed off Arthur in such a slapdash and unsatisfying manner (really, it seems the Pinkerton grande armée just decided that they were bored and went home, you have an incredibly shitty and poorly realized "bossfight" with Micah, and then cut to Marston and his goddamn family). Arthur's a better character anyway than Marston, and if we spent the epilogue as he's turning over a new leaf it'd also work a whole lot better (and we wouldn't have to endure Marston's goddamn family). Not to mention I don't take too kindly to a game pulling the sequel-take-your-stuff-away (okay it didn't take my guns away, maybe it will give my cash and satchel back too) after most of it is done.

That does bring to another overall massive problem with the game, while the game lacks narrative focus in general beyond Arthur's character arc (since it just hops around without a clear goal besides it) it's also much worse in regards to never wanting to give the player any sense of satisfaction in anything. The one time Milton doesn't teleport out of a gunfight, Abigail shoots him. You finally get to kick Micah's ass, and on top of it being done in such a shitty manner you don't even get to beat the fucker, etc and etc. The only times it dares give you that is with throwaway sideshows like Bronte, Catherine, and Favours. The big payoff never happens. The final fate of Micah is just the final slap in the player's face.

Both of these would have just been fixed by Arthur not dying from TB (it's not absolute 100% mortality), have him stand up after "dying" (just toss Micah over the mountain into the river or whatever, geez), music swells, and have him punch in some of Dutch's teeth and kick him in the balls for good measure like the pretentious jackass has had it coming (really, it's rather annoying how enamoured Rockstar seems with Dutch), and then have the epilogue showdown with Micah years later. You already did that protagonist-dies thing in the first game, and at least had the courtesy to do it at the end of the game, no need to redo the same mistake twice.

Was I the only one that saw Agent Milton shot in the head and his boss too?
How do you not realize what Arthur's goal was? He explicitly says it multiple times and it's even in the game's fucking name.
At what point in the epilogue are you in? Something tells me you haven't finished it

 

[Vaarna_Aarne]

Well having reached the epilogue now, it seems completely stupid to have killed off Arthur in such a slapdash and unsatisfying manner (really, it seems the Pinkerton grande armée just decided that they were bored and went home, you have an incredibly shitty and poorly realized "bossfight" with Micah, and then cut to Marston and his goddamn family). Arthur's a better character anyway than Marston, and if we spent the epilogue as he's turning over a new leaf it'd also work a whole lot better (and we wouldn't have to endure Marston's goddamn family). Not to mention I don't take too kindly to a game pulling the sequel-take-your-stuff-away (okay it didn't take my guns away, maybe it will give my cash and satchel back too) after most of it is done.

That does bring to another overall massive problem with the game, while the game lacks narrative focus in general beyond Arthur's character arc (since it just hops around without a clear goal besides it) it's also much worse in regards to never wanting to give the player any sense of satisfaction in anything. The one time Milton doesn't teleport out of a gunfight, Abigail shoots him. You finally get to kick Micah's ass, and on top of it being done in such a shitty manner you don't even get to beat the fucker, etc and etc. The only times it dares give you that is with throwaway sideshows like Bronte, Catherine, and Favours. The big payoff never happens. The final fate of Micah is just the final slap in the player's face.

Both of these would have just been fixed by Arthur not dying from TB (it's not absolute 100% mortality), have him stand up after "dying" (just toss Micah over the mountain into the river or whatever, geez), music swells, and have him punch in some of Dutch's teeth and kick him in the balls for good measure like the pretentious jackass has had it coming (really, it's rather annoying how enamoured Rockstar seems with Dutch), and then have the epilogue showdown with Micah years later. You already did that protagonist-dies thing in the first game, and at least had the courtesy to do it at the end of the game, no need to redo the same mistake twice.

Was I the only one that saw Agent Milton shot in the head and his boss too?
How do you not realize what Arthur's goal was? He explicitly says it multiple times and it's even in the game's fucking name.
At what point in the epilogue are you in? Something tells me you haven't finished it

I know how it ends, and it ends with the grandest fucking whimper imaginable. Fucking Dutch ruins everything again by his mere dumbass presence, it extends even to meta levels.

And Milton getting shot in the head was a case example of how the game actively denies narrative satisfaction. Arthur is forced into chump mode so someone else can AGAIN do things for you and save you. Cornwall was another. These are people that get shot by SOMEONE ELSE, you are basically just there as a bystander. This should not happen constantly, it just deflates things more and more.

There is no satisfaction in RDR2, it's one of the many ways in which the game is inferior to average Yakuza (hint: It's inferior in every way, except amount of money spent on graphics, including the ones that Yakuza doesn't even do like morality bars because it's smarter not to have them).

 

[Sentinel]

I guess if you wanted to put a cap in all the bad guys it can leave a sour taste in your mouth. I didn't mind it. Although I was mad that Micah wins against Arthur no matter what, at least it made sense since Arthur was on the verge of death both in the Milton and Micah encounters and he just ran out of steam really fast.

Cornwall - Dutch doesn't save anyone, he starts hostilities completely unprovoked. It'd make no sense for Arthur to be the one shooting Cornwall since he has no qualms with him and Arthur knew it was a stupid idea, hence him berating Dutch immediately after (and it's one of the key moments that makes Arthur decide it's not worth following Dutch anymore because he's fucking lost it).

Regarding Dutch's appearance in the last scene - what was so bad about it? Micah dies betrayed just like the rat he is, shot by the only man he looked up to, and Dutch avenges and figuratively apologizes to Arthur by killing Micah. He was there to kill Micah before John even got there.

It's consistent with RDR1. That game literally ends with the bad guy turning your entire body into red jelly by firing squad.

 

[Vaarna_Aarne]

The point is more that the entire Cornwall subplot is a dud, it doesn't really do anything than reinforce that Arthur is far too passive at everything, and how Cornwall is basically just a deflated balloon of a plot thread that gets solved like it could have been solved at Valentine. It's the same with everything really, there's no focus or payoff to anything in RDR2, you just bumble around aimlessly to more and more characters who flash by and then are forgotten or make a late cameo. It needed focus, Cornwall appears so sparsely and is then unceremoniously and flatly disposed of to no consequence to any trajectory that even if you capped him there is no satisfaction. In case of Milton it is indeed worse because this is basically just giving you a fake-out QTE to have an NPC take care of it, just as the case with Eagle Flies (though you get to shoot your freebies at Favours, but with Favours it doesn't matter because he's even more of a deflated thread than Cornwall because he has even *less* lines). There's only the bare minimum introduction, and then no build up, followed up by an unsatisfying and/or abrupt conclusion. And let's not even get into Guarma, the island of pointless bullshit interludes and bizarre timelines. It reflects the overall design of RDR2's gameworld: Vast stretches of road to minimum detail. It really should have been a smaller, more focused gameworld than RDR1's, the size is actively a main detriment of the game. There's a reason why Kamurocho is the best open world of them all, despite being so small in scale. Just like the world, the narrative of RDR2 lacks that intimacy and detail to give it satisfaction, despite how much it has on paper in characters, cutscenes, etc.


The problem with Dutch is that Rockstar is too enamoured with the character and thinks he's in some fashion likeable as someone you'd root for rather than someone you'd root getting his well-earned comeuppance. Even his death in RDR1 has this same sort of bullshit to it. Letting him steal your thunder at the final showdown or even daring to show up in it (again, the problem is that you play with John at the end) is just more of the same shit. Two games of waiting to see him get his just desserts, and never delivered. The only thing to do with Dutch would really be just to have Arthur beat him to the inch of life and leave him to crawl to his hole in RDR1 because Arthur is a better man than any of Dutch's pretentions could possibly amount to even if realized. Arthur could have killed Dutch for all I care, he was the weakest part in RDR1 as well and would deserve a less of an end he got there (even if he as a character is distinctly better in RDR2, it's still annoying how much the guy gets hoisted up by someone saying he's awesome and deserves loyalty when he never demonstrates earning this, in RDR1 it's even more jarring how John just lets the pretentious asshat go in the bank). Same with Micah, he doesn't deserve to be betrayed, he deserves to be bested even if he stacks the odds in his favour. All that this amounts to in the end is Rockstar making the same mistake in pursuit of being "gritty" with Dying of the West tropes (to at the same time less and more disastrous results, since while John is a better substitute than Jack we still have to put up with the jarringly substandard epilogue which Jack did not have), and this time it just leads to poor Arthur being the most mistreated-by-their-idiot-creators superb protagonist in games history, or at least one of the most mistreated. Having Arthur die of TB the way he does is nothing but a 100% waste.


PS: The gameplay tho is just kinda shitty and antiquated, though that's the Rockstar standard since they haven't really evolved that side since San Andreas (arguably since Vice City).

 

[Sentinel]

You manage to fundamentally misunderstand every single character in the game. Congratulations. That is some incredible anime powered autism.

 

[sullynathan]

God damn this game is slow as shit. Just hold x and listen to dialogue

 

[Falksi]

I'm totally with sullynathan, around 12% into the story now and it plays like absolute fucking dog-wank. Arthur moves like a fucking slug, gunplay is all over the place with the "press 'deadeye to win" system, and the game is just shit. I got so bored of the missions that I decided to rob the backroom of a drug store, and all that happened was wave after wave of lawmen chasing me for ages. What's the point in killing them if the second you do all you get is another 4 on your tail?

The most fun I've had is playing Texas Hold-em & finding smart outfits for Arthur. Pretty much everything else has been like trudging through mud.

You've got to be a fucking retard to love games like these. You may as well not play them they're so hand-holdy, it's alike a 40 hour movie in which you're asked to start each chapter by completing a QTE with a shit remote control low on batteries.

 

[Vaarna_Aarne]

40 hours AFTER you cut out all the fucking time you spend just plodding from place to place too...

Really, you eventually start cheering whenever a "and they get there" transition happens when someone says "yea we gotta go all the fucking way there."

 

[Tehdagah]

I'm totally with sullynathan, around 12% into the story now and it plays like absolute fucking dog-wank. Arthur moves like a fucking slug, gunplay is all over the place with the "press 'deadeye to win" system, and the game is just shit. I got so bored of the missions that I decided to rob the backroom of a drug store, and all that happened was wave after wave of lawmen chasing me for ages. What's the point in killing them if the second you do all you get is another 4 on your tail?

The most fun I've had is playing Texas Hold-em & finding smart outfits for Arthur. Pretty much everything else has been like trudging through mud.

You've got to be a fucking retard to love games like these. You may as well not play them they're so hand-holdy, it's alike a 40 hour movie in which you're asked to start each chapter by completing a QTE with a shit remote control low on batteries.

Not surprising, the first game sucked too.

 

[Clockwork Knight]

poor Arthur

Arthur "Beats sick man to death" Morgan isn't a nice person, he only gets his...redemption at the very end. And even that may not happen with low honor rating, for which you're given the image of an ominous black wolf as symbolism.

And Milton getting shot in the head was a case example of how the game actively denies narrative satisfaction. Arthur is forced into chump mode so someone else can AGAIN do things for you and save you. Cornwall was another. These are people that get shot by SOMEONE ELSE, you are basically just there as a bystander. This should not happen constantly, it just deflates things more and more.

Well you do kill like 50 guys to get to Milton/Micah so I wouldn't call the PCs "chumps", but it does happen often enough that it gets a little predictabru. I knew the result of the mexican standoff as soon as they raised their guns.

 

[Vaarna_Aarne]

poor Arthur

Arthur "Beats sick man to death" Morgan isn't a nice person, he only gets his...redemption at the very end.

It isn't about being nice, it's about being interesting and underutilized. Though that does raise the problem that the game is making a very dumb move in deciding that it should have a morality meter, it actively undermines what it tries to do with its story. There's a clear intent to depict Arthur turning a new leaf by starting to do things his own way rather than how he does by being loyal to a fault, and it really becomes jarring when you have not really been all that bad (you know, aside from the whole shooting thousands of people thing) except when you work for Strauss and in a handful of other story missions. And even in most missions, it only becomes incredibly jarring if you aren't going with Honor.

It's kind of an example of how there should be more focus instead of decompression in how the game handles, well, almost everything. Get working on the whole new leaf angle and TB way earlier, don't add fucking Guarma into the game, and stick to a single locale or at most two before the breaking of the gang, then have rest of the game in the other locale or two or so where you follow-up after the leaf is turned. The way it is now, it's a meandering, aimless journey spread too thin over a vast map of nothing, lacking in payoff and satisfaction.

(Also if you want to do a redemption=death thing in your story, you may want to do it rather better than shove it in with a ridiculous mass battle that gets abandoned randomly followed by a comically overlong fistfight)

 

[Sentinel]

Arthur "Beats sick man to death" Morgan isn't a nice person, he only gets his...redemption at the very end. And even that may not happen with low honor rating, for which you're given the image of an ominous black wolf as symbolism.

Hm? Arthur still gets his redemption at the end though. John makes it regardless, but the end choice is retarded. Since the player knows Arthur is not going to make it, the end choice can be easily interpreted with "Oh, I'll go back for the money so I can give it to John!", instead you're slapped with a "bad" ending (not really bad, but more brutal one).

Also now that I think about it, I like how John makes the same mistake that Jack eventually repeats and ruins his life by giving in to revenge.

 

[Clockwork Knight]

It's kind of confusing, but it seems the bad/good ending isn't determined by your choice, just your karma. I wouldn't even call it "bad" and "good" since the only difference is whether

Spoiler

Arthur gets to die semi-peacefully looking at the sunrise (deer), or if Micah finishes the job with a gun or a knife (wolf).

 

[Falksi]

So I decided to give it one last go last night. Put it on, started a mission, set off on my horse to the mission location......on my horse on the way to the mission.......still on my horse on the way to the mission.........5 min later still on my horse on the way to the mission............

Fuck this shit, games are meant to be stimulating & fun, be it either intellectually via tactical interaction, or by getting the adrenals going with some great action. RDR2 is another game in a long line of ones which hype up chores as "fun".

Awful game, truly awful.