Putting the 'role' back in role-playing games since 2002.
Donate to Codex
Good Old Games
  • Welcome to rpgcodex.net, a site dedicated to discussing computer based role-playing games in a free and open fashion. We're less strict than other forums, but please refer to the rules.

    "This message is awaiting moderator approval": All new users must pass through our moderation queue before they will be able to post normally. Until your account has "passed" your posts will only be visible to yourself (and moderators) until they are approved. Give us a week to get around to approving / deleting / ignoring your mundane opinion on crap before hassling us about it. Once you have passed the moderation period (think of it as a test), you will be able to post normally, just like all the other retards.

Red Dead Redemption 2: Good or shit?

snoek

Cipher
Joined
May 5, 2003
Messages
1,125
Location
Belgium, bro
I played through most of the SP content which was very enjoyable. Some parts of the main story were slow however.
Most of the 'immersive' mechanics were stupid and kind of pointless, like the base camp collection stuff .. I never tried the late game farm stuff.
I liked investigating the world however, there's plenty of surprises. I also liked the world changing in some places over the time of the story.
There's also a ton of interesting side missions and a long epilogue but once you've completed those you're just left with boring side activities.

The map certainly is big enough to cram in way more single player content but rockstar only cares about selling shark cards online so it'll never happen.
 
Joined
Aug 27, 2021
Messages
698
After GTA V i sorta gave up on rockstar. It seemed like the main message of gta 5 was "Everything is just way over the top and stupid" as a criticism of society, when the game itself was the embodiment of over the top and stupid. It had elements of wokeness, but more importantly, seemed to hate everything about itself.

I loved GTA 3, vice city, san andreas. 4 was OK but a disappointment in many ways, I think the attempt at a more grounded story dragged the whole thing down, and changing the driving to be much less fun was an odd choice...

To add on to what people are saying about the 'open' nature of the GTA games, way back in vice city there was a mission to assassinate some guy or group of guys. The intended way to do it was to chase him down in a car through several scripted traffic situations and end up in a shootout or what have you. Instead I managed to race out to his car as he got into it and shot him in the head through the back window. Mission Passed.

Even in san andreas they took away some of that freedom. Windows and gas tanks became bulletproof, cars immune to damage, until you chased them into the proper area. It was a gradual decline, and it's hard to say where it became too much, but it sounds like RDR2 sits at the bottom of that decline, what with the missions on rails.
 

BruceVC

Magister
Joined
Jul 25, 2011
Messages
7,697
Location
South Africa, Cape Town
I played through most of the SP content which was very enjoyable. Some parts of the main story were slow however.
Most of the 'immersive' mechanics were stupid and kind of pointless, like the base camp collection stuff .. I never tried the late game farm stuff.
I liked investigating the world however, there's plenty of surprises. I also liked the world changing in some places over the time of the story.
There's also a ton of interesting side missions and a long epilogue but once you've completed those you're just left with boring side activities.

The map certainly is big enough to cram in way more single player content but rockstar only cares about selling shark cards online so it'll never happen.
https://www.nexusmods.com/reddeadredemption2/mods/1095?tab=description

Here is the main Zombie mod I would suggest and their are others you can add

But just to describe the experience and how it makes the entire RDR2 sp game absolutely much more exciting. Its like the famous movie Dawn of Dead and other similar movies

The zombies wander the game world in small groups and sometimes alone. You will draw aggro from them if you go too close and especially if you kill one then they start chasing you but they easy to get away from on a horse. They also attack some NPCs and in certain cases NPCS will kill them which makes things chaotic and fun especially in the towns like Blackwater where the police will protect the town

But you still go about your normal missions that I have enhanced using mods like Contract killings and additional bounty hunter options

I wouldnt recommend this zombie mod for the normal sp game with Arthur because its disruptive and dangerous but its definitely worth it when you play as John Marston when you complete the main story
 

Sentinel

Arcane
Joined
Nov 18, 2015
Messages
6,631
Location
Ommadawn
Hello all,

I have been getting mixed messages about this game. Hordes of people online reckon it is the 'best game evar' but I have seen a number of quality posters talk about it being more restrictive than the GTA formula. Also talk of a lot of PC bugs, though that was a while ago, so these might be ironed out?

For reference, I enjoyed GTA VC, GTA SA and GTA V.

So is it worth a purchase? Or is it another "Oblibion is the best game evar"?
It's one of the best games of the generation along with Nioh 2, The Last Guardian and Nier Automata. Definitely has the best protagonist and story. I really enjoyed the slow open world stuff and hunting as well but people here hate slow paced games when a big developer does it.
 

SlamDunk

Arcane
Joined
Nov 20, 2006
Messages
2,989
Location
Khorinis
Yeah, there is unfortunately a bit of woke cancer in the game but it also has stuff like this:




 
Last edited:
Joined
Aug 27, 2021
Messages
698
Hello all,

I have been getting mixed messages about this game. Hordes of people online reckon it is the 'best game evar' but I have seen a number of quality posters talk about it being more restrictive than the GTA formula. Also talk of a lot of PC bugs, though that was a while ago, so these might be ironed out?

For reference, I enjoyed GTA VC, GTA SA and GTA V.

So is it worth a purchase? Or is it another "Oblibion is the best game evar"?
It's one of the best games of the generation along with Nioh 2, The Last Guardian and Nier Automata. Definitely has the best protagonist and story. I really enjoyed the slow open world stuff and hunting as well but people here hate slow paced games when a big developer does it.
Your best games of the generation list is suspect...

Nier Automata was complete and utter shit. Everything about it was terrible. Why was that game so hyped? Just because it "subverted expectations"? I mean, yeah, it did do that, I expected an ok game and let me tell you, that was very subverted....
 

Jonathan "Zee Nekomimi

Hoarder of loli kats./ Funny ^._.^= ∫
Patron
Joined
Mar 4, 2019
Messages
6,351
Location
Brasilien
Codex+ Now Streaming!
Hello all,

I have been getting mixed messages about this game. Hordes of people online reckon it is the 'best game evar' but I have seen a number of quality posters talk about it being more restrictive than the GTA formula. Also talk of a lot of PC bugs, though that was a while ago, so these might be ironed out?

For reference, I enjoyed GTA VC, GTA SA and GTA V.

So is it worth a purchase? Or is it another "Oblibion is the best game evar"?
It's one of the best games of the generation along with Nioh 2, The Last Guardian and Nier Automata. Definitely has the best protagonist and story. I really enjoyed the slow open world stuff and hunting as well but people here hate slow paced games when a big developer does it.
Your best games of the generation list is suspect...

Nier Automata was complete and utter shit. Everything about it was terrible. Why was that game so hyped? Just because it "subverted expectations"? I mean, yeah, it did do that, I expected an ok game and let me tell you, that was very subverted....
big booty android waifu
 

Sentinel

Arcane
Joined
Nov 18, 2015
Messages
6,631
Location
Ommadawn
Hello all,

I have been getting mixed messages about this game. Hordes of people online reckon it is the 'best game evar' but I have seen a number of quality posters talk about it being more restrictive than the GTA formula. Also talk of a lot of PC bugs, though that was a while ago, so these might be ironed out?

For reference, I enjoyed GTA VC, GTA SA and GTA V.

So is it worth a purchase? Or is it another "Oblibion is the best game evar"?
It's one of the best games of the generation along with Nioh 2, The Last Guardian and Nier Automata. Definitely has the best protagonist and story. I really enjoyed the slow open world stuff and hunting as well but people here hate slow paced games when a big developer does it.
Your best games of the generation list is suspect...

Nier Automata was complete and utter shit. Everything about it was terrible. Why was that game so hyped? Just because it "subverted expectations"? I mean, yeah, it did do that, I expected an ok game and let me tell you, that was very subverted....
Even the soundtrack?
 

SumDrunkGuy

Guest
I hated it. Controlling your character felt slow like molasses and every action you perform takes way too fucking long. EVERYTHING.
 

unseeingeye

Cleric/Mage
Patron
Joined
Jul 13, 2021
Messages
572
Strap Yourselves In
Over the past week I recently got back into this game, and I've come to the conclusion that in my opinion it is, when considered as a whole, the greatest video game ever made. There are of course many other games that offer very different experiences and are far superior for what they are, and I do not think I would say that Red Dead 2 is my own personal favorite game of all time. But when you consider the effort and passion that went into making this game, I think it is inarguably the most astonishing achievement in the entire medium.

This will be what is essentially my sixth, possibly seventh "serious" play through where I go about everything methodically, taking my time to soak in all of the ambient dialogue and side content and fully move into the role of Arthur, doing the missions in the order that make sense given the circumstances when presented with multiple missions available simultaneously. My previous play through that I'd left off somewhere in Chapter 6 showed that I last played it on October 30th of last year, and since you have to load-into a save in order to start over I let that most recent save load up. Before going into the menu to begin a new game, I sat for a moment and just gazed at the screen because my senses were utterly overwhelmed. Arthur was on my favorite horse somewhere high up on a plateau over-looking the oil refinery in the central Heartlands; it was about mid-day and the sky was beginning to become cloudy as a distant forming storm was approaching. The chorus of cicada song drowned my thoughts out as it swelled around me, a mosquito landed on Arthur's neck and he slapped it with a gloved hand as it leapt off and danced around the horses heads causing his ears to twitch in irritation. The sound of crinkled leather as chaps and boots move against a saddle laden with canvas and fresh caught game, spurs jangle along with the metallic frame of the stirrup and the clanging of heavy metal revolvers slung in holsters knock back and forth as a buckled belt shifts with his movement, a distant howl of a coyote mingles with the cacophonic chirping and whistling of birdsong carried by a wind that delivers your scent to all animals within range. Heat waves distort the distant snow-capped mountains before which a train laden with passengers roars past the refinery which emits a ceaseless thrum of deep vibratory buzzing broken up by the endless hammering of the oil derricks percussive boom, all sunk in a faint bluish glow from the adorning gas lamps.

I could go on, but the amount of visual and auditory information this game presents to you at every given moment is absolutely mind blowing. In an instant I was plugged right back into the game despite an absence of almost 5 months. It isn't a perfect game, and there is certainly much to criticize especially the instances of woke material which was undoubtedly forced onto the game. When I first played it on release (having been a major fan of the previous game) on console I did enjoy it and played it to completion, but I was not compelled to go for much of the side content and didn't fully "get" the game. It was only after my third play through on PC where I approached it differently, as an immersive sim and narrative experience, that the game properly opened up for me and I began to actually perceive it for the masterpiece it is. Characters like Hosea, Mr. Pearson, Sean, Abigail, Uncle, Charles &c all feel like real people that I knew, something I've never experienced in any art form otherwise. For sure the middle section of the game does not hold up as well as Chapter 2 and Chapter 6, as far as the missions and parts of the narrative are concerned, but when replaying it I go through each chapter exceedingly slowly, making sure to spend time exploring elsewhere so that I don't get burned out on the less interesting locales.

Overall the game is second to none but it requires a certain mood and mode of playing to properly appreciate. Although I am very much interested in 19th century Western history, I am not the biggest cowboy and Western fan. The outlaw archetype appeals to me to an extent but I'm not fanatical about the stuff. My main interest tends to be in medieval fantasy settings, so I can not always be "ready" for this game. But man, when the mood hits you, holy shit is this game on another level of enjoyment. As much as I enjoy most of the characters and certain key points in the main missions, the main reason the game is so remarkable is the open world and the many things to do and see in it. Setting up and breaking down your camp site, hunting hundreds of animals to skin and butcher them, performing strong-arm robberies and hijacking coaches or robbing trains, searching all over the map to find points of interests and dozens of cool unique collectible weapons and other items, finding never before seen random encounters despite multiple play throughs and hundreds of hours spent with the game already, it just is relentless in what it offers if you are of the frame of mind and temperament to engage with it at the level it is designed to be.
 
Joined
Dec 5, 2010
Messages
1,611
Your best games of the generation list is suspect...

Nier Automata was complete and utter shit. Everything about it was terrible. Why was that game so hyped?
maxresdefault.jpg


Also a couple of ok tracks.
 

unseeingeye

Cleric/Mage
Patron
Joined
Jul 13, 2021
Messages
572
Strap Yourselves In
Playing further over the weekend and my opinion on the game continues to be shaped in favor of what I said last week. I know this game wasn't well-received here nor has the general perception of it improved, which is a shame because I suspect many are missing out on what I contend is the artistic peak of the medium. Unfortunately though, it is also my opinion that the game cannot be appreciated at its more salient and introspective levels, given its profound verisimilitude, by people who have not yet matured emotionally to a certain point and been subject to violent extremes of fate, similar to what a man is like before, during and after he raises a family and knows firsthand what love, sacrifice, and betrayal are. Without question I wouldn't have been able to relate to some of the deeper themes explored through the narrative 10 or so years ago, and I feel fortunate for having been receptive to it at release similarly to how I feel I was at just the right moment in my life when I first encountered The Brothers Karamazov and could relate directly to Alyosha's visionary experiences.

The games mass appeal is I imagine due mainly by association and second to Rockstar's approach to open-world interactive design. But there are certain cutscenes in the game that are emotionally just devastating, capable of dissolving almost entirely the psychic boundary imposed by a screen through which our base nature is given free reign, most often to mock and to mercilessly torment strangers already suffering in an assumed air of blithe detachment, an image onto whom we unconsciously imbue our deepest insecurities in subliminal projection. The manner by which this game can transcend the limitations of the screen and affect players is astonishing, and I feel sorry for anybody who hasn't experienced it or for whom it didn't meaningfully connect. There will never be another game like it, not in our lifetimes nor I expect ever, as with the Saint Matthews Passion of Bach, Hamlet's Soliloquy or 2001: A Space Odyssey, it is a triumph of reflective artistic genius of the rarest kind that sets a bar impossible to reach let alone surpass. The only blemish on it from my point of view is the presence of a few woke contemporary inserts, which is only to be expected given the direct input involved of over 2,000 people. Fortunately they are relatively rare and tend to be brief, while there are ample instances played out which depict the antithesis of that miserable ideology.

Certain games have had immense influences on me, just as any other form of art. Morrowind enhanced my appreciation for the mercurial shaping process of mythopoeia and of cultural anthropology generally, and the original Fallout raised questions about the moral ambiguity of human instincts when confronted with apocalyptic horror and absolute hostility. Planescape Torment led me to reflect on the Jungian archetype of the Self and the transformative power of suffering, and there are others that have similarly challenged my views on life and all of its complex mysteries. But none of them have compared with what Red Dead 2 may offer, should you be open and receptive to it. The manner in which it handles many of the most fundamental questions of life that have no satisfactory answer is extraordinary.

As much as I love Arthur and the experience of his coming to terms with his sins, the way in which he faces his shadow and acknowledges aloud his being afraid in an expression of profound masculinity that can only be earned through terrible trial and failure, it is Dutch who I consider the most interesting character study in video games, and by far. Most people seem content to consider him as the primary villain but this is a conclusion I do not agree with at all. If the game even has a singular antagonist it is Micah, but even that is debatable given the themes of redemption and those broader ones of civility against liberty, of urban sophistication and pastoral sublimity, of man against nature. Dutch has a nuanced depth to him that I have never before experienced in any other video game, and it rivals even those detailed in the best novels of classic literature.

I tend to think he had genuinely good intentions in his own warped mind, despite his sociopathic and even psychopathic tendencies which have clearly been apart of him since adolescence. He is cursed with a recalcitrant nature, one incapable of yielding to authority of any kind, something impossible to understand or sympathize with if unfamiliar to ones own disposition. With the cruel and unnecessary death of Hosea, of whom I am equally as fond of, it seems that his psychopathic side became dominant and totally destabilized his mental equilibrium, with the final thread of his humanity being severed when Mollie reveals to him her "betrayal" (which I'm convinced was a lie, a misguided effort at forcing him to feel the agonizing hurt she foolishly believes she's suffered from him in a moment of self-destructive, intoxicated recklessness that cost her her life), after which the formerly tempered suspicions he harbored came to darken his view of even his own "family".

Anyway I'm once again totally consumed by the game and its unrelenting joys of discovery. The dynamic interactivity of the world compels exploration and experimentation and simply living as Arthur out on the open plains hunting game and setting up camp is a game satisfying unto itself. Nearly every facet of its environs and each of their inhabitants invites endless speculative interpretation; I could analyze the what-ifs and motivating or causal factors of every situation for God knows how long, and it is just as much fun to discuss the game or think about it while not playing as it is to actually play. I spent a significant part of my late adolescence and early adulthood living very much like the gang does, a homeless drifter initially on my own and eventually falling into a small group of other roaming social outcasts, answerable solely unto myself and living only in the moment, learning how to survive with next to nothing with the canopy of a starry empyrean my ceiling and the grass beneath some trees my bed. Sitting around a campfire passing bottles of wine and spirits around to people some of whom I'd known for only an hour and come dawn would never see again but with whom I bonded more than members of my own family. There is much nostalgia for that life for me in this game, a life I hardly even recognize decades later.
 
Joined
Mar 18, 2009
Messages
7,304
Yeah, there is unfortunately a bit of woke cancer in the game but it also has stuff like this:




I don't get what's supposed to be funny here. So a main character is a douchebag who walks around insulting everyone he sees for no good reason. Aahahaha so hilarious. Real clever way to spend your VA budget. And let me guess, there are parts in game where this same douchebag is also giving whiny speeches about how fucked up the world is or some shit like that, and the game expects you to think it's smart. I'm only guessing it based on the way characters would sometimes speak in GTA V.
 

unseeingeye

Cleric/Mage
Patron
Joined
Jul 13, 2021
Messages
572
Strap Yourselves In
I don't get what's supposed to be funny here. So a main character is a douchebag who walks around insulting everyone he sees for no good reason. Aahahaha so hilarious. Real clever way to spend your VA budget. And let me guess, there are parts in game where this same douchebag is also giving whiny speeches about how fucked up the world is or some shit like that, and the game expects you to think it's smart. I'm only guessing it based on the way characters would sometimes speak in GTA V.
The main character is one of the most well-developed and incredibly designed and performed protagonists in the entirety of video games; the antagonistic behaviors and responses are there as a choice to enable the player to have him engage with the world in a different way. For my part I hardly ever use the antagonistic responses unless I'm being threatened or am committing strong-arm robbery. As for speeches about the world being fucked up, I'm not sure exactly in which way you meant that but if you are making an association with Grand Theft Auto then no, absolutely not. The games are similar in design at a fundamental level and the narrative and missions are handled sequentially in much the same way, but they are profoundly different in intent and even the themes of outlawry and criminal organizations are handled very differently. Arthur isn't a nihilist or absurdist and isn't used as a mouthpiece to humorously denigrate all of existence; he makes casual remarks about wondering if life is just a waste of time and such but the majority of his commentary and dialogue is one of deep feeling and strong emotions. Then there is his journal, in which he draws pictures of every single animal in the game (and the more you study, track and hunt them, the more detailed those drawings become) and write about almost every event that occurs including dozens of minor and randomly generated encounters. In reading it you gain much more insight into what motivates him, what his fears and anxieties are, for whom he holds affection and who he deeply mistrusts, past regrets and lamentations of losses incurring deep suffering, etc

Whether or not he is a douchebag is subjective of course but largely comes down to how the player decides to interact with the various environs and the NPCs inhabiting them. If you want to, you can mercilessly insult people, you can actually stalk them and watch their nervous apprehension increase, you can rob strangers and passing travelers, stick-up coaches and rob entire trains. If you choose, you can kick dogs and cats and jeer at them, punch horses in the mouth, light pretty much anything and anyone on fire or explode them with dynamite, hogtie strangers and leave them on train tracks or load them on the back of your horse and then ride out into the sea causing them to drown, or slit their throat, or choke them to death, &c. But you can also assist people in need of help, remark on events positively and greet every single person in the game with idle pleasantries, rescue people from certain death, give rides to stranded individuals, donate to the poor and homeless, and so on. How much Arthur is a douchebag of ceaseless misery and hatred, or a wonder of a nuanced, deeply complicated and traumatized man riddled with insecurities and doubts which lead later on in the story to devastating remorse, is entirely up to how the player determines him. There are hundreds of minor and dozens of major choices to make that change how he behaves and how he is perceived and treated by other people. The more you antagonize people and commit crimes, the harsher his insults and dispassionate his ironic fatalist sense of humor will become; contrariwise the same thing unfolds in the opposite direction, so that the kinder you are the more sincere and heartfelt his greetings and responses to strangers and friends alike will become. Even though the choices are basically binary there is a remarkable sense of development with a broad range of disposition and temperament as your reputation and honor level go towards either extreme.

Grand Theft Auto is generally a self-aware fourth wall breaking nihilistic affair of dark humor and edgy immaturity with only occasional instances of insight and meaning. Red Dead 2 is on an entirely other level, one I would even go so far as to say approaches spiritual heights that have never before been reached in the medium. The circumstances of despair, the questions raised about fate and choice, the tragedy of heart-breaking losses of innocence being rent impure, questions of mortality, of creation and theology, there is just so, so much more to this game than it seems people can even begin to fathom. It is regrettable that Rockstar is so inseparably bound up with Grand Theft Auto that a masterpiece of this sort cannot but be blemished by association. And in the wake of Dan Houser quitting, I suspect we will never see the like again. The game is so many things on so many different levels, but ultimately it is to me a meditation on life and loss, a period piece exploring the end of the frontier spirit being trampled underfoot as industrial urbanity crawls westward and a character study of the last remaining efforts at remaining utterly free from civilizational restraints, except they are led by a deeply flawed yet endearing and visionary leader who in my opinion succumbs to inner demons. It is a shame that people miss out on this game due to preconceived notions or hive mind insecurities, or if they do try it they tend to quit before finishing even the first (essentially tutorial) chapter because they assume the game is totally on rails and more of a movie than a game. This is just absolutely not the case, with an open game world that is astonishingly vast and filled with thousands of secrets and random encounters that despite hundreds of hours and numerous play throughs I still am encountering new instances of with every play session. I only half-jokingly suggest to people that the developers keep patching in new encounters somehow stealthily, because it is just inconceivable to me that a game can possess such vast content, hundreds of thousands of lines of dialogue that is dynamic and so highly variable. I'd read that it contains over 500,000 lines of dialogue and over 300,000 animations, which is simply a staggering achievement.
 
Joined
Mar 18, 2009
Messages
7,304
I'd read that it contains over 500,000 lines of dialogue and over 300,000 animations, which is simply a staggering achievement.

Seems like an achievement of a studio having way too much money to spend on useless shit and also willing to work its employees to death. As for the rest of the stuff you wrote I find it extremely hard to believe that fucking Rockstar would capable of any serious depth in writing, after few games in a row filled with whiny characters who can only complain about how everything sucks and how they don't want to do this current job they are absolutely going to do, and then the next job after that. But I might try it eventually and see for myself, if ever feel like sparing retarded amount of money to upgrade my GPU.
 

unseeingeye

Cleric/Mage
Patron
Joined
Jul 13, 2021
Messages
572
Strap Yourselves In
Seems like an achievement of a studio having way too much money to spend on useless shit and also willing to work its employees to death. As for the rest of the stuff you wrote I find it extremely hard to believe that fucking Rockstar would capable of any serious depth in writing, after few games in a row filled with whiny characters who can only complain about how everything sucks and how they don't want to do this current job they are absolutely going to do, and then the next job after that. But I might try it eventually and see for myself, if ever feel like sparing retarded amount of money to upgrade my GPU.
I wouldn't believe it myself had I not experienced it directly. Of course I don't expect anybody to take me at my word, but I insist that the game is a stunning achievement and profound meditation on suffering and meaning. More so than the narrative proper the philosophy is something you engage with directly by simply existing in the games world, and as such is an intangible and ineffable phenomenon again subject to the depth of qualia as felt by each player. No game is for everybody and I have no way of knowing whether or not I ought to recommend it to anybody in particular, but I contend that the game is second to none in terms of delivering a unique experience that accomplishes abundantly its evident intentions. Far more than the general plot and numerous character studies, the instances of explosive violence and reckless insanity, or the thousands of immersive campfire and traveling conversations to be had, the games moments of action and tragic drama are heavily punctuated by liminal and meditative moments of pastoral serenity.

The 'survival' mechanics are not overbearing and can actually be ignored to minimal effective consequence; they serve rather as a few among tens of thousands of realized details that breathe life onto the screen. What might be considered useless shit to some is to me of paramount importance, for instance as I mentioned in one of my earlier posts when I loaded back into a save after having been away for 5 months that I was immediately overwhelmed by the verisimilitude of simply being in nature and sat stunned for several moments in silent awe. The hundreds of animal species in the game each have their own sounds and you are often riding along and hearing the howl of wolves piercing the midnight tranquility, the chorus of cicada song swelling up around you after sunrise, the braying of mules and gentle whinnying of your horse, &c. Beyond this the animals are not just static objects for you to shoot that have simple fight or flight animations and states; the animals actually have active "lives" and behave in strikingly realistic ways; some search for shelter at the approach of storms, the sound of thunder and striking of lightning causes them to dash in a mad panic, they go to sleep at appropriate times for their species and seek dens or nests while certain animals like muskrats and beavers can be found along river banks concealed by downed trees and such.

They also will "play", you can find instances of pack animals play-fighting or chasing each other around, there are complex predator and prey relations enacted, and you can even witness rarer sights like watching two bucks going at each other antlers to antlers in territorial dispute. To me all of these details are like magic in the way they make the world seem to be fully alive, with the environment itself being reactive and in many cases effects are persistent. I sometimes spends in-game months without returning to camp and continuing the story missions and just drift around the country, living like a frontiersman or fur trader, hunting and skinning animals to supply materials for clothing and meat for sustenance while selling the excess and rare prized pelts, antlers, horns &c to a butcher on my occasional trips into town to resupply and clean up. You're able to set up camp almost anywhere, and can keep it minimal as just a canvas bag and a small fire for nights spent out on the plains in clear skies, or if there is weather you can raise up a proper tent.

Clearly this kind of thing does not appeal to everyone and naturally the game never forces you to do any of it; you could clear the story missions and see probably only 5% of what the world actually contains were you to spend the time exploring it. Like I said it is many things on many levels, no two play through is the same for an individual player let alone different players. The writing in my opinion is fantastic, but it is not a story about intellectuals, philosophers and romantic poets, so it isn't esoteric; that isn't what I meant by 'spiritual'. Although there are narrative moments that to me absolutely qualify as spiritual, and very much so, it is the actual world itself and the time you spend in it simply existing that makes it the masterpiece it is. Everything else to me is secondary, however all of it is wonderful and I'm definitely not dismissing the other aspects.
 
Joined
Mar 18, 2009
Messages
7,304
I wouldn't believe it myself had I not experienced it directly. Of course I don't expect anybody to take me at my word, but I insist that the game is a stunning achievement and profound meditation on suffering and meaning.

Yeah no, you are trying tell me that playing some Rockstar open world popamole is the equivalent of reading Dostoyevsky. There is no way I can take this shit seriously. I'll "demo" it one of these days when I have a new GPU but I give it close to zero percent chance that you are actually right about this.
 

As an Amazon Associate, rpgcodex.net earns from qualifying purchases.
Back
Top Bottom