Machocruz
Arcane
Boring and skill-less describes Rockstar games in general, for a while now.
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Red Dead Redemption 2 - now available on PC
- Thread starter Morgoth
- Start date
Next thing Porky dissects will be Assassin's creed gameplay, arriving at the shocking conclusion it's a AAA twitch action game, designed around consoles. Stay tuned for the big revelation.
KVVRR
Learned
- Joined
- Apr 28, 2020
- Messages
- 652
Yeah like I said, it offers virtually no challenge. The game is a breeze made for a casual audience, but imo that just makes it mediocre, not bad. Bad would be more akin to the shooting feeling like how it is to move your character around where the game actively fights you on it and it takes ages to do anything. Those youtube quick draw videos that you mention might be ineffective as hell to do but you know they look like? They look like fun. The same way hogtying some poor bystander and leaving them over traintracks to be ran over or shooting a horse's rider only to see the horse freak out and run away with the body still on it. None of this is deep or challenging, it is pretty mediocre if you look at it under a critical lens, but again, that just makes it mediocre, not bad. And mediocre gameplay's fine.
I guess you've completed at least some of the ingame challenges, and they were piss easy too then.
KVVRR
Learned
- Joined
- Apr 28, 2020
- Messages
- 652
The ones tied to that stupid medal system? I'd rather hit my pinkie toe against a door for an hour, I hate the sort of challenges those offer. "Do this mission under X amount of time for a gold medal!" how about you get some bitches instead I'm trying to enjoy myself here not speedrun this game like if I was on HRT.
No, those are mostly silly objectives that ask you to break your immersion. I meant these: https://www.vg247.com/red-dead-redemption-2-challenges-list
Some are busywork, but some encourage you to explore and while exploring, get sidetracked and have something unexpected happen. That's how I spent the overwhelming majority of my time in the game. The gta-style missions pale in comparison to the open world gameplay. Most people railing against the game mean the missions, i.e. interactive movie, and have missed the actual fun part.
KVVRR
Learned
- Joined
- Apr 28, 2020
- Messages
- 652
I haven't, actually. I remember seeing the Herbalist challenges and assuming they'd all be of the same caliber (so just pick/craft X of Y).
Ezekiel
Arcane
- Joined
- May 3, 2017
- Messages
- 6,692
Still am taken aback by how terrible the gunplay, that we downgraded from Max Payne 3 to this. If you think it's the worst possible comparison, you haven't watched enough westerns, the ones where the fights are pretty active.
I micro-play this, incrementing the story over years, because it's so joyless. Said it before, but it's not a western at all, it's a badly written, annoying soap opera, with a yapping, whining WOMAN for a protagonist.
I micro-play this, incrementing the story over years, because it's so joyless. Said it before, but it's not a western at all, it's a badly written, annoying soap opera, with a yapping, whining WOMAN for a protagonist.
Ezekiel
Arcane
- Joined
- May 3, 2017
- Messages
- 6,692
https://steamcommunity.com/app/1174180/discussions/0/5123418933936922173/
Seriously? There is no way to keep the dot in the center of the screen from becoming red over enemies except to edit the files? That red dot is a cheat, revealing enemies even in fog.
Seriously? There is no way to keep the dot in the center of the screen from becoming red over enemies except to edit the files? That red dot is a cheat, revealing enemies even in fog.
soutaiseiriron
Educated
- Joined
- Aug 8, 2023
- Messages
- 287
your GPU is faulty and artifacting, sorryI've never seen a graphical anomaly like this. The upper-left. What is that?
happened to me. it sucks. try lowering your settings and capping your FPS to a low amount so you use as little power as possible and check your temps and see if it remains
Usually with artifacting like that, it's to do with the memory, possibly mhz on memory is too high now cause GPU getting old or something.your GPU is faulty and artifacting, sorryI've never seen a graphical anomaly like this. The upper-left. What is that?
happened to me. it sucks. try lowering your settings and capping your FPS to a low amount so you use as little power as possible and check your temps and see if it remains
I tried overclocking it at one point and got similar things happening.
- Joined
- Jul 13, 2021
- Messages
- 614
This is how I feel as well. I got my share of shit for detailing my love for this game earlier in this thread, but have been replaying it recently and my fondness for it continues to increase. In retrospect especially considering Dan Houser left the company, it is one of those games that seems nearly miraculous that it got made at all.
The open world offered in this game is second to none and I consider the "free roaming" aspect in-between missions to be the actual "game" where the story missions are closer to an interactive film with the reach of a long novel. With every other game I can think of that attempts this manner of wedding storytelling with gaming, a linear interactive movie is the absolute last form of entertainment I'm interested in, but what was achieved with this game has no equals and as such cannot even be considered in the same realm as the rest of them.
I was a teenager when the first GTA came out and I remember playing the first two and thinking they were enjoyable at the time, but I have never been a real fan of that series nor of Rockstar in general. I couldn't play GTA V despite three attempts at trying to appreciate it for what it is, yet the gameplay and world structure are very similar to the Red Dead Redemption games. Maybe it is just the setting and characters but something about the Red Dead open worlds feels so much more meaningfully alive than the GTA games, but even beyond that series I find them to be the most engaging and significant open worlds ever made.
I know that many people dislike what they feel are cumbersome controls, lengthy animation sequences for most every action, the slow-paced manner by which the world and its potential are introduced, etc but I just don't feel that way at all and actively enjoy replaying the game every time I return to it. It certainly isn't a difficult game; truly there is very little there that is genuinely challenging to most players. I play it on PC with a mod and a handful of personal edits (changing things like making the Carcano rifle capable of being aimed down sights and the option to remove the scope entirely) but use a controller and I enjoy the combat for what it is. Mostly I enjoy the game for the hunting and adventuring, the utterly astounding environmental sound design, and the opportunity to virtually pretend to live in a pseudo Old West and Mid West. Something that also makes the game so engaging is the option to interact with every nearly every single NPC in the game; some of Arthur's responses if you mix up greeting and antagonizing are hilarious (yesterday I had him say to a prostitute offering her services "No thank you, ma'am" and then "I prefer mammals") and the variable consequences that follow these interactions lead to the most fulfilling moments for me.
As for the story and main missions.. I get what puts off some people, but I like it overall. I have my issues with certain aspects of it, and there is some woke shit thrown in, but on the whole I think many of the characters are very well written, as are the motivations and behind-the-scenes machinations left purposefully obscured just enough to leave you with interesting questions after finishing it. I do wish the epilogue had more substance and I despise the way they handled John's character model but it has its moments too and going back to the earlier game territories to see the many changes over time is so nice.
SpaceWizardz
Liturgist
- Joined
- Sep 28, 2018
- Messages
- 1,165
October 29th
So I just played through this and would like to share a few thoughts.
First of all, it's a strange bird. One has come not to expect anything good from games made in this day and age, and while this game consistently self-sabotages any attempts to achieve greatness, there is something about the sheer autism and wastefulness of the work poured into building the game world that is quite impressive. The variety and modelling of the fauna, in particular, is remarkable, and the regions that were painstakingly modelled and hardly used at all suggests an unrealistic passion that was only tempered by more realistic concerns late into the development cycle. New Austin, for instance, empty and pointless as it is in the game, being walled off until the epilogue and even then only used for a mission or two and a couple of bounties, is nevertheless very well made and must have consumed no small amount of resources. Even though the emptiness of the world soon becomes apparent, there is a grandeur to it that makes you wish it had been used better. Hunting animals can be interesting once or twice, but it soon becomes useless due to the game's lack of a meaningful economy. Money is largely useless, and Arthur can easily die a wealthy man with nothing to spend his money on.
The writing, however, is poor, and the story, short though it may be, feels drawn out due to the characters' plot driven cluelessness. It is apparent from the get-go that Dutch is full of shit and Micah is a rat, but you are forced to play along with their hare-brained schemes as they fuck up again and again and the gang sinks further and further into oblivion. And yet, despite the gratuitous (and superficial) references to Blood Meridian, such as Arthur's backstory and a judge named Holden, there is no notion of the gang being degraded by its savage acts and loss of humanity; for all the game's alleged theme of redemption there is no introspection on the poisonous effect of their lack of morality, just the physical and financial consequences of being chased by Pinkertons and screwing up heists. The player can shoot as many people as he likes as long as it's sanctioned by the main quest with no ill effect on his honor; only actions carried out on the player's own initiative can harm it, and even then, shouting "Hey mister!" a few times will soon set things right.
This is partly due, of course, to the game's post-BLM system of morality, in which it soon becomes apparent that murdering dozens of people is not the gravest sin one can commit; no, murder can be forgiven. What cannot be forgiven is racism. From the very beginning, Micah Bell uses a racist slur to make it clear that he is EVIL. Agent Milton also calls Lenny "boy" so you can see that he is also EVIL. The Civil War is everywhere even though it ended 30 years ago, because it's a great opportunity to talk about racists. Meanwhile, Arthur has several quests in which it is made crystal clear that he is NOT RACIST and therefore not evil. A robber and a murderer can achieve redemption; a racist cannot. In fact, you can even achieve redemption by murdering racists, such as the guy in Saint Denis or the former slave hunter. Unlike in most cases, killing these civilians in cold blood will actually make you gain honor and lead you closer to redemption. It is telling that, in spite of the developers' use of Arthur Morgan as a ventriloquist's puppet, the character manages to maintain enough charisma and authenticity (especially expressed through his diary) to make him endearing.
And yet, despite the emptiness, the pointlessness and superficiality of the plot, with absurd and forgettable excursions such as the Guarma episode, and the soylent filter applied to the era, there is still something, a spark of passion for the beauty of the environment and of the era, that keeps it compelling enough for a playthrough, perhaps because, for all its faults, this has been one of the most ambitious attempts to bring the West to life in video game format.
First of all, it's a strange bird. One has come not to expect anything good from games made in this day and age, and while this game consistently self-sabotages any attempts to achieve greatness, there is something about the sheer autism and wastefulness of the work poured into building the game world that is quite impressive. The variety and modelling of the fauna, in particular, is remarkable, and the regions that were painstakingly modelled and hardly used at all suggests an unrealistic passion that was only tempered by more realistic concerns late into the development cycle. New Austin, for instance, empty and pointless as it is in the game, being walled off until the epilogue and even then only used for a mission or two and a couple of bounties, is nevertheless very well made and must have consumed no small amount of resources. Even though the emptiness of the world soon becomes apparent, there is a grandeur to it that makes you wish it had been used better. Hunting animals can be interesting once or twice, but it soon becomes useless due to the game's lack of a meaningful economy. Money is largely useless, and Arthur can easily die a wealthy man with nothing to spend his money on.
The writing, however, is poor, and the story, short though it may be, feels drawn out due to the characters' plot driven cluelessness. It is apparent from the get-go that Dutch is full of shit and Micah is a rat, but you are forced to play along with their hare-brained schemes as they fuck up again and again and the gang sinks further and further into oblivion. And yet, despite the gratuitous (and superficial) references to Blood Meridian, such as Arthur's backstory and a judge named Holden, there is no notion of the gang being degraded by its savage acts and loss of humanity; for all the game's alleged theme of redemption there is no introspection on the poisonous effect of their lack of morality, just the physical and financial consequences of being chased by Pinkertons and screwing up heists. The player can shoot as many people as he likes as long as it's sanctioned by the main quest with no ill effect on his honor; only actions carried out on the player's own initiative can harm it, and even then, shouting "Hey mister!" a few times will soon set things right.
This is partly due, of course, to the game's post-BLM system of morality, in which it soon becomes apparent that murdering dozens of people is not the gravest sin one can commit; no, murder can be forgiven. What cannot be forgiven is racism. From the very beginning, Micah Bell uses a racist slur to make it clear that he is EVIL. Agent Milton also calls Lenny "boy" so you can see that he is also EVIL. The Civil War is everywhere even though it ended 30 years ago, because it's a great opportunity to talk about racists. Meanwhile, Arthur has several quests in which it is made crystal clear that he is NOT RACIST and therefore not evil. A robber and a murderer can achieve redemption; a racist cannot. In fact, you can even achieve redemption by murdering racists, such as the guy in Saint Denis or the former slave hunter. Unlike in most cases, killing these civilians in cold blood will actually make you gain honor and lead you closer to redemption. It is telling that, in spite of the developers' use of Arthur Morgan as a ventriloquist's puppet, the character manages to maintain enough charisma and authenticity (especially expressed through his diary) to make him endearing.
And yet, despite the emptiness, the pointlessness and superficiality of the plot, with absurd and forgettable excursions such as the Guarma episode, and the soylent filter applied to the era, there is still something, a spark of passion for the beauty of the environment and of the era, that keeps it compelling enough for a playthrough, perhaps because, for all its faults, this has been one of the most ambitious attempts to bring the West to life in video game format.
How does the second one compare to the first? I'm assuming it might be better due being made before BLM? Maybe?
In terms of writing/missions, it's the same in a different setting but the characters are more caricaturesque than in 2 and they pad out mission quantity to showcase them in their absurdity. John makes fun of a conspiratard who hates Jews & gays & niggers & women, so that might trigger you. Beware.
also lol, are you incapable of empathy (the actual meaning of the word)? Dutch being or turning into a "bad guy" was never supposed to be a secret. The game is made for people who played RDR1 - Dutch was the antagonist there. Why do you autists act like RDR2 is a role playing game. The story is told from the point of view of Arthur, and Arthur doesn't have the meta knowledge of the future. All his actions are perfectly understandable if you take into account his life - Dutch is his adoptive father, taught him to read and write, and educated him on the world. It's impossible for him to see Dutch fuck up once and go "welp, that's it I'm leaving, no chance of redeeming you". He only realizes there's no going back once Dutch leaves him for dead in that Indian affair.
KVVRR
Learned
- Joined
- Apr 28, 2020
- Messages
- 652
Arthur's actions being understandable for the character and Dutch's complete cluelessness not being a secret does not make it any less grating and annoying for the player, especially so when you have to sit through the same boring rides and cutscenes going over the same beats over and over and over again for dozens of hours.
It would be a hell of a lot more engaging if less time had been spent on silly hijinks and the player were made to experience a bit of what drew people to Dutch in the first place instead of being expected to feel loyal to this obvious con man. Same thing with Micah, he's so cartoonishly evil and incompetent from the get go that it's baffling how he gained so much clout in the gang and why Arthur would break him out of jail in Strawberry instead of, you know, letting the rat hang. You never feel surprised, disappointed or betrayed: it's just this long, telegraphed train crash in slow motion.
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