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Red Dead Redemption 2


DisturbedSwan
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53 hours in now.

 

Have made a bit of progress into the story now as I’ve been primarily been doing the story  missions for the last couple of sessions to catch up a bit. Even so, I’m still in Chapter 3 so haven’t exactly made an amazing amount of progress.

 

I do agree somewhat with the criticisms of the story missions at times now. If you do one after another for a long period of time their particular Rockstar nuances can grate at times.

 

I will say though that I’ve never had any issues with riding my horse at all, with the setting it’s a given there will be a lot of horse riding and I still get a lot of pleasure in riding Epona everywhere, grown quite fond silly bastard after all this time together ?.

 

If you’re playing a game like this horse riding is a given in my view just like driving a lot of cars is a given in GTA, not saying you have to like it because of that but it was always going to involve a lot of horse riding, you knew what you were getting yourself into.

 

I do kind of think it’s genius how they seemingly have you do meaningless tasks that feel like they’re going nowhere (and drag a bit at times) that build up to one mission where everything comes together. It feels like episodes of a TV series in a way and then the series finale comes along where all the little pieces of the puzzle fit together. It’s incredibly clever - but, much like a TV series - some ‘episodes’ feel like they’re filler or not pertinent to the overall plot.

 

I had my first cry today too. Chapter 3 story spoilers:

Spoiler

For some reason the mission where you rob the bank just made me feel really bad. I guess it was the realisation that this group are just utter cunts really combined with an absolutely incredible song that plays as you’re about the collect a debt from the widow and son of a guy you recently killed and for Arthur to threaten his son and say ‘How about I keep you in Black, on your behalf? Was just so incredibly callous. This guilt combined with the song completely overwhelmed me and brought me to tears.

 

Micah in particular is just such an absolute bellend that I can’t see how he can be redeemed in anyway - that bit in Strawberry where he kills that women and kid is just horrendous and made me feel a bit sick, I saw him sleazily hit on Abigail at the Poker table too. With the others you just kind of forget what ruthless killers and con men/women they are at times.

 

Going to continue on with the story missions tomorrow and hopefully break through into Chapter 4 before going off to explore again.

 

It’s a weird game a lot of times and I do get why some folks are bouncing off it but at the same time, it is, for me, a masterpiece in every regard and probably the easiest 10 I’ve ever awarded so far.

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It’s not the horse riding for me.

 

I really can’t put my finger on what it is, but I feel I have to force myself to start the game up. 

Sometime when I’m on a mission or just riding around I’m really into it, but sometimes I just press pause and mess about with my phone before getting back into it.

 

On paper it’s amazing but there’s just something holding it back. I hold the last Red Dead as one of the best games of the last generation but this isn’t even the best game I’ve played in the last month.

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2 hours ago, Hendo said:

On paper it’s amazing but there’s just something holding it back. I hold the last Red Dead as one of the best games of the last generation but this isn’t even the best game I’ve played in the last month.

 

Sad story :(

 

RDR was my fave of last gen and 2 is my fave of this for sure. I do agree you can’t just boot it up for 10 minutes and the more you invest the more you get out of it. 

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Despite Hitman 2 being out today and being sorely tempted to pick it up, I’m trying to forge on ahead with this.

I wouldn’t say I’m mainlining it, as I am doing random stranger quests and stuff, but I’m not going out hunting or fishing or anything like that.

 

I’ve actually set myself a stupid goal as I haven’t cut Morgan’s hair as yet and I have noticed that it’s definitely getting longer, so I’m gonna grow it out and then find the most ridiculous hairstyle you can choose. I haven’t even seen any of the options yet as I haven’t visited a barber. But I have trimmed the sides of the face and the goatee is pretty huge at this point.

 

I did a story mission where I came out very well off because of it and so far i’ve maxed out all the upgrades in the camp, at least until we inevitably move on and more options appear.

 

This is probably the most conflicted I’ve ever been about a game. It’s such an amazing piece of work at the same time as being a boring chore. But right now I’m enjoying growing his hair out, so I’ll take whatever good I can find.

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I’m about 25 hours in. I’m on Chapter 3, just done a side mission for Margaret which was good fun.

 

And I am having fun. But I wasn’t. Probably not for the first 6-8 hours. I pressed on because of what I had heard, that it gets better, and it did.

 

Once I knew what the game was, especially once I knew it’s pace, I started to enjoy it a lot more. Now I’m happy to play a couple of hours at a time, dipping in and out, doing whatever I feel like.

 

 

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I think I’m near the end of chapter 3. Something happened that made me think it would be the end of the chapter but it seems not.

 

I upgraded my horse, though not the one I was after. But it died along with me when I was trying to stop a train from being robbed. So now I’m back on the little pony again.

 

In happier news, I’ve discovered hair tonic so I’ll soon have a massive fuck off beard. Seeing pictures and footage of Morgan with short hair and clean shaven just looks wrong at this point.

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I’m mostly playing nice. I did put someone out of their misery when they were drunkenly telling me all their sins and they would burn in Hell.

They either passed out or died in front of me, so to be sure I picked him up and put him down on his campfire.

 

I’m on chapter 4 now and mostly enjoying it again, but with some heavy caveats.

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I’m just into chapter 3. The new location is better than the first and I’ve been fishing with a child so learned that. I still don’t understand the parts in which it tells you to press r2 really slowly and just seem to fluke my way through them. I’d love to be able to practice things like that but you can’t they just spring them on you. 

 

Hunting is ok but I wish you didn’t have to prepare so much and take so long over everything. They seem to have gone too far in the realism direction despite it being a silly cowboy game.

 

I just wish it was as fun to be in as botw. You can’t play around with the world and with any of the mechanics and every action is 1 - 6 button presses away depending on number of different scenarios.

 

I still enjoy every session I play though and is my goty thus far ?

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Hit the 66 hour mark on Friday.

 

Still besotted with it.

 

It definitely has its moments where I feel a little bored and sometimes it takes me awhile to get back into and immersed I can't lie but I just feel that that mundanity is actually one of the games strengths and part of the overall journey if that makes any sense at all? There's nothing really like the Forklift or book carrying parts of Shenmue in this, you never feel like you're doing a 'job' per se it's just that I feel sometimes the mundanity and inherent melancholy and loneliness when travelling inbetween locales can help you reflect on certain moments or missions you've just completed. I like that this isn't constantly trying to provide little artificial pieces of entertainment, like life it has its ebbs and flows. There are those missions that are incredible and really get the blood pumping but there's lots of others that have you performing menial tasks that don't really progress the plot in the slightest but might lead into another mission or come up in conversation later on.

 

Moving camps is really important too. It kind of reminds me of the jump from OG GTA IV to the Lost and Damned DLC. Playing as that gang on motorcyclists on the other side of Liberty City to where you played as Nico just gave you a completely different outlook and perspective on the city. I really didn't think it would be such a huge difference before I played this but the change of scenery - with the map being so vast and varied - just adds so many different dimensions to the experience and allows them to tell little mini-stories within the overarching narrative that is reminiscent of a series of TV episodes leading to a Season Finale.

 

How they handle racism in the game has absolutely staggered me too. I mean I knew it would come up at some point as R* are known for not holding back but you've got some Black chaps in the camp with you and I kept thinking - it being 1899 America and all - that some racism was going to pop up at one point or another but in the early goings it rarely gets a mention at all. I think the first camp is meant to be in the North and so when you go further South later on you're confronted with so much racism and remnants of the slave trade that it shocks you all the more to hear it. 


This one side mission I encountered just absolutely floored me.

Spoiler

 

You meet this drunken guy outside the train station in Rhodes, he's down on his luck, lost his job and asks you to retrieve some items from his house that burnt down. So you travel to this house, find a few folks holed up inside there and search for his belongings, you find 2 out of 3 items and then there's a trap door that opens a staircase down to a cellar. As soon as I walked down the stairs and saw the chains hanging on the walls and floors I knew exactly what this was and what his old job was. I just gripped the controller intensely and starting shaking with rage whilst simultaneously welling up that I'd even entertained this guys request. It only gets worse though when you find the ledger and see he was responsible for tracking down and capturing emancipated slaves and bringing them back down South to be illegally enslaved.

 

Just the absolutely incredible environmental design of this side mission to let you slowly realise what is going on in this house through the horrendous chains on the walls and then have you even more disgusted when you see the ledger. It is just absolutely superb. You later see this utter cunt again on your travels and Arthur confronts him on what he found in the house, you then have the choice to blast his head off or walk away leaving him to let him suffer in his own filth as an alcoholic homeless guy with no job or prospects in life. I chose the latter and it was maybe one of the hardest decisions I've ever had to make in a video game ever, I just thought killing this cunt would give him an easy way out and I wanted to see him suffer for all the lives he has enslaved. It was still so difficult not to blast his head off and walk away though.

 

 

I don't know how they've done it either - and I may of touched on this before - but the lighting in this game is probably the best I've ever seen in a game. It is just so lifelike, especially at nighttime, the luminescence of all the lights and signs in towns and cities just feels so incredibly natural and authentic. Games always seem to overdo the lighting so it doesn't really look realistic but this just looks real, there's no other word for it.  I continually get astounded just riding into Saint Denis at night, it is just ridiculous how lifelike it is. I would go as far as saying Saint Denis is probably the most lifelike city ever created in a game. 

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