Topic: Red Dead Redemption 2

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Wow, this hasn't been updated in a while! I know reviving old threads is frowned upon in general but starting a new thread for a game when one exists seemed to be the greater of the two offences!

I know I've discussed this with a few in the Xbox thread, I know a few have talked about it in the PS4 thread - having just finished pretty much everything I want to finish (for now) in the game though I wanted to get this all out somewhere that doesn't hijack another thread and perhaps more people will come here as and when they finish/play the game (goes without saying there'll be spoilers)!

I don't envy anyone who had to review this professionally. I've put in around 80 hours now and if you asked me for a one word answer as to whether I can recommend, heck, if I even like the game I'm not sure how I'd answer...?

It is amazing, incredible, unforgettable, terrible and frustrating all at the same time; It reaches high's that other games & development teams can only dream of, yet seems determined to burn so much of the goodwill it generates through some questionable design decisions, fundamental flaws and archaic restrictions.

Just as the many reviewers did, I want to run around and tell everyone they must play this, but what any praise I offer and the 97% metacritic rating doesn't tell you - the latter of which actually raising more questions than answers - is that there is undoubtedly a dark and dirty flip side of this shiny coin.

The highs are such that they'll leave an indelible mark; all I've done since finishing is read up on bits I may have missed and what others thought, all the while with the (incredible) soundtrack playing in the background. I look at my completion rate of 89% and long for a New Game+ mode in order I do the rest, yet at the same time feel a wrench in my stomach at the thought of playing for a minute longer - I don't want any of the negatives to detract any further, to poison my memories with a growing resentment. There is a masterpiece within RDR2 make no mistake, I just lament the fact it's buried beneath a layer of mediocrity that will undoubtedly tarnish the experience for so many if not put others off completely.

What the game gets right...

Characters. A lot of people will say the story is the thing that shines, but I'd argue against that and suggest that in both RDR 1 & 2 the story - whilst perfectly serviceable - doesn't actually do a great deal. The narrative ties everything nicely together, but it's the characters that ultimately shine and make the games what they are. RDR was good in this sense but for me - despite a few tonal inconsistencies - RDR2 improves across the board. We're not just talking Arthur vs John, I'm talking characters throughout the game. So many are memorable in ways Ubisoft could only dream about. The fact each loss or betrayal is felt so keenly is testament to the fact they make you care, love or hate so well. I will say that I don't think the emotional highest peak ever quite reaches that of the original game, however in total I think it's the better of the two.

Soundtrack. All original stuff (albeit some borrow from existing pieces), it's pretty epic and used very well throughout the game. Try listening to 'See the fire in your eyes' or 'That's the way it is' after completing and not think back to where you were/what was happening in game at the time.

Customisation. Guns, horses, clothes - go nuts!

Environment. Graphically stunning (played on X1X) but above that, the weather effects & the way the world changes (mist rising from fallen rain when the sun comes out, fog in swampy areas, snow accumulating/falling off trees). Even then, small touches such as smoke from people camping.

The little extra touches. Some of these blew me away;

What the game gets wrong...

Controls. An obvious one if you've read anything about the game since launch. There's several issues here and it's easy to sound like nitpicking - but add some of these up over 80 hours and they can really start to grate and I'd say overall the controls are probably the biggest detriment to the game. You can make adjustments to dead zones etc and they certainly help, not to mention you do get used to a lot of the bigger issues over time, however even with all that you still feel like you're fighting the game a lot of the time;

The responsiveness/weight of the controls - The animations are ultra realistic & really impressive, however that comes at the great expense of flexibility. All too often you'll feel like you're controlling an ice skating hippo as you run down a street and barge into someone you thought was on the other side. On top of that you have the walking/running speed that by default requires tapping a button to go faster. You can toggle that but regardless you'll still need to rhythmically tap said button to sprint either on foot or horse. The unforgivable part here is the number of times the game will force you to walk at such a slow pace (presumably to hide such terrible controls in tight spaces) that it makes whatever you're doing an incredible chore. Your camp is a great place to be and interacting with everyone is really fun - walking around it at snails pace because the game prevents you from even jogging is not fun however and it just drives you crazy. This enforced slowdown has also happened mid-mission/gun-fight on occasion too, often resulting in a needless death.

Bizarre and unchangeable mapping - there are some control layout changes you can make, however they don't change a lot of the functions. These aren't huge issues but again, they add up. Play the game and count how many times you change view instead of opening the map.

Context switching/button changing issues. This feeds into the other two a little bit but is ultimately the biggest issue of the lot. A lot of the actions are - as with most games - contextual. What RDR2 does though is not just change what function - for example - the 'x/square' button does depending on where you are/what you're doing, it will also move some functions to a different button completely. For the majority of the game, LT/L2 is your aim button with a gun equipped, with RT/R2 shooting; get near a person however and LT/L2 is the focus button that lets you speak to them (using other buttons), with RT now becoming 'aim weapon'. These buttons then reverse whether or not you have a gun equipped and... well, you can see where the confusion comes in right? The fly in this particular ointment is that the equipped nature of your guns is far from a science and made all the harder by the game's continual insistence on un-equipping your guns of choice for reasons unknown.

I should also mention here the 'horse autocorrect' - when you're navigating through trees the game will 'help' you avoid them for the most part, however if you try to pass on a side it's decided is sub-optimal, it will 'correct' you, often into the path of what you were trying to avoid culminating in a 'messy dismount' - super fun when being shot at!

Guns & equipping. Mention this above. What in the actual heck. You feel like you are constantly fighting the game in this regard. When riding somewhere you'll get your guns ready, dismount and you'll likely find you've got one, none or a different selection entirely equipped. This is made all the more difficult in missions because you need your horse to change your loadout and if you stray too far from the mission path (good luck trying to get your horse to come close enough) or fall behind you'll likely have a mission failed. If you die you'll likely have a changed weapon loadout to one the game feels is more suitable too (for some reason it loves the carbine repeater which I do not).

Riding, distance, stamina and fast travel. The game world is pretty big and riding around on a horse is pretty time consuming. Fast Travel is in the game but it's pretty restrictive and time consuming in and of itself. For large parts of the game you'll need to ride your horse which has finite stamina and means you'll inevitably have to wait for it to recharge/feed it a tonic/camp to recharge the cores. There are stagecoaches and trains to help you get around but the stations/drop-offs are (understandably) quite few & far between. I didn't actually mind any of this too much until the later chapters when the missions are spaced much further apart geographically and in much trickier terrain to navigate - it means endless backtracking and feels like unnecessary padding as the game is trying to build momentum towards the finale and only serves to frustrate - especially when after riding to said mission you invariably ride back the other way in a scripted sequence with allies.

Checkpoints. The age old R* checkpoints show their ugly head again. Some are fine, others are needlessly far back and means on a handful of missions you may need to redo certain sections again. And again.

Stealth. Seems to be a lot of stealth in the game. It's not as restrictive as it's been in other games but there are some insta-fail parts and the feedback from the game isn't awesome

Hunting & crafting. A big part of the appeal of the first game, they've deepened the system here with a 'pelt quality' system. This would be fine except you need to kill different animals with certain weapons perfectly in order to get the quality pelt needed for crafting. [spoiler]This seems harder than it actually is early game, but the biggest frustration is that you can only store very few parts, pelts or materials in your satchel/on your horse, and if you do store animal parts you need to get back to camp regularly or they begin to deteriorate quality wise which means yet another horse trek. The other issue is that for the trinkets, you often need some bespoke items, yet you have absolutely no idea where to get them from. I found out very late that the one that goes with my legendary alligator tooth is actually a reward for returning cigarette cards - so i was never going to find it (directly) by exploring). The real kicker for me with all this is I did spend some time hunting/crafting, but when you reach the epilogue you realise it's largely a waste of time as the things you had to craft before are now largely available to buy outright?!

For better or worse...

Missions. It's pretty much a given of R* games (as with a lot of other devs/games) that missions will largely be 'go here -> kill this -> go here -> fend off pursuers/reinforcements' and this is no exception. Reinforcements are annoyingly frequent, annoying in numbers and happen far too much when on horseback which brings the controls into sharp focus once again. That aside though, the quests are dressed up well and - with the exception of one or two - are largely enjoyable/memorable. They do lose points (with me anyway) for some of the ridiculously tight parameters you have to do them under - stray too far from a path or stop to loot someone and let your teammate get too far ahead and it's likely you'll fail.

Gunplay. My feelings are very mixed on this. It's obviously far from the best handling 3rd person shooter and the cover mechanics are woeful (especially when you're getting shot through said cover), yet gunfights can be oddly satisfying & tense, especially when in battle with members of your gang and you just barely make it out alive!?

Collectibles. I hate collectibles in games as a rule as they serve no purpose other than to drag the game out. Got to be honest though that they're pretty well done here. The cigarette cards are a particular highlight until again, you realise that post-game you can gain them all very easily. I'd gotten 31/144 in the course of my playthrough over 78 hours - I got the remaining ones in 15 minutes when you realise you can just buy them all. The other collectibles seem pretty cool too, much better than pigeons in any case

Challenges. These give you tangible gameplay boosts if you complete them off and encourage you to mix things up a bit. I like them as a whole, just hate that a number of them are tied to stuff I don't care about or to things such as getting across the map on a horse in a certain time etc.

Aaaanyway, that's enough I think - I just wanted to get all this out of my system. I realise reading back through that it sounds like I hate more than I like which I want to reiterate just isn't the case - one bad point doesn't cancel out a good point. The game is 14/10 in so many aspects, it's just the stuttering 4/10 parts that drag it back down and it's a massive massive shame. The one bright spot is that a lot of the issues maybe can be patched and improved further down the line. I doubt they will with some of this stuff (R* pretty obstinate) and that's their prerogative, but if they could fix up some of it I'd have no hesitation in bumping this back up to 'absolutely must-play' territory. As it is I'm going to put it down for a while (I have little-no interest in the MP) and see what they do with the SP. Worst case is they drop it for the PC and let the modders fix a lot of the issues for them - I'd certainly be tempted to double dip in that case!