Red Dead Redemption

There were elements of "press button now" to "The Last of Us," but mostly during cut scenes or ... QTEs? Is that the jargon? Anyway much of "Last of Us" was not like that, it was strategy and stealth and aiming and exploring. But I also like the idea of playing a story.

I played about a hundred hours of RDR2 Online but didn't finish the second half of the main story.

I really didn't want to fish or hunt or do other side mission stuff with Arthur Morgan, a dude is a precarious situation and actively being chased by his enemies. It just never made sense to me that he'd be like, welp, time to get that hunting achievement! John Marston felt more like a guy with time to kill.

-in

but guys there wuz a secret serial killer too!

'Press square to draw your gun; press R2 to stand in a particular stance; press triangle to fire; press L1 to put the gun away'

srsly tho this is a very accurate description of what I hated about this game

(but it is great)

(for about two thirds of the time)

there's a lot to be said for games that have an intuitive control system. obvs you get used to things, but I'm surprised at how different so many games of a similar flavour seem to choose entirely different buttons for jumping or dashing.
I think Death Stranding was very good at this, especially the top buttons working as bag straps, which really gave the impression of balancing on rough terrain. a stroke of genius to include this, and definitely a madcap decision that turned out to work

its absolutely worth 30 bucks

Definitely seems close to its lowest price so far. But if I'm being honest I'd be buying it just to buy it, since it's so far back in my queue that I have no idea when I'd get to it and even if I did, it's size is too unwieldy to even download and have on hand.

About 5 hours in. It’s good! I like getting on my horse and galloping around. Feels very slow / unresponsive somehow though, like GTA v.

I've never played GTA, but I have this one loosely slotted for, like, February.

started RDR2 properly last night! On the bit where you attempt to rob the train but I kinda died. Still getting used to the rather arbitrary controls and slightly slow/floaty walking. Also there are points where it seems to want me to read on-screen instructions, concentrate on story dialogue AND steer around rocky mountain paths all at the same time. My head isn't built for such things.

Re: GTA - after the Cyberpunk debacle, I'm kind of keen to play one of these as a placebo. Which is best for PS4?

5

i loved red dead redemption but didn't make it far into RDR2, and a big part of it was the clunky controls

i'm sure i'll; get used to them, but there's a lot to remember. I don't know why, for example, you press a different button to run faster on a horse than you do on foot. selecting items is also really complicated. and there are lots of instances where you have to long-hold buttons when really pressing once would have done fine. arthur walks extremely slowly too, and doesn't always respond well to being gee'd-up

it was mostly the slow walking that got on my nerves. and he handles like a station wagon. but i should probably go back to it and give it another shot.

In GTA v in a car, accelerate is R2
In RDR on a horse, “accelerate “ is X
- R2 fires your pistol quickly from the hip
- I’ve killed a lot of people just trying to get the fucking horse to move

lol, yeah, the most dangerous part of going to town is getting on your horse and riding out of the city limits without terrorizing a family on accident

Just started Chapter 3. It's so good. I love the amount of effort they've put in with getting NPCs to react in different ways.
Just a shame about the controls. I find that 50% of the reason I die or fail a mission is because Arthur took his sweet time to do what I bloody tell him, or that instead of hiding behind a thing he jumps on top of it, or I accidentally insulted someone by looking at them funny, or like yesterday I accidentally ran into someone casually sitting on a bench and KILLED them (I was on foot).
a game shouldn't be difficult Because the controls and handling are difficult. For such an immersive game (and it is an immersive game), this is the factor that takes me out of it most.

For sure. I laugh in panic when I’m hiding behind something in a firefight and then try to change position and Arthur stands up and starts meandering around real slowly like it’s Sunday morning while I mash away at the buttons

As someone from the stone modern age, when a hard drive might have 512MB of storage, it's downright awe-inspiring that this game needs at least 100GB of space.

I remember buying a new pc with a 210MB hdd and used Windows dblspace to make in nearly 400. I remember colleagues asking what on Earth I would use all that space for.

It's probably not enough to cover an RDR horse's balls growing on a hot day.

Hard drive schmard drive

https://i.imgur.com/ND5WAEj.png

Just started playing this. I keep having to reload the mission because some Miyazaki mapped Talk and Shoot to the same button. Very pretty so far but I'm already annoyed by Arthur's sluggishness; maybe I'll get used to the slower pace of life after a while.

I officially started playing today, and it's taking some getting used to after the last few fast games I've played. But I enjoyed the first 1% of the story so far. Looks and sounds great, hope the gunplay stays as easy as it was during the wolf attack. Pretty sure I killed at least a couple of them with just the sound of my gun, considering how shitty I am at aiming.

I'm maybe a couple of hours ahead of you and it's stayed at that difficulty level. It doesn't feel like the kind of game to suddenly have a massive spike.

No its not a very difficult game on the hole. If you fail a mission it just starts again. Getting gold on the missions is tougher though, and it can feel a little unfair as those often depend on finishing the missions quickly and cleanly, so when Arthur starts diddling around instead of shooting / running etc you know you've already failed

yeah you get used to the slugglish movements.

Currently I'm flip flopping between gta 5 and old Sand Andreas and the difference of character control is godalmighty.

I started GTAV but the character control was very similar to RDR2 and I found even the initial car chase quite challenging. Yes, very different to previous instalments I'd played

I don't mind the driving in gta5, as much as I have no problems with the horse control in RDR. But the on foot sluggish movement is such a back step imo, and that ragdoll nonsense can just fuck off.

My horse is dirty but I don't have a brush. I won't get one till I finish getting drunk then go back to camp and choose a specific mission. I feel bad for my horsey.

why don't you have a brush? don't you get one by default?

god, if only it were so simple

*pulls at sticky, tangled hair*

xp you don't start with one but apparently you get it when you sell a horse to someone.

just go galloping into the rivers

OK, just got another hour or so in. I'm enjoying this, but having never played anything like this I'm a little out of sync with it right now. Like, I'll be in a room, unsure of what to do, so I figure, ok, might as well go exploring. And then the next thing I know, I'm saddled up in a posse going to shoot a bunch of people or about to rob a train, but my brain is all, whoa, wait a minute, I don't feel like robbing a train right now, I just want to explore and get used to stuff.

Are you looking at the map? I made my little corner map as big as possible in the options. You'll get white or yellow spots with initials in there, representing a character who if you speak to them will either start or continue a mission. White ones are side missions, yellow ones are story. Annoyingly, the game won't usually let you back down from or leave a mission, so you're forced to get in your horse and go fishing or rustling or looting or whatever, even if you don't feel like it.

I went exploring and found a couple of people in a house who I shot and killed and oops, I have a feeling they were supposed to be part of a mission, probably debt collecting. Later on, Strauss was getting ready to reel off some names but only said one name and finished "and that's it". So yeah, exploring and getting a bit shooty is fun, but be careful who you kill.

I definitely gravitated toward a couple of the yellow destinations with initials because I wasn't sure what else I was supposed to be doing. Good to know those are the story missions. I'm still super super early, though, and I think way too early to mess up. There was one guy I was supposed to lasso, but for some reason I missed that instruction, so I caught up with him and just sort of hung out until I figured I had to do something, so I punched him out. And when I walked away it said I failed the mission, so that's one way to know I did something wrong, lol.

Oh yeah stuff like that happens to me all the time.
I don't like how it often rates your mission on how quickly you carried out certain tasks, but doesn't tell you first. Firstly, because Arthur is a slowpoke, secondly because I'm wont to faff around exploring every nook and cranny of a place before getting on with the job in hand.
I find it hard to accept that I've literally failed the whole game because I left a building the opposite way from an NPC.

Having got to chapter 4, I found myself getting a bit tired of going through the motions the game set out for me. I holed myself up in a lighthouse outside of Van Horn and started sniping random people. This, of course, raised an alarm and caused the odd person to climb the lighthouse and investigate, where upon I was able to knock them out and throw them off the side. Hours of pointless, sadistic fun. Of course, despite being high up and wearing a mask, someone in Van Horn eventually recognised me and I got chased out of town...

Here's a question: When I do something good or bad, I get a little plus/minus and a cowboy hat icon. This is meant to affect how people treat me in town, as well as the cost of items. But when I look at my metre, it always seems to be roughly in the middle. I can go around greeting everyone or insulting everyone and it doesn't seem to move.

i'm fairly certain the morality system is a little weighted depending on where you are in the story. no spoilers but it definitely pushes you to be a 'good' cowboy eventually

fuck that

i liked arthur too much to make him a devil tbh

I've been playing as a heel in RDR Online this go around, but it's pretty tough to really bottom out. You have to commit to being mean to your horses to get a very low rating. Thankfully you don't have to be all that low to unlock the evil online missions, and you can just switch back and forth for gold if you don't want to do the work of it.

RDO is so relaxing

Tell me about it, for better or for worse. I just started chapter ... II? And the only problem I have with it is when it leaves me sitting around and I think, well, what am I supposed to be doing? Taking a nap? I guess I can do that. Or do I got put some money in the money jar? Um, sure. Is there some wood for me to chop? Probably, I guess.

there are tons of side missions, indicated in white on minimap and plenty of random encounters. ride towards remote buildings on the map or go to a city you haven't been to yet, they will pop up. you can solve a serial killer mystery or find a vampire. they're there. it's not going to addle you with stimulation basically ever though. it's about soaking in the amazing landscape they made

And the only problem I have with it is when it leaves me sitting around and I think, well, what am I supposed to be doing?

if it's anything like every other game on earth, either walk near the campfire and everyone will be very conspicuously discussing the same thing and thinking it would take a hero to complete that task, or check your quests list

or look at the map and go to the town