Red Dead Redemption

like, with no exaggeration, pretty much the sum total of every game you want at this point could be less than the cost of the console.

I think you've got a week left to get Horizon Zero Dawn for free.

Imagine you could create a PSN account to 'buy' the game even if you don't own a PS4 yet?

Yesterday I was wasting time in Saint Denis. I gave money to a drunk, and in return he told me about a secret gambling site I can rob. So I went there to rob it, successfully, then hid on a roof to evade capture. The red dots kept multiplying, and eventually I remember that I can apparently jump off the roof onto my horse. Which I try to do, but instead land on the street, very hurt. I eventually get on the horse and try to gallop away, but the law is coming at me from all directions. I try to slip past a wagon but instead hit it head-on and flip over my horse handlebars. Then they kill my fucking horse, and I die after reviving it. I wake up down the street and decide to just pay off my bounty at the local post office, but as I do it, I accidentally press the wrong button and threaten some patron into giving me his money, and unable to defuse it immediately get a witness to the crime, a new bounty put on my head, and then a bunch of lawmen after me. Again. This time I escape off into a swamp, where I am promptly attacked by an alligator. I take out my vengeance on an alligator snapping turtle, which takes as many shots to kill as the alligator itself.

sounds like some classic red dead action there

Yesterday in some NPC fun I was riding my horse around when I heard the familiar bickering of two NPCs trying to blow up a safe. I turn around and head back, planning to rob them, but before I got there they blew themselves up and die! And leave the open safe for me. Another time I found a guy panning for gold. Last time I waited, the gold panning NPC found some and I robbed him. This time, he came up with nothing and walked away, dejected, so I consoled him. A third NPC around the same area was tracking an animal, so I decided to walk along and keep him company. Next thing I know, a big grizzly comes running out of the woods and kills him! So I kill the bear (win/win).

Now I've finished the game, is there much left to do other than explore the wilderness and look for cigarette cards? A whole new area has opened up but aside from the odd Dell Lobo gang, it seems pretty empty and a bit depressing to walk around what with that cholera town and stuff

I didn’t find much. Strange that they went to the trouble to recreate so much of the first game’s map, but didn’t put much to do there. It’s too much for an epilogue but not enough to be its own thing. I wish they’d use all that to do a port of RDR1 that you can start when the epilogue ends.

"I wish they’d use all that to do a port of RDR1 that you can start when the epilogue ends."

really second this, apparently it was a miracle RDR1 functioned at all, so a long shot though. and R* won't even patch the most basic glitches in RDR2 from months ago, so. frustrating how they handle this compared to GTAV, but i guess it's obvious why

RDRO uses the old map area better than the main game does.

word on the street is RDRO is getting heists? no doubt will be sort of clunky and repetitive like the rest of RDRO but it might be worth reloading to check it out

really? i'm honestly shocked, seems like they completely abandoned RDO

RDO was just added to Game Pass so it's a good time to add some new content.

Playing the real game today, I think I wrapped up both hanging with the pervy French painter and witnessing an execution by electric chair gone wrong, two very divergent digressions.

One of the reasons I think the writing of this far surpasses any GTA is that the remove from modern times prevents them from doing the standard lazy riffs and dick jokes/mob gags on whatever current pop culture they dislike. They can’t use billboards and radio jingles to communicate 2001-era humor to the player, so they actually have to work at it.

Though of course, there are still dick jokes and mob gags, somehow! But they're pretty subtle and far between, and only in context.

Yeah, I’ve been slowly trying to finish RDR1 and while it’s also better in that regard than GTA, it still seems cruder/broader than RDR2.

Just did the mad scientist/robot side quest, and it really underscored what I love about this game, namely that the storytelling and details are such that they alone can be a selling point rather than gameplay. That is, this side mission had next to nothing for me to do, but it was so colorful and fun and funny that it didn't matter.

Today's adventures involved a lot of things blowing up. First there was an escape from Saint Denis after a dumb robbery that went awry, resulting in the death of untold lawmen (and a stupidly crashed cable car). Then came me and Micah robbing a stagecoach, where I was distracted by something else and didn't see (the first time) where to blow up the coach and then (the second time) blew up the dynamite too early, and either way ended up chasing down the wagon and killing everyone. And then there was the KKK rally I came across where, while I tried to decide the best approach, all dozen of them caught their robes fire and died. Lastly, I came across some southerners in the midst of some transaction in the woods, and as I investigated they just kind of walked by me like I wasn't there, and the other dudes just got on their wagon to ride off. So I pulled out a gun, which of course aggro'd them, and the next thing I knew I blew up something in the back of the wagon (dynamite? moonshine?) and killed myself, and apparently my horse for good. RIP My Horse. I replaced her with the best horse I could buy in a stable (since money means nothing in this game, and I have thousands), named her My Horse (in honor of its predecessor) and am now in the process of bonding anew. Thank goodness you don't lose all your belongings and stuff when you put the saddle on a new steed. Also, I did some cattle rustling.

Shipwrecked!? What the heck, this game took a surprise turn. Serves them right, Dutch's latest plan was the worst yet. "Let's rob a downtown bank, then hop on the first big boat we find to wherever it takes us, then come back at some point to collect the rest of the gang, who will just be there waiting for us."

oh yeah that point in the game is pretty cool

lots of people apparently hated that section, i didn't mind it, plus the gfx are extra pretty. i like it as a story element because it's a counterpoint to dutch's conception of an island paradise

Yeah it's good. Breaks things up and it's where the story really starts getting somewhere

Wow, that tropical detour was fast. Things seem to be speeding along here, given how few built-in breaks I'm getting. D'Angelo song ruled.

"Arthur, you have tuberculosis and need rest or you're going to die."

(one minute later)

"Arthur, take over this hot air balloon while we try to break John out of prison!"

Looks like I've just begun Chapter 6. Living conditions keep getting worse and worse, I've got a cough I can't shake, the neighbors are monsters and people keep dying. But Dutch is planning something! Still, I'd say there have been some subtle hints that maybe this will all not end well. I dunno, just call it a hunch.

make sure to do the optional side missions during chapter 6, they open up arthur's character a lot

I don't skip any of the side missions, save for the more busy work find me every flower kind of missions. But the very fact that not only does playing side missions in a video game help you learn more about the character you are playing, you *want* to learn more, really underscores the quality of the writing.

the new RDO update is half decent. the overall reception has been outrage but i seriously don't know what those weirdos are expecting

I am the slowest gamer in the world, but even so, this game is starting to drag a little bit, not least because it's not like I'm expecting a happy ending. Still loving it, of course, especially the character beats and details, but the occasional mandatory shootout really feels kind of perfunctory and pointless at this point. Like, I got ambushed by the redneck clan, and as I stalked toward them shooting like the TB terminator, unconcerned with whatever damage they could mete, I fell in a hole they dug (!), which was surprising and just had to have been random bad luck on my part. Really, I should have died - I was in a pit surrounded by rednecks with guns - but somehow the game still allowed me to shoot my way out.

After every single gratuitous invincible kill spree I always feel compelled to loot every body on the ground, which is what I started doing after helping Sadie murder the last of the O'Fodder clan and sending her on her way. I've made it through the pockets of a few corpses when I get the "Witness: Crime Reported" (or whatever) flash at the top of the screen. Witness? Crime reported? Someone called 911? Who? Everyone's dead? I figure it's a glitch and keep looting. Then it changes to "Crime Being Investigated" or whatever it says, and I still think, that's weird, there's still no one here. A few more seconds go by and the map alerts me to trouble from the east: indeed, the police are coming. Well, that's that, I think, and hop on my horse to escape notice. Except I forget my horse doesn't automatically jump and I run straight into a fence and fly over the handlebars, getting off my face just in time for the arrival of the police. I figure I'm finished, given I'm standing right there, more or less surrounded by bodies, when one of them exclaims "my god, it's a massacre, what happened here?!" Instead, I get the option of defusing the situation, mumbling an aw shucks "I don't know, officer, it was like this when I got here." And they let me go! Except my horse, after sending me over the fence, is jammed in a tight corner of the pen, and this police is just hanging around it, so when I go press the button to hop on I accidentally punch the officer in the face! Needless to say, the police immediately shoot me a dozen times in the back while I try to catch up with my fleeing horse on foot.

Probably should have just shot back, but it was worth it.

Finished the main game! I suppose the end of Arthur's storyline was inevitable, and maybe because it (I) dragged on for so long a little anticlimactic. Also, I got kicked off the TV literally right in the middle of that gorgeous Daniel Lanois song, so that kind of interrupted the mood a little, too. Regardless, the end really underscored the innate problems with the game's have it both ways morality. You can play as "good" all you want, but it still by necessity compels you into being bad: robbing, stealing, murdering by the dozens. It takes the looming mortality of TB to start to turn him around, as written, but if you've already played him as a relatively good person it feels a little perfunctory. Of course, I'm an easy mark, and still found it all really powerful and moving. There are so many moments of introspection and beauty and humor in this game that I kind of wish his tale didn't essentially end with a fistfight. But good stuff, 10/10. On to the endgame!

BTW, iirc my PS4 had me at something like 25% when I hit the epilogue, so I've got to assume there's a whole bunch of BS I just blew right past.

OK, *now* I'm all done. Again, I'm easy, not least because I am so late to this generation of games that everything impresses me, but I wouldn't change a thing about this. A+. Even the 20 minutes of ending credits were A+, thanks to the Lanois songs and little bits here and there. Even seeing and recognizing so many character names in the cast was impressive, and the musician credits were full of tons of familiar names, including Duane Eddy (!). I've never played the original game so know nothing of its plot, and maybe because of that or despite that enjoyed the chiller vibe of the epilogue. In fact, it's all I can do just to resist playing some more simply because I can, but it's time to move on, I think, if only because this game is huuuuuuuuuuge and I probably need to delete it to play anything else.

slowly working through a runthrough on PC. original is a bit more campy/'rockstar'-esque but is enjoyable. also slightly more challenging, which i enjoyed

the banality of parts of the epilogue set up the first action setpiece for marston so well

Had some free time this morning and Played this today for the first time since January. I just saved Mary’s brother from the Illuminati

I've never played anything from Rockstar. I came into a copy of GTA5, but I've been warned it's not RDR2. Or at least RDR2 was a huge improvement.

BTW, even though I am "done," that just added up to a mere 28% of the game!

I think I’m around 28% and still in the main story afaict

you will like GTA5 a lot, and also not like some things about it, but you will also like it a lot

by the time I get around to gta5 games will be holograms implanted into our brains. but the brain chip shortage will mean I miss that generation, too.

I found GTA5 really quite difficult from the start. Had to have several goes at even the first mission.

I don't think I could in good conscience give RDR2 an A+. It is flawed throughout, it is incredible throughout. But it is just a bit below Witcher 3, Death Stranding and probably Control in terms of games I've played through on PS4 so far.

I suppose from my vantage I just don't see how the graphics, characters, story or music could be any better, and that's what drove me and kept me engaged. Sure, some of the actual gameplay got a little repetitive, but I found that gameplay a means to a narrative end. I also never stopped getting surprised by cool stuff, whether ambushes (like the people that lured me into a pit) or getting attacked by animals or just pleasant diversions and fun tasks/exploration. And I suspect I barely scratched the surface of that stuff, too. Last, factor in that as easy as the game is, I also never really tried that *hard*. If I wanted to I could have made it much more challenging for myself.

I do have copies of Witcher 3 and Control to get to at some point, which I'm looking forward to (next year some time, at this rate). Death Stranding unfortunately looks totally unappealing to me, which is weirdly welcome, given my backlog.

The opening loading screen daguerreotypes (?) are beautiful

I just started to play this a few weeks ago. Still on Chapter 2, taking my time.

I think I've sold Seamus one stagecoach so far. Been going up and down to meet the trapper in the woods. Been up and down the coast, from Annsburg to St. Denis. Went to Strawberry the other night. Again, the only town I've "officially" gone to is Valentine.

I don't want to have too much spoiled, but yet, I don't want to walk through this game blindly either. I know Valentine gets locked down at some point, so if I want to rob that doctor's office, I should do it soon. I also know that the lead POV changes at some point. How and why that happens, I'm still blissfully unaware.

I don't particularly feel like robbing everyone? I see those plumes of smoke like everyone else, but I'm content to hunting. If someone tries to start some shit, sure, I'll take care of it and loot the bodies. I'm really bad at doing anything when there's more than one O'Driscoll involved. It's like a nightmare when they show up and start yelling at me, when all I was doing was riding around, picking Yarrow. Haven't won one of those encounters yet.

Which is weird, because I was really good at picking off the bad guys in GTA-5. Do these 19th century characters have more innocence than the gangsters and cops of Los Santos? I kinda worried about that in myself -- why the modern NPCs were more dispensable. Saying it out loud, was because they were little black characters running around, calling me a bitch if I didn't shoot?

The other night, I came across two guys trying to blow open a safe. I waited until they got something done, and then I blasted them. And then I legitimately felt kinda bad when I realized they were African American. I don't need to be going back to 1899 and killing people already struggling.

Yeah, I'm reading too much into it. Blame Charles. He's the one who taught me to hunt in the first place.

Saw a man get hanged in Valentine, and his soon-to-be widow was wailing. I mean, fuck, I appreciate the realism, and I also appreciate Rockstar going, "Oh, so you thought this was a GAME, didya?"

But damn.

I loved this game, and it's one of the few of its type I totally plan to play again.

From memory, I want to say this one is OK to tackle blind (I think I did?). There's stuff you'll miss, but you'll still be channeled to all the important stuff and have a lot of chances to do stuff you missed, and regardless, there is soooo much to discover (fun stuff, funny stuff, weird stuff) on your own. In terms of robbin' and killin', I think it gives you a good deal of leeway how you want to play it. You'll have opportunities to help people, if you want, or you can be a jerk, if you want (though you don't want too many bounty hunters after you, and starting shit in towns is typically asking for trouble). Of course, as you already suspect, this game is pointing you in a particular (and particularly complex) moral direction, enhanced by the excellent characters and writing. I recall the game having some sort of goodness/morality meter, but I can't remember if it had any real effect.

Oh, also, the NPC dialogue is this game, just random man or woman on the street stuff, is so rich and detailed and full of personality. I don't think I ever got bored, because I was constantly hearing or seeing new things.

Played this a couple times this week after a two year hiatus. Good game

28.9% or something

I've had nights like that "Quiet Time" mission. Trying to avoid guy in bowler hat, standing rigid on the stairs, except in IRL, guy usually turns out to be a coat rack or something.