I put in around 20 or so hours, but I got so bored. Everything felt like a chore and I just wasn't having fun. Maybe I'll come back to in a month or so and try again.
What are your opinions on Red Dead Redemption 2 so far?
- Thread starter dscross
- Start date
I think the problem a lot of people have with the game is being too preoccupied with ?finishing it? like other action games, vs simply enjoying the journey and everything it offers along the way.
It ain?t meant to be rushed.
It ain?t meant to be rushed.
If you really want to, I'll spoil the name of the mission that ends chapter 2. If you go on the map and focus on Dutch's icon the name of the mission will show up and you'll know if you're ending the chapter by accepting it.hanselthecaretaker said:
It's A Strange Kindness.
Except with Red Dead 2 you can see where it's going a mile away, and dragging it out isn't adding anything other than another 10-minute long horse ride followed by yet another shoot-out. And the story keeps repeating itself, with Dutch's arrogance causing some powerful individual to get pissed, and making the whole gang have to move again, usually due to some robbery that went bad.. again. And yes, I know the story is supposed to show this gang go to pieces under Dutch's guidance, but the way it's structured leaves very little to be surprised about.hanselthecaretaker said:
The intro itself is two and a half hours long, and for what - to find out how to ride, shoot, hunt, and skin? Rockstar has never known how to pace a game, but RDR2 takes the cake.
To very briefly summarise:
Single player campaign - Excellent. Well written characters that have geniune relationships with one another. An enjoyable campaign that unfortunately ended up too soon, although that is kinda my fault. I misread where the story was headed and plowed through what turned out to be the last 3rd of the story thinking I would simply be unlocking the next chapter. I could wax lyrical about the single player for ages, but as you can see I have an axe to grind first ...
Online multiplayer - Crap. The same open world sandbox with missions scattered around the place that we got with GTA:O (which is good), but forced into public servers with no option for private lobbies (which is bad), so if you and your friends fancy duking it out in the Old West you'd better be prepared to have random monkeys jump in on every little piece of action. Want to collect a bounty? Prepare to be griefed. Want to rob a train? Prepare to be griefed. Want to save a town from bandits? Griefed. Horse race from Blackwater to Saint Denis? Griefed. Buffalo hunting? Griefed. Treasure hunting? *Definitely* gonna get griefed. Hell, even riding from camp to a mission trigger point ends up in a running gun battle between you and every XBL troll within three miles.
Single player campaign - Excellent. Well written characters that have geniune relationships with one another. An enjoyable campaign that unfortunately ended up too soon, although that is kinda my fault. I misread where the story was headed and plowed through what turned out to be the last 3rd of the story thinking I would simply be unlocking the next chapter. I could wax lyrical about the single player for ages, but as you can see I have an axe to grind first ...
Online multiplayer - Crap. The same open world sandbox with missions scattered around the place that we got with GTA:O (which is good), but forced into public servers with no option for private lobbies (which is bad), so if you and your friends fancy duking it out in the Old West you'd better be prepared to have random monkeys jump in on every little piece of action. Want to collect a bounty? Prepare to be griefed. Want to rob a train? Prepare to be griefed. Want to save a town from bandits? Griefed. Horse race from Blackwater to Saint Denis? Griefed. Buffalo hunting? Griefed. Treasure hunting? *Definitely* gonna get griefed. Hell, even riding from camp to a mission trigger point ends up in a running gun battle between you and every XBL troll within three miles.
See, I thought there'd be another few chapters before the end. I could seeCasual Shinji said:
the inevitable showdown with Micah coming a mile off, but I thought Arthur's TB would mean that the group *did* head west, as promised. We had all of these cutscenes about the group wanting to head west, the old nun from Saint Denis catching the train down to New Austin where the climate was much drier, Arthur's doctor telling him he needed to get somehwere less humid to alleviate his symptoms, and the fact that at this point the whole New Austin part of the map was still completely undiscovered. I genuinely thought we'd have a chapter or two of Arthur heading west into New Austin (perhaps pursuing a fleeing Micah).
Thanks, I?ll look out for that. Hoping I can still do the honor/homestead robbery side missions without backtracking hours.Johnny Novgorod said:
It?s practically impossible to ?pace? an open world game. Players need to go into them expecting that there will always be more activity surrounding the storyline than that itself. I?m almost 20 hours in and have barely even considered the story in the midst of all the hunting, treasure seeking, horse scouting, crafting, bounty hunting, escaping, exploring, etc. It?s just kind of ?Oh...right...there?s something supposed to be happening here at some point.?Casual Shinji said:
But yeah, enjoying the setting and style of game design is paramount to it not feeling like a slog.
I just tried the online last night to take advantage of this. [https://www.gamespot.com/articles/red-dead-2-online-update-adds-free-money-and-gold-/1100-6463712/].Grouchy Imp said:
I?m normally not a fan of multiplayer due to the time sink element to be competitive along with an erratic playtime schedule, but I could see going back to it when the kinks are workout out. I like the character I made and there looks to be some good variety to it. Even as-is I haven?t had a problem with griefing as you say, but I?m on PSN (if that even matters). I wonder how well this idea [https://www.esquire.com/uk/latest-news/a25434478/red-dead-redemption-2-online-players-have-found-a-way-to-identify-evil-gamers/] will pan out down the road.
That's a cool little idea, I'll look out for that in future matches. Cheers for the heads up.hanselthecaretaker said:
Sure, it's hard, but in the last two generations great strides have been taken to improve upon open-world pacing, strides Rockstar continues to ignore.hanselthecaretaker said:
A good thing to have for example is to allow the player to activate quests/missions without completely locking them into it (and out of other missions) until it's finished. In games like Skyrim, The Witcher 3, Horizon: Zero Dawn, and Breath of the Wild you can just collect missions indefinitely and finish them whenever you get close to the objective, or drop them, do something else, and then pick up where you left off later. It gives the player a great sense of freedom in how to approach quests, something that fits neatly with how an open-world should generally make you feel. Even the recent God of War did this, and it's not even an open-world really.
In RDR2 however, when you start a (main) quest you are gated into that quest from beginning to end, and any deviation will result in a mission failed, like it's still the PS2 days. My first mission once I got out of the snow, I accidentally hit a random guy on horseback with my cart and was visited by an instant 'mission failed', because 'don't attract the law'. It makes the missions feel so strict and railrouded, making me wonder what the point is of setting it in an open-world. And it also adds to the incessant back and forth traveling that plagues Rockstar's games, but the Red Dead franchise in particular, since you don't have access to a car.
Other open-world games have pretty much left Rockstar in the dust in terms of mechanical design and narrative pacing, and all they have to show anymore is how much more money by comparison they've pumped into they're overly stuffed gameworld.
I hardly took care of Arthur, the horse or the weapons at all and you get through the game fine without really noticing much. It's certainly not as complicated as the stuff you need to keep track in RPGs which are often required in order to complete them.CritialGaming said:
I found the slow pace more broadly with the horse riding similar to RDR1 so I think it was pretty obvious what to expect going in. It's like going into a GTA game and saying it's too violent. You know what expect going in.
I think you're plagiarizing my posts, haha. I've been saying Rockstar's linear mission design doesn't merit the open worlds they create. What's the point of the open world when you can't go "off script" finding different solutions to the objectives the game's missions give the player? Why not just make linear game along the lines of Uncharted if your mission structure is going to be as linear? You can go back to GTA3's generation and find a game (Mercenaries) that just blows Rockstar's game mission structure out of the water.Casual Shinji said:
It's never been great, but RDR2 puts a giant magnifying glass over it. It's also just stupifying how they refuse to implement control/quality of life improvements that other games have. And it has nothing to do with adding to the realism, since Horizon: Zero Dawn and God of War show you can have realistic graphics and generally grounded animation, and still have snappy input. Heck, I went back to The Last of Us after dropping RDR2-- itself a relatively slow moving game -- and it was like coming up for air, with how well that controlled by comparison.Phoenixmgs said:
Casual Shinji said:
Here it makes sense though even moreso than GTA, because Arthur is not a snappily moving guy. It plays into the theme of how the pace of life generally was for that time period. It?s pointless going into RDR2 thinking it?ll control like a dino-bot hunting game, similar to how it was with people complaining about The Last Guardian?s controls. It may not be everyone?s cup of tea but numerous examples are available of both being perfectly playable.
For example, it?s actually kinda jarring seeing something like this [https://i.imgur.com/MHt9Hv6.mp4] happen when the rest of the game is so immersive and grounded. But at the same time it?s shows how playable it can be.
I'd say it makes as much sense as not being able to kick psychos off you in Outlast, which is to say none at all. And once actions in-game feel more sluggish or weaker than they do in your day-to-day life than that's a problem. Like the aforementioned Outlast, or Breath of the Wild where you can't swim for more than 30 seconds before drowning. I haven't swam in more than a decade, and I could swim better than Link in that game.hanselthecaretaker said:
And in RDR2 nearly every action feels that way. Even something as simple as grabbing various items from a shelf feels like it's being performed by someone who just woke up from a 6 month coma. RDR2 prides itself on its realism, but it's very unrealistic in how sluggish these mundane actions are to perform. In real life you don't have to wait for a circle icon to fill up to pick up a pen, you just see it and you quickly grab it. In The Last of Us if you open a drawer and grab its contents you don't see Joel pick up each individual item, hold it in his hand, and then pocket it, his hand simply moves across it or near it and done. Sure it's not realistic looking, but your brain fills in the blanks. All that matters is that the action feels as quick and simple as it would in real life.
No, not every action has to be snappy, but there needs to be enough to give the player the idea they can make their way through the gameworld relatively quickly, should they wish to do so. The only thing that's fast in RDR2 is the horse riding, and when you're on one it usually means you'll be riding for the next 10 minutes, making that speed feel meaningless.
'Realism' and 'slow pacing' should not equate to 'cumbersome'.
Casual Shinji said:
Understandable, but ultimately a case of ?to each their own?. You?re clearly exaggerating with the coma and horse riding time comments, so it?s a futile argument here. I appreciate the deliberate nature found in RDR2?s actions, because it isn?t really done elsewhere; at least not to that level. The circle fill is also there to avoid accidentally picking things up you didn?t mean to. Horizon: ZD handled this well too.
I can enjoy the pace and mechanics of both games equally, because I go into them acclimated to their differences. Ironically I?d often get more frustrated with Horizon: ZD?s gameplay because of its superior responsiveness. It?s far easier to act hastily in that game because the responsiveness facilitates it. In RDR2, the action never really approaches that level, and I?ve already prepared myself for that going in. An even better example of this would be the Souls series.