I should have known better, as the whole cowboy genre is terrible as fuck. Westerns (as boomer Americans call the genre) have the slowest dialogue, the corniest patriarchal story-line, and are obviously filled with a heap ton of other problematic bits. Of course, I had to try as the game got great reviews. I thought I’d try it with the Steam summer sale.
Fuckkkkkkkk the long boring ass cut scenes. OMG pls talk faster and have dialogue that’s interesting. The beginning of the game is just 30 minutes of video and riding your horse so slowly through the snow. I thought that my TikTok brain couldn’t stand some old slow game from a bygone era, but I’m checking this shit and it was released in 2018!
If I was some prat who loved the mythology of the “settling of the west”, a game with a white dude on a horse on a mountain would get me hard. Why can’t more games be like Atomic Heart? I wanna defend the land of Stalin and have cut scenes with good dialogue a talking glove that debates theory and a sexy refrigerator that probably wants to murder me.
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Three paragraphs!? How is anyone supposed to read all
i liked it, but i didn’t even touch the previous games, so i lacked a lot of context. I wanted to like red dead online a lot better, being able to play as a lady was really cool - the character creator was robust enough that I made someone who looked like a genuine ancestor to me, and that was cool, if only because one side of my family genuinely went west in the 19th century but managed to be as unproblematic in deed as was possible for a white person, and it was cool to larp that experience.
but the main game is like… “i’m an old man now” subgenre of Thing, like the God of War games - that shit sucks - and it’s also like, broadly about the closing of the frontier, which could’ve been interesting, but because it’s such a direct parallel of the “i’m an old man now” subgenre, just for worldbuilding, it’s pretty much only cool if you have some kind of ability to relate to that, and are comfortable doing so.
personally i’m a really gay trans woman, so it’s hard to wanna pick that shit up and finish it because aside from the janky and micro-transaction-expensive online portion of the game, there’s nothing in this game for me.
The first game doesn’t bear much on the second. Many of the characters show up against but they’re much shallower and you get vastly less time with them. Rdr2 has much better writing and much deeper characterization and much more focus on the characters. The very first game, read dead revenge, has nothing in common except being set in a fanatsy version of “the west”.
Re; i’m an old man now, totes agree, it’s got a lot of “white man’s boredom” going on. both games are about the closing of the west, and John and Arthur’s stories both parallel that as each of them is seeing their way of life end as America completes it’s conquest of the west. Arthur contemplating what his life has amounted to, and struggling to reconcile the violence he’s done with the ideals he wants to believe in, is a stand in for America struggling to reckon with the disconnect between it’s mythology and the actual horrors it committed. John, Dutch, and Josiah have a weird maiden mother crone thing going for Arthur in that they represent a better past, a destabilizing presence, and some kind of hope for a future.
You never get much perspective from the women in the group, and while the game does try to give perspective from various subaltern groups there can be a long time between those moments and a lot of Dutch ranting and Arthur being sad. Sadie is pretty cool, though. From “oh no my husband and my life” to “murder is cool and i like wearing pants”
I’m an old man“i’m an old man now” subgenre,
Good point. I’m really not into this boomer “why isn’t the world made for me anymore” trope.
You’re complaining because someone made something you aren’t the target market for?
Log off
ETA - g*mers get the wall
Disengage
I enjoyed it a lot, and also saying that atomic heart has better dialogue made me chuckle, so thanks for that!
My critiques of the game
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the story is at odds with the gameplay. Arthur belongs in a slow burn Coen Brother’s anti-western with very little shooting and a few moment’s of shocking violence. The gameplay is gta on horses
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way way too unfocused. Like you said, many parts of the game drag. There’s far too much side content and it’s easy to lose track of what’s even happening in the story. Way too many systems - quasi rpg elements, a huge and mostly irrelevant inventory, fishing.
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what no theory does to a mf’er. Rockstar is clearly flirting with Dutch as an illegalist or egoist anarchist, but they can’t or won’t commit to actually talking theory and the game loses much of it’s potential as social commentary because of that. They could have said a hell of a lot more if they actually explicitly discussed different theories of anarchism and how Dutch’s predatory fake Anarchism contrasts with contemporary Anarchist and communist movements, and how his theory fails in the face of encroaching industrial capital
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you can’t fucking shoot micah. Dude’s such a goddamn albatross and he’s out of line with the rest of the gang. I don’t think he was needed as a character for the plot and i think he detracts from the gang’s charicterization and Dutch and Arthur’s dynamic.
I apologize to once again to keep my bullshit going but to your point about Dutch’s characterization (which I think nails him to a tee) I think he was written a faux (some kind of) radical intentionally but not because of some lack of theory (but this could still also be true) but for both finishing up Arthur’s arc when he realizes he’s full of shit and setting his character up to make sense retroactively for RDR1 as a villain for Marston.
Agreed. I think Dutch is brilliant. He is absolutely an Egoist and has essentially recontextualized American self-mythology to justify doing the same shit that the bourgeoise do. Not in a “revolutions are bad cause they just become the tyrant” way, but in the sense that Dutch witnesses real suffering and horrors, takes note, on some level does care, but still cannot kill this BS idea of the American Dream. He is “I’m not like other girls” but as a gunslinger. We see it in how he never really interacts with the workers we see suffering, he never really interacts with the immigrant communities, he never really interacts with the Natives. He cares on some level for their plights, but he will use them as excuses, as cover for his own schemes.
he is like those people in the early days of the Russian Revolution who joined anarchist orgs just to be criminals and had to be purged by said orgs and led to a bunch of distrust
True. It would be rad it you were fighting some bigger power. Fighting personal demons for dozens of hours gets tiring.
You quite literally fight a giant colonial Spanish warship that’s sent in to assist a private company to kill you after you help (presumably socialist) Cuban slaves rebel in a sugar plantation
I think they are confirmed socialist, but they are more an expy of Puerto Rico than Cuban. that warship is Cuban actually. Dont ask me how that makes sense
The only source for the socialism is a one off comment made by gusanos while hanging the slaves. It’s never really explored upon whether they were actually socialists or it was just a red scare, but i’ll choose to believe they’re socialists.
I mean this is 1899, LatAm socialists are not super prominent or common at the time, certainly not in armed revolts yet. I read it as more serious. I mean yeah maybe it is a callback to Landon Ricketts in RDR calling John a socialist. Though in that context you also had a revolution happening around them which once again the military call socialists. We do get more of their political program which Reyes aside, is pretty socialist. The Guarma rebellion is likely based on the Cuban Revolutionary Party, the time lines right up and said party fought in Puerto Rico as well, which while not proclaiming itself socialist, was led by various figures who would form the Popular Socialist Party of Cuba decades later like Carlos Baliño
You do fight larger powers. You fight government agents, oil/sugar tycoons, and the industrialization of society.
Also you assist in a revolt on Not Cuba against some imperialists/gusanos.
Dude’s such a goddamn albatross and he’s out of line with the rest of the gang. I don’t think he was needed as a character for the plot and i think he detracts from the gang’s charicterization and Dutch and Arthur’s dynamic.
I agree with that. He’s s totally superfluous character, who seems to only exist to let Dutch off the hook to a degree.
what no theory does to a mf’er.
I actually made a post titled that here when i played it
I really love the game and story though. I’d disagree about it being unfocused or ill paced, but the nature of the medium allows the player to mess up the pacing to a degree - so its a hard point to argue, except i think that team did it better than anyone and you can see them learning over the years how to tell stories in that style of game.
but the nature of the medium allows the player to mess up the pacing to a degree
It’s a slow burn for sure, long game, but I felt like all the times RDR2 messes up the pacing is entirely unforced errors. So much of it was me not magically taking the golden line on my horse on the ever-present “ride and talk” phases that inexplicably require me to do shit despite nothing ever happening and having characters cut out in the middle of their sentence to go “We’re here now” or “Hey, wrong way!” 'cause I veered off 1° too much
I think that’s one of the biggest problems RDR2s story has. Just committ and pull MGS4 levels of cutscenes instead of this bullshit
Just committ and pull MGS4 levels of cutscenes instead of this bullshit
Dear gods no! Not that! I’d put up with it from Kojima, but only because MGS4 was great(despite being the lesser of those 4 games in my opinion).
I actually enjoy riding and talking, and i prefer it a million times over to a cutscene. That’s part of why the camp is so good! It allows story to be there without taking you out of being in the game. A lot like the codec from MGS - MGS3 (they really fumbled the codec and hiw you interact with it in 4 in favor of cutscenes)
But I also enjoyed the fishing, so we may just have different taste. I liked going out on a long fishing trip, going camping, doing some hunting. Afterwards, go into town and get a shave and trim, a nice meal, maybe gamble. Doing those things, for me, was part of the experience of rhe story. Not a separate thing. It was a chance to be Arthur, and live in that world for a bit. Go out and get money or hides for the camp to upgrade it, hang out with the gang etc.
I feel like the overall pace of the game is based on an idea of how most people interact with these kinds of games. I know when i play a game like this, the fitst thing i want to do is explore the world, and interact with all its mechanics. Thats why Chapter 2 at Horseshoe Overlook is perfect, in my opinion. Its fairly central in the map. The story stakes, despite being on the run, don’t feel as high. The attitude and atmosphere of the camp are I’d imagine similar to what it was before the Blackwater Ferry job.
That whole section lends itself to going off and expporing, gambling, doing challenges, fishing, hunting - and most important of all - getting Arthur a decent wardrobe and the facial hair/hair length situation you want. That’s why they tucked that gold in the burned down sheriff’s office just west of camp - they want you to buy some essential cosmetics for Arthur or maybe get you guns engraved, or saddles for your horse, whatever you care about most. That’s why most of the map is completely available from Chapter 2 on. You’re not really gated from too from the start because thats when most oeoole want to do those things.
The story and stakes, pick up steam and focus as you go. With each new camp things get more dire. And you want to engage more directly in the story.
That was a big thing that yeam learned. For ages video game stories would start off as focused and coherent and then completely lose the plot as they gradually let players off to do sude stuff. I feel like they learned to do things the opposite way and i feel it works better.
The camp is fine, at least that paint’s an atmosphere. The limited walk speed and some of them camp reactions when you cross the magic boundaries are kind of annoying at worst, but that’s it.
My problem is RDR2 already has MGS4 level amount of cutscenes with every mission startind and having middle parts of “ride your horse and talk”, except they’re all uncinematic and the pacing gets thrown off over the smallest things. It feels like trying to have your cake and eat it, too. Either make this interesting or engaging in gameplay, or at least use the very good looking world you’ve built and make it cinematic. Cowboy Desert Bus Talking simulator is just the worst combinations.
Well Dutch is already the epitome of what no theory does to a mf. He spouts platitudes and motivational speeches based on what he wants. The gang is largely illiterate/uneducated, on the run, and, well, gangsters. I don’t know much of organized crime groups during this era that cared much for any theory.
The story being at odds with the gameplay is such a common thing in a lot of these big budget popular games that I just sort of look past it now. Joel is a man who struggles with his morality while he’s racking up a triple digit body count and throwing Molotov cocktails at people’s groins. Am I doing the right thing? He wonders as he single-handedly wipes out a hospital full of people to make sure there’s no cure for an apocalyptic disease
Am I doing the right thing? He wonders as he single-handedly wipes out a hospital full of people to make sure there’s no cure for an apocalyptic disease
Well he didn’t care if it was the “right thing” because he wasn’t given any reasonable information to ponder about.
He was lied to, had a gun pointed to his head by his employer after keeping his end of the deal, and denied the chance of seeing his surrogate daughter before a vague, ominous medical procedure. Given that context, I would say he was a horrible person if he reacted any other way than killing everyone and rescuing Ellie.
Does Joel ponder about his morality at all? Maybe in the show but I can’t remember in the first game. He kind of stopped giving a shit about everything after his daughter died, and only regained his humanity in a handful of moments. Not to mention, it’s not completely unrealistic. How many soldiers have killed dozens of people and wondered if they did the right thing, then kept doing it anyway?
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Mods can fix your problems I think
Whole bunch of city slickers in here with a bunch of fancy opinions for why a game where you can shoot pinkertons in the face with exploding ammunition is not the best goldurn game of all time, I tell ya what. for all them $5 words I ain’t found a single opinion worth rubbing two nickels together for.
This but unironically
Lmao “this museum is so fucking boring”
Not even comparable and you should be ashamed trying to elevate playing a toy to the level of a visit to any museum worth its salt.
Uncultured.
Why did you take this personally?
I didn’t take it personally. I’m half joking (I do think it’s a silly comparison still).
Why are you up and down this thread taking up for the game? I’m not trying to be rude, but it seems like you’re taking it more personally than I am.
I said elsewhere in the thread. No game is perfect.
taking up for the game
I liked the game I thought that was obvious. I only asked because it didn’t seem like a comment worth getting mad about? I thought it was funny.
I’m half joking
Sure buddy
I get that you liked the game. (Yes it’s obvious) I like games that have been dissed here before as well. I don’t waste my time defending them in threads for an hour. Just kind of weird to identify so strongly with a piece of media (to me anyways)
Anyways you breaking down my post like some actual reddit guy with quotes tells me you’re at least somewhat mad.
So I’m going to end the convo here. Have a nice day chief
If you’re going to disengage then actually do it.
Can we at least be friends? I’m sorry.
I prefer Elden Ring and Bloodborne for my Modern games, you prefer Rdr2. That’s fine.
Chill out Reddit bro
I’m not being super serious. I do think your comparison is a bit silly imo, but you do you pal.
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I’ve tried to finish this game at least 4 times. It’s not the story that’s boring to me, but all of the mechanics designed to make you take your time. Holding a button to interact with EVERYTHING, yeah skinning animals is immersive but you don’t really need to sit through that animation EVERY single time??? Also, I don’t like the linearity of the missions. You don’t really get a lot of freedom to play differently. (That might just be a R* problem at this point). I still believe there’s a good game underneath all of this but I refuse to waste time with it anymore.
Ya the mechanics are fecking slow. The whole picking stuff up thing is so damn slow. Also why can’t I auto run?
yeah skinning animals is immersive
OK I’m glad I didn’t get to this
I honestly don’t know what they were thinking, because I am right with you. The first game was just that, a real tight video game whereas the sequel was trying too hard to be some kinda simulation and stumbled over the line of sim/fun into boring.
Maybe I should have played the first game.
The first game is very good and pretty different to the second game. You might like it better for sure.
If I didn’t finish it and connect to the story yeah I would look back on it as boring trash, but I ended up really liking arthur
Yep story and Arthur are the reason I love the game. I really hope the next rdr 2 is better in the gameplay department.
I doubt it will get better in a way that you and I may enjoy since most people seem to love the way it plays
I’ll turn you into a caulifower hombre
2long didn’t read, but the title is correct which is why I love the game. Yeah I’m gonna spend 5 minutes hunting a deer and then skin it lfg. Yeah I’m gonna ride out into nowhere to have a shootout with a guy I thought I was just gonna talk to lfg. What’s that you’re collecting rocks and want me to find some? Sure lfg
When you accidentally hit antagonize and there you go, murdering again.
Law Of The West on Amiga/NES is the superior cowboy townfolk antagonizing game.
I’ve given rdr2 two shots and I don’t get it. I don’t even hate the cut scenes that much, the gameplay just isn’t fun.
It’s not for everyone, but if you can get past the quirks it’s a game worth playing. Anytime I play once I get to horseshoe overlook I just go and do my own thing and explore the map and skip the missions until I feel like it.
Woah now.
Easy boy
You okay there?
Heh heh, that’s my boy. Yah! Yah!
Horse poop balls
