• Hey, guest user. Hope you're enjoying NeoGAF! Have you considered registering for an account? Come join us and add your take to the daily discourse.

Red Dead Redemption II |OT| Who knew horse testicles had such a crunch?

Hinedorf

Banned


This is so fucking awesome, thank you I'll be playing this at work regularly

For those that may not want to listen to it all I'd say check it at 15:07 - Who the hell is Leviticus Cornwell

You'll notice Woody Jackson playing guitar

45:40 - The Wheel (That fantastic load music you hear every time)
 
Last edited:

GermanZepp

Member
Hi folks, last friday i finished RDR2 so now i can share some thoughts.

1 - The game is designed in a way that you 99.9% you have do the main missions and follow the story(s). Mainly cause fast travel restrictions and the gimped open world mechanics.
2- Main Story mission is when the game truly shines. Those have better music, writing and a predefined lighting that was always on point. Amazing stuff for shure.
3- The "wandering" and crafting systems by hunting and gathering was a huge step back from the first game. Managing inventory and consumables absolutely irrelevant. A wasted opportunity. I would love upgrade my equipment bag, etc, but the time and effort don't match the reward.
4- The cinematic camera was fantastic.
 

6 month later review that discusses many of this games issues in long winded form. Relatively well written and captures a few good points though I don't agree with all. Recommend skimming to the examples and skipping the prose.

Months ago I planned to write a big scathing review for this game after I finished it but I just couldn't justify wasting another moment of my life for what I consider to be one of the worst designed games of the last several generations. Top to bottom terrible and obviously bad design decisions everywhere.

It is a travesty and embarrassment that critics rewarded the developers with the highest marks and praise. Fuck story and characters, it's overrated for this game anyways. Gameplay is king and this game sucks shit. The end.
 

Terenty

Member

6 month later review that discusses many of this games issues in long winded form. Relatively well written and captures a few good points though I don't agree with all. Recommend skimming to the examples and skipping the prose.

Months ago I planned to write a big scathing review for this game after I finished it but I just couldn't justify wasting another moment of my life for what I consider to be one of the worst designed games of the last several generations. Top to bottom terrible and obviously bad design decisions everywhere.

It is a travesty and embarrassment that critics rewarded the developers with the highest marks and praise. Fuck story and characters, it's overrated for this game anyways. Gameplay is king and this game sucks shit. The end.

This game has a huge world with zero copy paste filler (except for some random events, though it happens rarely) with tons of hand crafted places/events, life like interactions in the camp, absolutely gorgeous graphics that shit even on linear games and incredible animations.
It just has tons of unique and quality content that make other games pale in comparison. So yeah it absolutely deserves to be called one of the best games of the generation.
 

Catphish

Member

6 month later review that discusses many of this games issues in long winded form. Relatively well written and captures a few good points though I don't agree with all. Recommend skimming to the examples and skipping the prose.

Months ago I planned to write a big scathing review for this game after I finished it but I just couldn't justify wasting another moment of my life for what I consider to be one of the worst designed games of the last several generations. Top to bottom terrible and obviously bad design decisions everywhere.

It is a travesty and embarrassment that critics rewarded the developers with the highest marks and praise. Fuck story and characters, it's overrated for this game anyways. Gameplay is king and this game sucks shit. The end.
If you were right, I would agree with you.
 
i've not touched this game since launch. played like maybe 5 hours and stopped.

i want to give it another shot but i'm kinda hoping they'll announce the PC version so i can just play it there. i could just go play it on PS4.
 

KyoZz

Tag, you're it.
Soundtrack is out



FINALLY

FlamboyantHoarseCondor-size_restricted.gif
 

ruvikx

Banned


There are some funky glitches in this game. I was up north in the snowy area looking for someone's friend (he was eaten by either a bear or wolves I believe, i.e. in one of the numerous stranger encounter side quests). I found him, but his body suddenly vanished.
 

Zimmy68

Member
i've not touched this game since launch. played like maybe 5 hours and stopped.

i want to give it another shot but i'm kinda hoping they'll announce the PC version so i can just play it there. i could just go play it on PS4.
Same here. What is strange, I enjoyed it while I was playing it but after awhile I had little desire to load it up again, I moved onto AC Odyssey and never got back to RDR2.
The travel mechanics where you would have to ride 20 minutes back to your safehouse after a mission to gear up just killed it for me.
 

makaveli60

Member
I have finally finished the game. Not because I didn't enjoy it but because I enjoyed it so much that I had to take my time with it and see (almost) everything it has to offer (though I don't have too much freetime nowadays to play). If someone accidentally remembers my earlier comments then they know that I was amazed by this masterpiece even from the beginning. I can only say the same now, it is unbelieveable what Rockstar has created, I cannot imagine we will get a more impressive game in the near future. It's simply perfect IMO. I hope GTA VI will be similar to this and they don't listen to the haters.
 
Well there goes my 35+ daily challenge streak, thanks to that reset bug. I sent rockstar an email but all I got back was "we're looking into it".
 
Last edited:
I have finally finished the game. Not because I didn't enjoy it but because I enjoyed it so much that I had to take my time with it and see (almost) everything it has to offer (though I don't have too much freetime nowadays to play). If someone accidentally remembers my earlier comments then they know that I was amazed by this masterpiece even from the beginning. I can only say the same now, it is unbelieveable what Rockstar has created, I cannot imagine we will get a more impressive game in the near future. It's simply perfect IMO. I hope GTA VI will be similar to this and they don't listen to the haters.

I agree with this completely, I finished a couple weeks ago, I took my time to play through as much as I could find and figure out, from dino bones, to stranger missions, to investigating things I had heard about and I loved every minute of it. RDR2 moves up to my fav game of this generation so far but will have stiff competition when FFVII R comes out.

The level of detail in everything is what makes this game shine to me, its not perfect by any means but for an open world game its truly raised the bar of what can be brought into an open world sandbox and I think even the people who didn't care for it have to agree with that. I love the sense of discovery in this game from the Chinese people building the railroad, the random people you'll come across, the crazy things you'll see in the south to the super natural aspects and eerie sense of discovery that brings.

I'm playing online abit now, messed around in the beta and to my surprise its pretty quiet in there but I'm playing anyways and started as a bounty hunter. I've investigated some of the stuff about zombies and seen the greenish/ yellow eyes on dead bodies. A woman who was sitting around storefront (I dont remember which store) in Armadillo started talking about 'the brain sickness' and how I should 'get out of town' which for me personally was good enough to pretty much confirm Undead Nightmare 2. I really hope they do a single player story like with the original Undead Nightmare, seeing that these greenish/ yellow eyes have been seen in the single player story too, I think they will do a single player thing, all I need is a confirmation of physical edition for that, once it officially rolls out.
 
Last edited:
Great game! Alsmost finished it half a year ago, but got destructed by exams. Hope to finish it in nearest future. Hope even more to play it on PC. I didn't quite like how RockStar deals with their plots and doesn't let players to make choices. But that was a minority while playing
 
i am giving this game another chance...

3rd time lucky, hopefully. I originally started it on PS4 at launch but gave up. I was then waiting for the PC version but that is a god damn mess. It stutters like hell and I can't figure out how to fix it. So, I'm going back to the PS4 version.

If I give up this time then that's it. I'm done with it. I can't bring myself to play through that first chapter again.

The only reason I'm giving it another chance is because I have nothing else to play until 20th March when Animal Crossing + Doom come out.
 
Last edited by a moderator:

-Arcadia-

Banned
Enjoying this on GamePass thus far. With a lot of the criticism out there for a year now, I got to adjust my expectations coming in, and... it’s really fun like that. I’m still really early, so we’ll see.

One thing that strikes me though, is just how gorgeous the game is. Not so much in the early snow area (although the deformation and nighttime lighting in HDR are amazing), but when you get to what I presume to be the game proper. The plains and lakes and hills and forests stretching out for miles were so amazing, I genuinely just had to walk for a while and soak it in.

We’re so fortunate to have games that look like this these days. I genuinely imagine this isn’t far off an interactive version (if heavily romanticized) of what the world really was like back then, and that’s pretty special, to be able to explore a bygone era.

Maybe I’m making a bit much of it, but you can kind of see what I’m getting at.
 

DeepEnigma

Gold Member
Enjoying this on GamePass thus far. With a lot of the criticism out there for a year now, I got to adjust my expectations coming in, and... it’s really fun like that. I’m still really early, so we’ll see.

One thing that strikes me though, is just how gorgeous the game is. Not so much in the early snow area (although the deformation and nighttime lighting in HDR are amazing), but when you get to what I presume to be the game proper. The plains and lakes and hills and forests stretching out for miles were so amazing, I genuinely just had to walk for a while and soak it in.

We’re so fortunate to have games that look like this these days. I genuinely imagine this isn’t far off an interactive version (if heavily romanticized) of what the world really was like back then, and that’s pretty special, to be able to explore a bygone era.

Maybe I’m making a bit much of it, but you can kind of see what I’m getting at.

Agreed. I play the game every day now, and still soak in all the sights and sounds. I love it!

As close as we get to a Westworld, for now.
 
Last edited:

Shrap

Member

6 month later review that discusses many of this games issues in long winded form. Relatively well written and captures a few good points though I don't agree with all. Recommend skimming to the examples and skipping the prose.

Months ago I planned to write a big scathing review for this game after I finished it but I just couldn't justify wasting another moment of my life for what I consider to be one of the worst designed games of the last several generations. Top to bottom terrible and obviously bad design decisions everywhere.

It is a travesty and embarrassment that critics rewarded the developers with the highest marks and praise. Fuck story and characters, it's overrated for this game anyways. Gameplay is king and this game sucks shit. The end.
I wouldn't go that far but I think reviewers should be called out on their very generous review scores. It's sitting at a 97 on metacritic (GTA V conveniently being the only other game this gen to share that score on PS4/XBONE) which is suspect given the amount of articles websites have published criticising the game for its numerous shortcomings. Are some reviewers too cowardly to mark it down where it actually counts? Are they pressured to score it high?

This is not to undermine those that genuinely love this game; I'm sure many of the reviewers do and I have no issue with them scoring it high. But this game does have many faults and it's certainly not for everybody, and I have no doubt at least a few reviewers struggled with the game due to boredom, poor controls and bad game mechanics. This isn't reflected in the scoring, however, and the weight placed upon metacritic scores by devs/publishers really has me second guessing how genuine many of the reviews/scores are. It's important to note that Rockstar doesn't care how many articles are published that point out problems the game has since they have no bearing on the metascore. Journalists are well aware of this.

A 97 on metacritic leaves it as one of the highest scoring games of all time with universal acclaim. Universal acclaim is most definitely not how it has been received with the wider community nor with journalists after the fact.
 
Last edited:

makaveli60

Member
I wouldn't go that far but I think reviewers should be called out on their very generous review scores. It's sitting at a 97 on metacritic (GTA V conveniently being the only other game this gen to share that score on PS4/XBONE) which is suspect given the amount of articles websites have published criticising the game for its numerous shortcomings. Are some reviewers too cowardly to mark it down where it actually counts? Are they pressured to score it high?

This is not to undermine those that genuinely love this game; I'm sure many of the reviewers do and I have no issue with them scoring it high. But this game does have many faults and it's certainly not for everybody, and I have no doubt at least a few reviewers struggled with the game due to boredom, poor controls and bad game mechanics. This isn't reflected in the scoring, however, and the weight placed upon metacritic scores by devs/publishers really has me second guessing how genuine many of the reviews/scores are. It's important to note that Rockstar doesn't care how many articles are published that point out problems the game has since they have no bearing on the metascore. Journalists are well aware of this.

A 97 on metacritic leaves it as one of the highest scoring games of all time with universal acclaim. Universal acclaim is most definitely not how it has been received with the wider community nor with journalists after the fact.
But why is it that some of you can't accept the fact that not everyone thinks that the controls were bad for example? I had no issues with them, they added to the realism the game provided. I honestly can't think of anything that was objectively bad in the game.
 
Last edited:

Shrap

Member
But why is it that some of you can't accept the fact that not everyone thinks that the controls were bad for example? I had no issues with them, they added to the realism the game provided. I honestly can't think of anything that was objectively bad in the game.
The same button to aim your weapon is also used to talk to someone. To talk to someone while riding on a horse you have to hold a button, look at that person, hold down a shoulder button and then select a dialogue option. That is absurdly convoluted and unintuitive, and it's just one example. The shooting is also incredibly bad; it's slow, imprecise and a nightmare on horseback. Not to mention crazy small windows for interaction on certain objects like hitching your horse, drinking some coffee or selecting one item when a few are together. The last mission I played I could not pick up a quest item until I picked up a random hat next to it. It's no big deal on it's own but it happens so often it gets annoying fast.

Even cinematic mode has issues. The one time you think you can sit back while your horse follows the set path. But no, last night the horse ran straight into a rock and died, another time it ran into a carriage and another time it went straight off a bridge and killed us both.

There are so many obvious issues, and even if you can deal with them or think they somehow add to the "realism" they should be brought up in reviews or else Rockstar will not look to improve upon them.
 

D3SCHA1N

Member
The same button to aim your weapon is also used to talk to someone. To talk to someone while riding on a horse you have to hold a button, look at that person, hold down a shoulder button and then select a dialogue option. That is absurdly convoluted and unintuitive, and it's just one example. The shooting is also incredibly bad; it's slow, imprecise and a nightmare on horseback. Not to mention crazy small windows for interaction on certain objects like hitching your horse, drinking some coffee or selecting one item when a few are together. The last mission I played I could not pick up a quest item until I picked up a random hat next to it. It's no big deal on it's own but it happens so often it gets annoying fast.

Even cinematic mode has issues. The one time you think you can sit back while your horse follows the set path. But no, last night the horse ran straight into a rock and died, another time it ran into a carriage and another time it went straight off a bridge and killed us both.

There are so many obvious issues, and even if you can deal with them or think they somehow add to the "realism" they should be brought up in reviews or else Rockstar will not look to improve upon them.

Categorically untrue and if that is what you've been doing you've been making the controls more convoluted than they are. So long as you don't have a weapon in your hand, it's as simple as holding LT/ L2, or presumably right mouse button, to focus on an NPC and then pressing a button to interact with them. No more convoluted than the inputs it takes to aim & shoot. That is all there is to it in every context of interacting with an NPC, LT to focus and a button to either greet or antagonize with an occasional 3rd option to help or give medicine etc. LT is only aiming a weapon if you have a weapon equipped. This is hardly the first game to give buttons dual contextual purposes.

Additionally I'd argue that RDR2 is the first game I've ever seen that actively addressed the multiple items able to be picked up at once issue numerous games have. When there are a number of items in close proximity that can be interacted with, but you want a specific item, you get an indication to tap RB (or whatever the cover button is) to cycle through what you want to interact with, I've not seen another game even make an effort to address the issue.
 

Shrap

Member
Categorically untrue and if that is what you've been doing you've been making the controls more convoluted than they are. So long as you don't have a weapon in your hand, it's as simple as holding LT/ L2, or presumably right mouse button, to focus on an NPC and then pressing a button to interact with them. No more convoluted than the inputs it takes to aim & shoot. That is all there is to it in every context of interacting with an NPC, LT to focus and a button to either greet or antagonize with an occasional 3rd option to help or give medicine etc. LT is only aiming a weapon if you have a weapon equipped. This is hardly the first game to give buttons dual contextual purposes.

Additionally I'd argue that RDR2 is the first game I've ever seen that actively addressed the multiple items able to be picked up at once issue numerous games have. When there are a number of items in close proximity that can be interacted with, but you want a specific item, you get an indication to tap RB (or whatever the cover button is) to cycle through what you want to interact with, I've not seen another game even make an effort to address the issue.
No. It's categorically true. Exactly as I described. You have to hold the gallop button to make sure you are moving with them, look at them, hold the shoulder button down to focus on them and then select the dialogue option.
 

D3SCHA1N

Member
No. It's categorically true. Exactly as I described. You have to hold the gallop button to make sure you are moving with them, look at them, hold the shoulder button down to focus on them and then select the dialogue option.

I'm reading that out, and seeing that it is more or less accurate and yet it sounds more complex than it feels in game. Kinda like you can make anything sound complicated if you describe every little nuance, even though most of it is so instinctual you'd never give it a moment's thought. For instance it's not like if you take your finger off the A/ X button you'll instantaneously fall too far behind to interact with another character. You can easily make the camera movement and hold LT / L2 to focus on them without losing a step, then press the button for your dialog of choice.

I've never felt it was overly cumbersome and in the moments where the game sort of wants you to talk to someone you're riding with it just gives you the prompt to hold LT to open the option without even having to face them, not that a slight camera adjustment is difficult to do. I'm not saying it's the most responsive & intuitive game in the world but there are certainly games with far worse controls that people still shower with praise....
 
Last edited:

makaveli60

Member
The same button to aim your weapon is also used to talk to someone. To talk to someone while riding on a horse you have to hold a button, look at that person, hold down a shoulder button and then select a dialogue option. That is absurdly convoluted and unintuitive, and it's just one example. The shooting is also incredibly bad; it's slow, imprecise and a nightmare on horseback. Not to mention crazy small windows for interaction on certain objects like hitching your horse, drinking some coffee or selecting one item when a few are together. The last mission I played I could not pick up a quest item until I picked up a random hat next to it. It's no big deal on it's own but it happens so often it gets annoying fast.

Even cinematic mode has issues. The one time you think you can sit back while your horse follows the set path. But no, last night the horse ran straight into a rock and died, another time it ran into a carriage and another time it went straight off a bridge and killed us both.

There are so many obvious issues, and even if you can deal with them or think they somehow add to the "realism" they should be brought up in reviews or else Rockstar will not look to improve upon them.
This is the only part with which I can agree with, but it's such a small problem compared to what this game provides. I also like that the shooting is imprecise. This is also closer to realism than other games where you can just shoot for half a minute without any movement of the hand and the weapon with perfect precision. So in the end what I said is still valid I think, some of us like it the way it is and it is wrong to highlight these as objectively bad things. I for one, want Rockstar to stay on this route for GTA VI for example and I'm glad the reviewers didn't bitch about these. Though many people do online, so I think your opinion will be the one that they take into account, unfortunately for me.
 
I'm reading that out, and seeing that it is more or less accurate and yet it sounds more complex than it feels in game. Kinda like you can make anything sound complicated if you describe every little nuance, even though most of it is so instinctual you'd never give it a moment's thought. For instance it's not like if you take your finger off the A/ X button you'll instantaneously fall too far behind to interact with another character. You can easily make the camera movement and hold LT / L2 to focus on them without losing a step, then press the button for your dialog of choice.

I've never felt it was overly cumbersome and in the moments where the game sort of wants you to talk to someone you're riding with it just gives you the prompt to hold LT to open the option without even having to face them, not that a slight camera adjustment is difficult to do. I'm not saying it's the most responsive & intuitive game in the world but there are certainly games with far worse controls that people still shower with praise....
Such as?
 
S

Steve.1981

Unconfirmed Member
The game's controls are cumbersome & unintuitive. You can either accept & work around that, or just give up. But it's not really possible to deny the reality of the situation.

I still loved it. I just did a couple of things to make the whole experience more manageable. Like always using first-person view when looting, especially indoors. Always using Dead Eye when forced into a shootout on horseback. Taking deliberate care to avoid hitting into people in towns, because they're all a bunch of snowflakes who will freak the fuck out & scream bloody murder. Stuff like that.
 

D3SCHA1N

Member

Metal Gear V for one...

I dunno, I mean maybe to me the controls just made sense, they didn't seem overly complicated at all. When I just slowed down and stopped trying to do everything as fast as possible and stopped expecting the game to just let me blast through towns with reckless abandon it just made sense the way things were. If someone is annoyed that focusing on an NPC is done with the same input as aiming when they've a weapon drawn I'd inquire what they believe would be a more intuitive input for that action without negatively impacting any of the other existing controls. Within the confines of the controller it's the input combination that is the most natural (i.e. intuitive) imo... I do think Rockstar could stand to address character responsiveness, but to be fair I'll take a weighty character over a floaty one any day...
 
Last edited:

GymWolf

Gold Member
Controls in that game are trash of the highest order and it is my 2018 goty so not exactly an hater here...
 
Last edited:
Top Bottom