Red Dead Redemption 2 was one of my most anticipated games ever. I remember how exciting it was to play through the first game eight years ago. Robbing banks, searching for treasure, hunting, getting surprised by a bear attack. I got RDR2 and probably put around 100 hours into it. I loved my time in the world. And yet...I have complaints.
The shooting isn't that great or fun. This has been a complaint for a longtime with Rockstar games who do so many things well. Auto-aim isn't fun but the game is built for auto-aim. I turned it off and enjoyed the shooting more. But then I had to turn it on for some hunting challenges and then ended leaving it on as missions started sending 100 people to kill. It feels like you have to use auto-aim. (Personally, I think the game would be more interesting there was no auto aim and far less enemies. Make each death feel important.) Also, Dead Eye became unsatisfying and too easy. But you felt like you had to use it when 20 enemies are spawned at once.
The biggest complaint is probably the lack of freedom. Both in missions and overall. The missions force you to play in exactly the way the designers demand. Do you want to try to flank out wide and sneak around the back? Nope, you're too far outside the mission area. In the middle of a stealth section, do you see a chance to shoot enemies or create a diversion? Nope, you can only do stealth right now, even though in 5 seconds your character will create a diversion in a cut scene. This lack of freedom is also evident when you try to turn off the radar and discover it's impossible to complete a mission because you have to go to specific spots marked only on the map, as seen in this video.
This next complaint could apply to any game, but it's never really come up before. I didn't like the choices that my character was making in the story. But they never gave me options to do what I wanted.
Also the missions are repetitive, not just in this game but across all Rockstar games. How many times are we going to do something allegedly simple and then get surprised when it goes wrong and it turns into a shootout. If I was on the team, I would say next game we don't get to do that once. Then see how creative you can get to have different missions.
The honor system. First, it doesn't make sense to lose honor for killing/looting a body in the middle of nowhere with no witnesses. That would mean that honor is something that Arthur feels about himself. But shopkeepers treat you differently based upon your honor as if it's your reputation. The reality is that honor is a system outside the world of New Hanover and is a system for the video game. And the more times you're reminded it's a game, you lose immersion.
These next 4 complaints are slightly spoilery. You've been warned.
After you complete the game's story, you unlock an entire new section of the map. It's the map from the first game. This feels like a complete wasted opportunity. This area just feels super empty. No missions or anything really worth exploring. There's no reason why this map couldn't have been incorporated halfway though the story.
Unless of course, it was designed that way for continuity. Which leads me to my next complaint. You see, this is a prequel. And that causes all kinds of story problems. Especially when you have big missions that put people in danger...when you know those characters are alive in RDR. We know they make it. There's no tension there.
As for Arthur's story...I suppose it's subjective, but I didn't care for basically anything in Chapter 6.
ALSO, for all this love that Arthur gets as an amazing character, there really was never any tension in his story either. At one point, you're on a debt collecting mission and the options are (cancel the debt or cancel the debt and give them money). What if I don't want to cancel the debt?! The story makes you into a honorable person (who happens to have killed 1000 men).
So with all these complaints, why did I love my time in the game and play it so much? It does a lot of things right. The world is great. I loved the challenges, the hunting, the exploring, collecting treasure maps, upgrading my camp.
Except it manages to bungle that too...you get too much money so you can upgrade your camp fully pretty quickly on. And then the challenges are prickly. Collect 15 plants. Okay. Done. Now collect all 43. We won't give you credit for collecting the first 15 or have a system of telling you which ones you've already collected. So just wander around forever picking every plant you see. Now you've collected 22 plants. Good luck knowing which ones you still need to collect, we won't tell you.
If it was a shitty game, I'd say oh well and move on. But this game is great. So to see so many flaws in a game that is this good, is more frustrating than flaws in an average game.
I'd bet a lot of your complaints are rooted in the business models of games right now...all the money is in online and micro-transactions. A lot of games don't even bother with a serviceable single-player experience. I felt a lot of your frustration with GTA V's single-player mode too.
ReplyDeleteSo from that angle I'm glad Rockstar still puts some effort into single-player story and huge amounts of side things you can do to keep things interesting for a while. But you're right that I wish someone would spend the time and money to do it right. Like some hybrid of Rockstar's worlds with Hitman's ability to improvise in missions. That's a seriously enormous scope though.
I forgot to add more things that I loved. It was awesome wandering around not on a mission and I find this house. I go up and all of a sudden red dots appear on my map. This is a house full of enemies. So of course, I sneak around, kill some enemies, a shootout ensues, I kill everyone. Then I rob them and steal their best horse. That's a good time! I got to choose what I wanted to do and it let me do it!
ReplyDeleteLater one, I came across an NPC who was fixing his horse's shoes. The horse kicked and killed him. So I said I want that horse. I lassoed that horse and named him Murderhorse. I rode Murderhorse for the rest of the game. That's awesome. Every now and then I remembered my horse's origin story.
Early on, you meet someone who says he'll pay you for a stagecoach. Okay. Well, the next time I see a stagecoach, I'm like, let's see how much this is worth. So I rob these innocent people. That's fun!
As for Niraj's point, The Saboteur was a 3rd-person action game that let you attack missions in any way you wanted. I might have to play that again.
And Mafia 3, which I had some nitpicks about how you couldn't keep more guns than the two you were carrying, at least had magnificent shooting.
While we're on the subject, I would love less/shorter cut scenes in games. I'm good with characters talking as we're driving to the next mission. I especially liked in RDR2 when I had the option to choose what I wanted to talk about with characters.
ReplyDeleteBut yeah, it's a game. I want to play. I've been known to skip them if they get too long.