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Read Dead Redemption 2 (PC) Review


Red dead Redemption 2 is a charming and beautiful open world action adventure game set in the late 1800s of North America. You play as Arthur Morgan, an outlaw in a gang trying to get by in a changing world. The game is very cinematic in style and wonderfully written, I’d love to gush about a lot of the story details, but don’t want to spoil it for anyone - so I’ll try to be vague about storyline moments. I will at-least say that if you’re concerned that the game will have you playing as some awful, unlikable scumbag (as I was initially when a friend was telling me about the game - this is the same company that makes Gran Theft Auto, after all) the characters in the game are morally complicated and you get plenty of opportunities to do kind and helpful things. I ended up being greatly fond of Arthur Morgan and his friends, myself. I also enjoyed the time period the game is set in - having grown up around farms, old colonial houses, and war reenactments the world has a familiar charm for me and exploring it brought back memories of exploring the forest of Maine as a youngster. The game’s world doesn’t sugarcoat the uglier things on that era, either - you’ll encounter the bitter leftovers of the confederate army (whom I enjoyed killing), women having to fight for equal rights as hateful men jeer at them, and a whole lot of racist motherfuckers up to and including the Klu Klux Klan (whom I wasn’t able to find but I’ve seen screenshots of them). Depictions of all these times in history do include things like slurs as well, so be ready for that sort of thing if it’s something that may be a trigger for you. Last note on the story - be careful when googling stuff about the game. Google’s stupid “people also ask” section threw major spoilers at me early on in my play-through.



The atmosphere of the environments is lovely. The developers put a great deal of love into creating a massive explorable world, with fantastic ambient sound design and all sorts of critters running about, making the world feel very much alive. NPC characters are everywhere and add to the atmosphere, getting into fights with each-other, riding about on their own horses, getting drunk at bars - all sorts of interesting things. The music is very well done and adds to the rustic country feel of the world. During certain scenes of the game there are even some really nice songs with lyrics that will play.



The controls of the game are one of its weaker points, especially when you’re first starting out.  They took me a while to get used to and even towards the end I still didn’t understand how to do things like reeling in my line while fishing. Sometimes object interaction can be a pain because there is a very small window for “detection” - one time I was trying to find a lockbox in an area and walked right over  it several times because I wasn’t standing and looking exactly where the game wanted for me to be able to detect it. It doesn’t help that movement takes momentum into account, which means that even if you see the prompt to interact with an object, it could be gone by the time Arthur has stopped walking. I can appreciate the immersive “cinematic” quality of this movement system but I do wish that object interaction was as simple as it is in, say, Fallout  3. A somewhat related issue - that Fallout 3 also did better - was that searching bodies in the game is a nice way to stock up on supplies but many, MANY times throughout the game you are discouraged from doing so and rushed along to the next objective, if not just outright prevented from being able to do so completely by a cut-scene removing all the bodies. This was persistently annoying, and I am glad that the game at-least provides plenty of other ways to stock up on supplies, too. Combat itself took some getting used to as well because one of the downsides of extremely detailed environments is that I couldn’t always make out where my enemies even were. Thankfully, as my “dead eye” ability (basically Max Payne’s bullet time) improved it helped greatly with this, showing heat signatures wherever my enemies were lurking.



Outside of the game’s story quests, there are many other things you can do in the game, which added to the richness of the game-play. In addition to “stranger missions” where you help various folks around the world, you can also do many things like play cards, hunt, fish, treasure hunt, craft items,  set up camps, perform camp chores, dress up in various outfits, discover unique landmarks…and that’s just the things I found to do in my play-through (I’m sure there’s more!).  I wasn’t too fond of the hunting/fishing because I dislike hurting animals as is and in this game the animal deaths are pretty graphic as opposed to something like Minecraft where they just go “poof”. I found myself wishing I could at-least purchase explosive ammo and such without having to harm critters. On the brighter side of animal interactions - hunting/fishing is  optional save for a few story missions,  and the game does let you pet dogs and brush your horse, which is very nice.  I also really enjoyed the one treasure hunting quest I went on during my play-through. I traveled from place to place, finding new maps, until I eventually made my way to a mysterious cavern system an got myself some shiny gold bars! Setting up camps and crafting was nice too, quite relaxing - though I sometimes felt it a bit tedious that I could only craft one item at a time.



The game’s system for law-breaking is mostly well-designed but sometimes does mess up which felt frustrating. In most towns you can simply pay off your bounty at a post office if you commit any offenses, which will be at times be mandatory as part of a story mission. There have been unfair and confusing moments with the system though. One time, I found out I was trespassing on someone’s land and they asked me to leave. As I did so, they accused me of *not leaving* and started to attack anyway, with me then becoming “wanted”. Another instance of the game acting strangely was when I shot a street preacher in Strawberry, fled the town and later came back because for some reason there’s no option to pay off a bounty for Strawberry. The jailhouse sheriff recongised me so I wanted to try to surrender and let him arrest me, but the game wouldn’t let me do so without first antagonizing the sheriff, which makes very little sense. Thirdly, there was a time when I was trying to look at a poster on a wall and instinctively scrolled the mouse wheel forward since that’s how you zoom in with some games, which caused the game to open my weapon wheel and pull out my pistol. The sheriff gets angry, and I immediately surrendered, yet he accuses me of resisting anyway before locking me up. Moments like these stuck with me because it felt pretty crummy to have the game accuse me me of things I wasn’t doing or make me exasperate bad situations just to clear my bounty. They can really hurt my immersion in the world and its story, and make me feel bummed out. I had one very amusing moment with the game’s law system, though- One time I found a white supremacist shouting at people in Saint Denis, gunned him down in broad daylight in front of a police officer, and didn’t get any penalty for doing so. That gave me a happy.



The game does have a multiplayer mode but I’m someone who strongly prefers single player games, so I haven’t spent much time with it. For more on that, you’re probably better off looking to someone elses review.



A couple warnings I did want to add before I wrap up this review,  - as great as this game is, Rockstar still pulled  an asshole move with it and put online-only DRM in the pc version. the game simply will not run  if you’re not connected to the internet. It also forces you to install a separate piece of software, the “rockstar social club” even if you never intend to play online. If you are still planning to get the game on pc despite that, I should also warn you - the game is massive 119 GB in file size so make sure you’ve got the room somewhere to install it (and a little bit extra because the game needs a good amount of free hard drive space for  memory while it’s running)



In closing Red Dead Redemption 2 may have some technical issues as is common with big-budget AAA games - but it’s also incredibly well written, with a lot of heart and feeling in its story, and the world is a joy to explore. It’s definitely a title I recommend. It is available on some game consoles, so it might be worth it to pick it up used for one of those, thus giving one less sale to rockstar and hopefully getting them to think twice about putting DRM or bloated unnecessary software in their games.




P.S. (Arthur Morgan’s voice actor is wholesome as fuck) :)

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