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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