My attitude towards Westerns has always been cool: somehow the showdowns between cowboys and “Dirty Harrys” and Indians did not interest me. And over the years, frankly speaking, there have been few games on this topic. Offhand I can only remember the “Call of Juarez” series of games, the first “Red Dead Redemption” and a couple of indie projects. And, of course, compared to the others, the creation from Rockstar Games was different in that the studio had its own special approach to games. A large, well-developed open world, with a bunch of different activities and a fascinating plot, which is tailored and presented in the best traditions of good cinema. All this forced players to replay RDR again and again. For a long time, “Red Dead Redeamption” was inaccessible to the PC audience, but the situation was changed by the release of the second part of the game, which was announced like a bolt from the blue, pleasantly surprising the PC boyars. Let’s see what the new project "Rockstar Games" is like, and is it perfect?. Harness your horses, cowboys, we’re going West!
Let’s start with plot. We play as Arthur Morgan: a bandit and bounty hunter who, together with his gang, is on the run after, to put it mildly, an unsuccessful case. Now they are being hunted, which is why the group is forced to constantly hide from law enforcement officers. Along the way, gang members perform any task that can replenish provisions or fill their pockets with coins. Theoretically, the attitude of your “colleagues” towards you depends on your work and efforts, but in fact, if you neglect this point, it will not really affect anything.
Don’t get me wrong: relationships in the game are important, the authors focus special attention on them, but they are less about the gameplay and more about the plot of the game. This mechanic feels like one of the ways to get used to your brothers and get to know them better, nothing more. Although, in some places, sitting around the fire and talking about everything looks very atmospheric. Who and when did the difficult one bring into Dutch’s gang, for example?.
Our gang is mainly made up of angry and confused people who ran away to live outside society, and some individuals purposefully joined the gang. Well, what is Arthur like?? It evokes conflicting feelings. At the beginning, the character seems to be an angry blockhead who follows all the orders of the gang leader, Dutch. It’s understandable, Dutch took in homeless Arthur as a teenager, encouraging the child’s rebellious, freedom-loving sentiments. As an ambitious young man, Dutch wanted to put together a gang that would live by the principle “we rob the rich and give to the poor” in order to atone for their sins before society, but this principle crumbled due to the gang’s first financial difficulties when they themselves needed money. And since then, all funds received go only “to the needs of the gang”. Dutch became like a father to Arthur, and the gang became like family. Therefore, the main character carries out any instructions from the leader without particularly thinking about the moral component. Years of banditry and a riotous lifestyle have made him a real outcast and a hermit, unable to lead a normal life, and new blows of life over and over again push Arthur to new adventures.
Arthur is a self-confident man with an existential crisis. For the first time he wonders: “Why am I doing all this??». And he finds the answer only at the end of his journey. At the beginning, he is an overly cruel and self-confident asshole, but towards the end of the story, his look shows loss mixed with hopelessness. In general, the topic is raised that it is never too late to change and become a little better, even for such a seasoned bandit like Arthur.
In general, sometimes you even forget that you are playing a game and not watching a movie: the game is so well directed and presented. The main character is bright, and the secondary characters around you are also developed at the level. Some are so well written that you will want to get to know them better and stay in the game longer.
What kind of hero https://palpitoscasino.co.uk/bonus/ will be depends on the player. For example, there is a reputation scale. Here everything is according to the classics: do something good – Arthur’s level of honor increases, do something wrong or “dirty”, from a moral point of view, – honor decreases. Yes, it all comes down to the banal help or not help, but this is why simplicity is valuable: the player will not always agree to come to the rescue of a stranger. Any good thing will be rewarded with lead in the back of the head.
Regarding gameplay, the developers worked hard on the shooting. As a result, they came close to the standard, in my opinion, feeling of a shot, like from “Max Payne 3”. It doesn’t matter what you pick up: a bow, a revolver, a shotgun or a rifle with a carbine at the ready. Any weapon generally feels good, as if the hero is holding something real in his hands. By God, I had a blast shooting all types of weapons, especially pump-action and automatic shotguns, they are so well made here. You can add engraving to your peacemaker, make a thread inside the barrel, increase its length, put an optic on your rifle to hit a squirrel right in the eye. That is, improvements in the spirit of the times, without phantasmagoria, which is pleasing. Each weapon has a certain type of cartridge, which you are free to use depending on the situation and what you want to do. If you like to shoot, then believe me, you will have a lot of fun in RDR 2, the sensations are simply incredible. Arthur himself and his movements are rather slow and ponderous, which says a lot about the hero, including his character. And, you know, I’ve always been surprised how some developers manage to tell so much about the hero through body language.
The game generally maintains a slow pace in everything from the narrative to the interaction with the outside world. The slow pace is what makes the game special. So for those who like to speedrun or run ahead of a locomotive, skipping everything, the game may lose integrity and crumble like a house of cards. I’ll say this incredibly cliché now, but RDR2 is a dish that should be consumed slowly, savored. Of course, you can run it, but you are unlikely to enjoy such an experience. Moreover, the game is so long that the adventure seems endless. This is surprising, since in modern games, as a rule, they try to compress the playing time and saturate it with events, so as not to lose the pace and attention of the player, but here the situation is completely opposite. Which is only good for the game, because if it were a little shorter, it would have turned out crumpled and, as a result, inarticulate.
The developers also added endurance and concentration indicators. They work as follows: if you go for a run in a fur coat in the summer, then Arthur will show with all his appearance that he is somehow not feeling well, and his health will begin to decline; if the hero drinks in a bar, his concentration will decrease, he will not be able to stay in slow time mode for a long time and give out headshots. A kind of system of checks and balances that directly affects the gameplay, which has a beneficial effect on replayability.
Graphics. What can I say? “Rockstar Games” this time managed to surprise all gamers not only with the quality of the picture, but also with the range of drawing the entire landscape of the American biomes. Here you have snowy mountains, sultry prairies and dense forests in addition: there is a variety. Sometimes you’re even amazed at what beautiful views the game generates. Which, in fact, is logical: the beginnings of the ecosystem of the living world migrated from GTA 5 and received due development. Now this very ecosystem lives and breathes deeply, and animals exist not only for decoration. You can become a true naturalist by exploring all the animals around you that actually live and eat each other: the food chain in action.
In general, when it comes to developing an open world, Rockstar again jumped over its head. Take, for example, the largest city in the game, San Denis: in comparison with Los Santos from GTA 5, the scale here is not great, but it is filled with different events; the city turned out to be surprisingly very alive and real. The open world is filled with activities so you don’t get bored wandering around the vast expanses of America. BUT, no matter how the game tries to make additional. The game’s tasks are varied and interesting, but the scope of the map is still too large to fill it to the brim without repetition. This is overwhelming work even for Rockstars.
But let’s move on to controversial issues. I consider scripts in story missions to be one of them. You see, the game is so strict with this that even a banal selection of cartridges from the enemy’s body during a mission leads to an endless rollback to the last checkpoint due to the fact that you hesitated for 5 seconds and your mission brother was shot between the eyes by a bullet. What kind of location research can we talk about if the slightest delay causes the death of partners?? Well, you remember how I said earlier that Arthur moves slowly and measuredly? So he does everything too meditatively. And even if the player himself wants to gallop across the prairies like a goat, then make the animations for picking up ammunition and provisions 2 times faster, otherwise while Arthur bends over for the next loot, a double portion of lead with a stick of dynamite between the rolls flies into his ass. I don’t know about you, but these moments set my butt on fire.
The second point is the notorious tolerant agenda. According to the already established classics, the game is full of scenes that could not have happened in that period of time. Just look at the moment when GG walks into a bar with his African-American friend, and they calmly drink whiskey. And this in a country where segregation existed until the 1960s.
Third. Get ready to wean yourself off tedious car rides, they have been replaced by tedious horse rides. They have become even more burdensome, you will spend 75% of the time in the saddle. Your Roach, by the way, received no less attention than the character himself. She needs to be looked after, fed and loved, in general, the developers have done everything so that you and the filly develop a connection. And the more time you spend together, the more new management opportunities and unique features open up for you.
Musical accompaniment. It deserves special attention, if only because the composer managed to go beyond the usual country/western music. In my opinion, this is an indicator of quality, since it allows you to enjoy the music separately from the visuals of the game. Try listening, maybe it will appeal to you too, and something will end up on your track list, as happened in my case.
Regarding online mode I’ll say one thing – this is a pure copy of GTA Online both in form and content. And being already fed up with this kind of gameplay (at one time I spent a lot of hours trying to get money for my “empire” by delivering contraband), I immediately realized that this mode was not for me. BUT! In turn, I understand that there are people who like this kind of gameplay. For beginners, I will say one thing: this mode will eat up all your time, and if you want to spend money on it, then money. However, the last time I went online, I didn’t see a lot of people, as was the case with GTA Online back in the day.
To sum it up, I would like to admire the work that Rockstar has done. "Red Dead Redemption 2" is a game with in-depth mechanics that help you immerse yourself in the game. And in width it manages to surprise with its beauty and the scope of the open world. The plot captivates and takes you to distant places so that you can enjoy the adventure of such a controversial, but at the same time charismatic character Arthur Morgan. The game is not without flaws, but where in our world can we find the ideal??
So, my advice to you, if for some reason you haven’t played RDR 2 yet, then quickly catch up. Because there are very few games with this level of performance, which only increases the value of this project. Of course, this game will occupy a bunch of lines in the lists of the current generation of consoles and, perhaps, the decade, but it has already occupied the most important list for me, in my heart. Khromov was with you, see you soon.