This game is a technical masterpiece. It is a marvel of technical achievement. I remember when Far Cry was released in 2004, and everyone was “woah, look at that water”. Water has long been the measurement of technical prowess and RDR2 has some excellent water.
You know when it rains and the town roads get all muddy, and the mud looks really good. Just take it in, how your horse’s hoofs sink down into the mud and make some perfect mud prints. It’s poetry.
Have you ever wondered what it looks like when two horses have a full speed frontal impact? Or what it looks like when you accidentally ride your horse into a brick wall. It looks so life like, like “outch that must’ve hurt”. And then the damn horse won’t let you ride it anymore, as if it was your idea placing a brick wall in the way.
The game is stunning and the world is a masterpiece. It is a big world but it is diverse as you move between marshlands, plains to forests and creeks. I love every minute of it.
And yet, it is a horrible game.
There is no story, it is just filler. You know games when there are side missions that doesn’t affect the main story, move the characters forward, or leave any lasting impression on the world. That is this whole game.
The game starts strong with the flight from Blackwater. And then it doesn’t go anywhere. The whole game is the long flight from Blackwater. It keeps building up, and when you in the end gets to experience Blackwater it’s a dump.
Just as the game doesn’t have a story it really doesn’t have an ending either. There are some dramatic events occurring in what could be considered an ending, but then the game just continues, with fewer characters and even less of a narrative until it dissipates like a fart in the wind. And then credits roll.
The characters in the game are completely unrememberable, and it took me half the game to learn the name of the protagonist. I keep mixing up the different cowboys in hats and the women have so little character that they could be the same with just different clothes.
Talking about the gameplay it is very much the same, completely unimaginative. Every mission is the same, you’re going out to do some chore, end up in a gun fight, and then flee back to camp. That is the template for every mission in the game, and there are 96 mandatory of them. It is horrible.
The gameplay doesn’t have any progression either. A gunfight in the beginning of the game is exactly like a gunfight at the end of the game. Except in the end of the game you can get one-shot if you’re unlucky.
Another bad aspect of the game is that there are too many mechanics. The combination of button presses on the controller is often so complex that you actually need the guide all the game through. Hold down R2, select on weapon wheel with L, Press L3 to clean gun.
I think the game developers should have seen the warning sign when they added autopilot to the game. Since there is very limited ways of travel, and the one choice is often by horse, there is a built in autopilot where you set a waypoint, start riding and enter cinematic mode. As long as you hold down X your horse will find its way to the waypoint.
Hold down X to play the game. Oh, geez.
I think the problem here is that you have two teams that doesn’t talk to each other. One team is building the world, the environments, the fantastic technological achievements. And then there is another team that tries to fit a story into this world, and it’s not going particularly well.
The game sucks, but it looks good.
I rate this game as BAD.
Replay 