saddle up, pardner
I finally finished Red Dead Redemption. Yaaaaaay. I know thefreak has been ranting and raving about this for the last weeks, I haven't said much, since I wanted to finish it first. I actually liked this game a lot. Despite what Coleman will tell you, RDR is actually pretty good.. which is all the more frustrating because it could have easily been fucking awesome.
So let's review this, cowboy style:
The good:
I know everyone's said this already, but the world is really, really beautiful. It looks like something out of a movie. Much like GTA, half the fun of this game is just getting on your horse/car and roaming around this amazing environment to see what kind of trouble you can get into.
There are a few glitches (see below), but the gameplay is pretty good once you get the hang of it.
I dug the score, too.
The bad:
Rockstar still hates women, apparently. *sigh* Actually, it appears that Rockstar just hates everyone now. Look, I know my character is supposed to be a stupendous badass that doesn't take crap from anyone, but GTA at least balanced it with a sense of humor. In this game, your character, John, is perpetually cynical and pissed off at everyone, and with good cause, since the NPCs he interacts with are terrible, terrible people. It makes it hard to have fun when my character is such an obviously miserable guy.
There are still some glitches in the game that make the missions a pain in the ass. I ran into a machine gun that didn't aim where the target reticule was. Maybe they were trying to simulate real Old West guns. But it still doesn't excuse the fact that I kept getting caught on bits of architecture that made me a sitting duck for the bad guys, or that my horse leaped off a cliff to its death when I called it. It's funny, but the QC department gets forty lashes with a wet noodle.
The ugly:
Apparently, the baddest gunslinger in the West still can't swim. Sheesh.
What's with the story? Coleman has vented on this for a while, and I gotta say, he does have a point. Your character's motivation is murky, and other characters veer wildly between being your best buddy and being a total jerk for no reason. What annoyed me most was the tendency of characters to monologue on and on during cut scenes, for no other reason than to repeat the themes of the story-- benefits of civilization are dubious at best, while being an outlaw who lives by his own rules is good, I GET IT ALREADY, now can I get back to playing?
I won't spoil the ending, save for the fact that it makes no damn sense. Or maybe it does make sense, given that your character is perpetually miserable, in a world populated by dickweeds.
Feh! If they'd polished the story a bit more and given it a few more passes in QC, this would have been an absolutely fantastic game. As it is, it's still pretty good, but it's frustrating to play through and count the ways where it could have gone right. :P
So let's review this, cowboy style:
The good:
I know everyone's said this already, but the world is really, really beautiful. It looks like something out of a movie. Much like GTA, half the fun of this game is just getting on your horse/car and roaming around this amazing environment to see what kind of trouble you can get into.
There are a few glitches (see below), but the gameplay is pretty good once you get the hang of it.
I dug the score, too.
The bad:
Rockstar still hates women, apparently. *sigh* Actually, it appears that Rockstar just hates everyone now. Look, I know my character is supposed to be a stupendous badass that doesn't take crap from anyone, but GTA at least balanced it with a sense of humor. In this game, your character, John, is perpetually cynical and pissed off at everyone, and with good cause, since the NPCs he interacts with are terrible, terrible people. It makes it hard to have fun when my character is such an obviously miserable guy.
There are still some glitches in the game that make the missions a pain in the ass. I ran into a machine gun that didn't aim where the target reticule was. Maybe they were trying to simulate real Old West guns. But it still doesn't excuse the fact that I kept getting caught on bits of architecture that made me a sitting duck for the bad guys, or that my horse leaped off a cliff to its death when I called it. It's funny, but the QC department gets forty lashes with a wet noodle.
The ugly:
Apparently, the baddest gunslinger in the West still can't swim. Sheesh.
What's with the story? Coleman has vented on this for a while, and I gotta say, he does have a point. Your character's motivation is murky, and other characters veer wildly between being your best buddy and being a total jerk for no reason. What annoyed me most was the tendency of characters to monologue on and on during cut scenes, for no other reason than to repeat the themes of the story-- benefits of civilization are dubious at best, while being an outlaw who lives by his own rules is good, I GET IT ALREADY, now can I get back to playing?
I won't spoil the ending, save for the fact that it makes no damn sense. Or maybe it does make sense, given that your character is perpetually miserable, in a world populated by dickweeds.
Feh! If they'd polished the story a bit more and given it a few more passes in QC, this would have been an absolutely fantastic game. As it is, it's still pretty good, but it's frustrating to play through and count the ways where it could have gone right. :P