Red Dead Redemption 2 - For a Few Redemptions More

Yeah, RDR is not a game to be binged like a shot of tequila, it’s a game to be savored, like a glass of bourbon.

I suppose it takes all types, but I simply cannot do FPS or any shooters on a console. Never grew up with consoles, never mastered controllers, and find that type of gameplay without a mouse and keyboard nearly impossible.

Did you Atari or Nintendo back in the day?

Does that mean that the Xbox One version won’t have a preload?

I’ve already downloaded 88.1 GB on my Xbox One X. Is there more to come?

Only a 2600. Never had a Nintendo, and only played a little on friends’ ColecoVision or Intelivision. And those games were definitely not shooters, none of them.

Had a hard time find that myself. It had downloaded something when I originally pre-bought the game, but it was small. And ‘clicking’ on the RDR2 icon didn’t do much other than tell me it was too early for the game.

Then I went to updates, and it d/l an 88GB+ update for RDR2. Figured that was the pre-load. The whole sequence just didn’t yell out PRE-LOAD.

I was in a similar position four years ago. I hadn’t touched a gamepad since the Sega Genesis days and was solely a PC gamer. Then, in April, 2014, I decided that I was going to learn how to play these modern games with a gamepad.

I got myself a XBox controller and the new Tomb Raider game and struggled through that, getting better at it as I went along. But I still found myself switching to M&K during shooting sequences. I decided that maybe I needed to play a pure melee game to get more comfortable. So I got Dark Souls 2. That was a hoot.

But I pushed through! I got more and more comfortable with the gamepad. Then, for Christmas that year, some dear friends got me a PS4 and Destiny. By that time, while I hadn’t mastered playing with a gamepad, I definitely felt more comfortable and dived right in.

Now, I game almost exclusively on my PS4 (and Switch, which these same dear friends gave me last Christmas!). Funnily, it was the original Red Dead Redemption that brought my inadequacies using a gamepad to control a modern game to light. I’d tried it out at a friend’s, playing the mission where you helped someone hunt rabbits. I embarrassingly lacked the ability to control anything and may have also shot my own horse out from under myself. I’m hoping this next go 'round in Rockstar’s Old West is a bit less inauspicious.

Wouldn’t occur to me to even give it a second of consideration. But then I’ve never given consoles any thought as a gaming platform for anything.

It’s funny; I am 47, I am no spring chicken, but I think its because I always came up with a console of one type or another that playing certain types of games with a controller just seems natural o me. On the other had, I had always played other RPG styles, Wargames, etc. with M/KB and they seem natural to me.

My rule of thumb has always been “driving, fighting, third person view? Controller // strategy, turn-based, first person, mostly everything else? M/K” and it’s worked well. I would never play an FPS with a controller or on a console, but games like RDR 2 or Spider-man seem like natural fits to me. I’d also rather play a racing or fighting game on my TV/console, so it really depends on the game itself.

Like @None a few years back, I made myself play controller based games that I was excited about so I could get more familiar with a controller. Having that as an option opens the doors to a LOT of cool games that I’d have otherwise never experienced, like Spelunky.

I don’t own a console, and have little desire to get one. We have one TV (well, we have a bunch, but most are older models we got by chance or what not, and sit in the basement until I can get rid of 'em). Often when I game, my wife is using the living room and the TV for stuff. I could I suppose set up one of the surplus TVs and a console near my office in the basement, but there are pretty much zero games I want that are console exclusive. So there’s simply no push for me to practice shooters with a controller. I have played driving, sports, snowboarding/skating, and KOTOR-type games on a console with a controller, and that’s fine. It’s just that anything requiring me to aim and shoot and move at the same time is pretty much a lost cause if I have to use a controller.

I think I became a gamepad convert (for most games) with San Andreas. I bought it for the PS2, and therefore had to use the controller, and there was so much to do I just got used to playing with a controller. And for me - I think it’s the kind of game it is. I prefer a controller for 3rd person over the shoulder viewpoint games (AC, Batman, GTA, RDR, etc), and M/K for FPS, not that I play a lot of those anymore, and strategy (XCOM). I think for shooty games, M/K will always be best for aiming, but I just like movement with controllers so much better, especially when it comes to being able to control the speed at which you move, or having to drive/ride a horse, etc.

But - as long as you enjoy your control method, who’s to say you’re wrong.

Do you have a computer monitor with an HDMI port? You could plug your console into it. Heck, you could get an HDMI splitter if your PC is using the HDMI port. Move your audio connection over to the console as needed, boom, you’re set.

Oh, I could do that, sure, but I don’t have any desire to. There’s nothing on a console that I want to play, that I can’t get on the PC, and I have no real interest at this stage in fighting through learning how to grok a controller. Just not interested.

I read about the sale that Gamestop is holding with this game on Xbox. Buy the Xbox version, and you get $100 off any Xbox One. So you can get the Xbox One S for $200, or the Xbox One X for $400 if you buy RDR2 within the launch timeframe (about a week, I think).

Not a bad deal, especially if they can offer me something fairly good for my original Xbox One.

But yeah, still too pricey, considering I can run every Xbox One and PS4 game now, the improved versions of the consoles are tempting, but not that tempting.

Bah phooey, I remembered the slow-mode in RDR this morning, I forget what they call it…that enabled me to controller-defeat that game. Then I read that’s still here. Then I bought it.

I caved. Is it really caving though? Or just picking up a ridiculously awesome game probably?

There was a short 20 second clip of gameplay leaked, I salvaged it before it gets removed and put it up unlisted. It’s completely spoiler free, but it shows some gunplay and weapon select from a wheel. It seems very cool, I like the weight the guns have and the slow-down should make this a game I can actually play, for sure.

Also, dual wielding sawed-off shotgun and cavalry pistol. Neat!

No reviews yet?

Scott mentioned upthread that the review embargo lifts Thursday morning.