I give Red Dead Redemption II… 2 deer carcasses out of 5.
What the hell?
The game looks great, even fabulous. It’s the best looking game yet. Extra kudos for the clothes, the streetlights in St Denis, water physics in rivers, the starry sky, fog in the bayou and, well, pretty much everything.
But I did not expect this. Meeting the cast from the first RDR again felt more like PTSD than anything else. God, not you people. Don’t tell me I’m stuck with all those characters from ten years ago whose only real defining feature was that you had to go through a dozen stupid subquests to find their sorry asses. Oh God, now I remember Uncle…
More than 50% of the game is just riding to some destination, and most of that time is spent listening to « period gangsta » quips. The main character is just a grumpy gopher, like almost every other Rockstar protagonist. I’ve heard enough backtalking and smart mouthing to last a lifetime.
It doesn’t help that the actual story is dumb and annoying. You spend hours upon hours not being told about « what happened in Blackwater » or hearing how « we’ll turn this thing around » or « The world doesn’t want folks like us no more ». Dude, of course it doesn’t, you’re thieves and murderers… it doesn’t even make sense! It’s like playing a Kojima game, but without any endearing weirdness.
You’d think a game that has a « punch your captive into silence » button would listen to its own advice.
Speaking of Kojima, it’s interesting that he figured out in Death Stranding that open-world games are about getting from point A to point B a lot and makes that the crux of the game. What Red Dead Redemption II does is… remove the quick travel and give you a “cinematic” button so now you can let go of the controller and wait until you get to your destination. When Hideo Kojima is making more sense than you, maybe you should take a step back.
It doesn’t help that once you finally get to where you want to go, the guts of the game feel wrong. Movement is awkward and slow. Shooting is mediocre, at best, and you’re almost invincible from the get-go. And it only gets worse from there as you level up. Who says the Wild West is dying, I’m bulletproof! Talk about the game’s mechanics not following the game’s theme.
It feels like hunting is the real game. It’s certainly the most elaborate part in terms of mechanics, diversity and rewards. But it’s finicky (there’s one specific way to kill every animal) and it feels like busywork nonetheless. And no, I do not want to play video poker or dominoes in 2020. (By the way, the tedious quips do not stop during minigames. They do not stop for anything.)
There are numerous technical niggles too. The UI is too small. Menus are horrible and unintuitive. Mission NPCs bug out. There’s no obvious way to get out of replaying a story mission once you commit to it. You’re not allowed to buy almost anything unless the game tells you to. Anyway, you don’t really need the upgrades.
So much of the game feels like ticking boxes. The developers ticked boxes by adding activities, going above and beyond all other open world games, I’d say. You job is to tick boxes by doing those million sub-activities. It’s not unusual for the genre of course, but it’s no excuse.
Speaking of which, I’ve got an idea, says the game. I got medals for you! How about you replay all story missions, including interminable riding scenes, to meet some random objective, usually just riding back as fast as possible? No thanks game.
It’s an enormous game with meticulously crafted visuals where nothing feels fun or worth doing.
