Red Dead Redemption 2 - For a Few Redemptions More

Today I decided to try and get that horse that my friend mentioned and so I slowly started making my way up north to the lake where it hangs out. After several minutes I had to stop and go take some ibuprofen because my back was killing me from constantly picking up my jaw off the floor. Absolutely stunning landscape, and I completely lost track of time. Before I knew it I was tangled up in a fight with a legendary white bison, and after felling the beast I was overcome with dismay as I saw I couldn’t rightfully skin my kill, since the body was floating in the water. But wait! What if I lasso it? There’s no way that would work, right? Except it did! My mind was completely blown as I slowly dragged the carcass to the bank and skinned it to obtain the legendary pelt.

Since it was getting dark and fog set on the lake, greatly reducing visibility, I made camp, cooked some meat and went to sleep until morning. In the morning I took my horse on one of the smaller hills and started observing the surrounding areas with the binoculars. I spotted two wolves that were playing in the morning sun, and observed them for a couple of minutes, and that’s when I saw it - the white arabian, standing just a few meters behind the wolves on the other side of the lake. I tried to quickly make my way to it and in my haste I fell with my horse into the water, losing the legendary pelt in the process. Unsurprisingly, I also lost track of the white arabian. Instead of giving up I did a fair amount of hunting, learning the mechanics and realized that you can tell the quality of the animal’s pelt just by inspecting it! How cool is that. Same screen also has helpful tips on how to perform a clean kill, much to my relief, because I really thought I’d have to consult websites for this. After I collected about a dozen pelts I made my way further north, dealt with an uncooperative gunslinger and his gang, and nabbed a bounty target on my way back to Valentine. In game’s progression terms I accomplished very little, even though I played for about 4 hours, but I had so much fun that the minutes simply vanished. This isn’t even a game, it’s an adventure.

Looking forward to see more.

What I loved and spent hundreds of hours in RDR2 doing was exactly that: just riding around the countryside, exploring, running into things, I didn’t really need a story line, although the western noir story is really impressive and will stay with me for a long time. I played far enough to free me to be able to do anything I wanted then rode the countryside, camping at night, drinking coffee and eating in the morning, then setting out to see what the day would bring. Here’s a tip if you’re new: the swamps at night are very scary.

I did the story missions but took forever to do them. I’d have been happy just hunting, fishing, dealing with characters I ran into, exploring, selling stuff, etc. It’s an amazing world. Even after playing hundreds of hours trying to explore every inch, I read about things I missed.

Yeah, same. It’s my favorite game to just exist in. I’ve played through it 3 times, and never was bored just doing random stuff. I enjoy just hunting for specific animals, even.

Yeah, in spite of hundreds of hours, I missed the white bison.

I look forward to replaying RDR2 in a few years, when my memory of it fades a bit. For now I’ve played too much to get the same awe that I felt before. I hope it comes back when I have some distance from my first play through.

Also, the white Arabian is overrated. 🙂 Long live the mighty Andalusian!

FYI, if you “lose” a legendary pelt, it should still show up at the trapper when you want to craft something from it. Rockstar protects you from stuff like what happened to you.

I never really felt it when people used to say, whenever someone talks about Deus Ex, someone reinstalls the game. But dang if you guys aren’t making me want to reinstall RDR2.

The key is to never uninstall it.

I know that, even got the message that the stuff is available at trapper. But the pelt itself can be sold, no? Provided you don’t lose it like I did of course.

Nvidia DLSS support coming July 13!

I probably still have a couple dozen hours left in my first playthrough, and a 3060 Ti, so this is welcome news.

Nice. I keep meaning to go back and finish RDR2, I stopped playing after the game switches to Marston.

I kind of enjoy the epilogue, honestly. It definitely hits a point where there’s just no reason to keep going (although you can) because even daily tasks seem pointless.

The epilogue was cool, but I understand how the end of the main story kind of leaves you in a depressed mood.

The epilogue was fine, I guess, but the decision to plow straight into it immediately after the Big Climax and not let you save for like half an hour was and remains Extremely Not Fine and actually I still feel like it was one of the greatest narrative and emotional blunders of all time, how the hell did anyone at Rockstar think it was ok to do that.

For every dozen raves about RDR2 that I read, I see a dozen gripes about micro-managing, game design, etc.

Should I just say Fuck It and grab this for the XSX?

Or should I grab the original?

Or both?

I didn’t much care for the first one. It started out well, but lost momentum for me pretty early on, and had to force myself to finish it later. RDR2 is one of my favorite games ever. ‘Micro managing’, I suppose people can do that sort of thing if they really want to, but you don’t have to. You have to feed your horse occasionally and things like that, yes, but it’s not some time sink.

RDR1 is Tombstone and RDR2 is True Grit (2010).

RDR1 is High Plains Drifter and RDR2 is Unforgiven

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(RDR1 is good at first and then gets tedious. RDR2 is a beautiful, epic slow burn that ends in a fury and everyone should experience it once)

Normally I’d be among the first to complain about such stuff but I think it works really well here. To be honest, I don’t even use fast travel despite having the camp upgrade for it. Fwiw, the micro-managing isn’t bad at all, consumables are plentiful and you can store enough ammo to go on a country wide killing spree and still not run out.

I haven’t played the original but this one is (so far, about 70h in) one of the best games I’ve ever played.

It’s on PS Now now… I should try it, but it is a real time comittment, isn’t it?