Rockstar Asks For Favorable Reviews

[Majek]

My first MP experience in RDR was bad though. I only tried Quick games so "TDM" and "CTF" that the "realistic" character movement really comes to frustrate you there. Especially when you want to go throguh a door quickly. Cover mechanic can drive you mad as well. When you think you've got someone in your sights and fire you may just hit your cover and he blows your head off. Maybe i'll try it again later when i've had enough of SP.

[Hurlshort]

Like GTA4, it strikes me as the type of game that is only really fun MP if you are doing so with friends.

[Aram]

Why didn't they make the "high power" pistol a 1911?

[GreasyDogMeat]

Why didn't they make the "high power" pistol a 1911?

Since the game takes place in 1911, it may not have been as widespread at the time as the Colt 1908... which pretty much looks and fires like a 1911 anyway.

 

I just beat the game... fantastic experience from start to finish. The ending was... incredible! I still have tons of side stuff to do like treasure hunting (which I'm finally getting the hang of) and hunting down some of the different outfits.

[Aram]

Why didn't they make the "high power" pistol a 1911?

Since the game takes place in 1911, it may not have been as widespread at the time as the Colt 1908... which pretty much looks and fires like a 1911 anyway.

I dunno. Personally, it'd be easier to accept a couple months worth of anachronism than a .32 being the most powerful pistol in the west. It would have fit better too, with most of the game a glaring homage to films like The Wild Bunch and The Professionals.

[Monte Carlo]

Pedant's Corner - in the ad the main character has a belt of what looks like a belt of FMJ 7.62 ball link wrapped around him. Is there a machine gun in this game? If there is the ammo belt would have been cloth / fabric, unless there's also a time travel mechanic.

[GreasyDogMeat]

Pedant's Corner - in the ad the main character has a belt of what looks like a belt of FMJ 7.62 ball link wrapped around him. Is there a machine gun in this game? If there is the ammo belt would have been cloth / fabric, unless there's also a time travel mechanic.

You do get to fire a Maxim at one point (which is awesome btw), but I don't know what the ammo belt would have looked like.

 

The end is awesome as is but the song that kicks up at the credits seals it for me as one of the best endings in a game ever.

 

"Your hands upon a dead man's gun and you're looking down the sights... your heart is worn... and the seems are torn... and they've given you reason to fight... and you're not going to take what they've got to give... and you're not going to let them take your will to live cause they've taken enough and you've given them all you can give and luck wont save them tonight."

Edited May 28, 2010 by GreasyDogMeat

[Majek]

Why didn't they make the "high power" pistol a 1911?

Since the game takes place in 1911, it may not have been as widespread at the time as the Colt 1908... which pretty much looks and fires like a 1911 anyway.

I dunno. Personally, it'd be easier to accept a couple months worth of anachronism than a .32 being the most powerful pistol in the west. It would have fit better too, with most of the game a glaring homage to films like The Wild Bunch and The Professionals.

That's the problem with that gun yeah, it acts more like 1911 and only looks like 1908. Maybe we should go and bother Rockstar and they'll add a real 1911

[deganawida]

Pedant's Corner - in the ad the main character has a belt of what looks like a belt of FMJ 7.62 ball link wrapped around him. Is there a machine gun in this game? If there is the ammo belt would have been cloth / fabric, unless there's also a time travel mechanic.

You do get to fire a Maxim at one point (which is awesome btw), but I don't know what the ammo belt would have looked like.

 

The end is awesome as is but the song that kicks up at the credits seals it for me as one of the best endings in a game ever.

 

"Your hands upon a dead man's gun and you're looking down the sights... your heart is worn... and the seems are torn... and they've given you reason to fight... and you're not going to take what they've got to give... and you're not going to let them take your will to live cause they've taken enough and you've given them all you can give and luck wont save them tonight."

 

 

I shed manly tears at that point. John Marston was an awesome character.

 

[mkreku]

Me and my cousin was drinking beer and had nothing to do last night. So we went to a place where you can rent Blu-Ray movies.. and it turned out they were selling the PS3 version of Red Dead Redemption (it's been sold out in every other store in my town!). My cousin bought it and we played it until early morning. Awesome game so far, and we haven't even done anything yet. We did like one main story mission and failed two other quests, but it was still awesome.

[Calax]

I've been playing through, Only really at the beginning of the game (just did my first snake oil salesman quest). I do kinda want to try multiplayer, but don't have a headset for my PS3.

[Majek]

There's no need for a headset. It works fine without it. If you need to talk to other player you can start a chat. Besides Public games aren't really that much fun.

[heathen]

Any news of a PC port?

[GreasyDogMeat]

Any news of a PC port?

Don't expect any news of one anytime soon. Don't get me wrong... if I was a betting man I'd put good money down that Red Dead will be ported to PC. Rockstar spent a lot of love and care on this game and they likely want to get it to as many platforms as possible, but just like GTA IV its going to take, at the very least, 6 months before they port it. The announcement usually doesn't seem to come until a month or two before the port's release.

[Jackalmonkey]

Simply press down on the right stick to sell all of an item or press up to increase the sell amount by one. I just sold 20 crow feathers at once... it only required one movement of the right stick followed by a button press. Its not tedious at all.

Sonofagun, you're right - now I just wish they'd made that button mapping as clear as they had for all the other inventory controls.

 

Having beaten the game as recently as last night, I can say it was rather entertaining and well worth the price. The gameplay mechanics are reasonably varied throughout, though mission combat is very simple, and doesn't sufficiently take advantage of the variety of tools available to the player. For most missions your best bet is your repeater rifle, which is a true shame, because the throwing knife, shotgun, and pistol all handle well and are excellent tools in their respective contexts. Unfortunately, those contexts (stealth, close-quarter, or quick-fire, respectively) are rare indeed, and you'll find that most of the conflicts are en masse and at range.

 

At its best the story is derivative - and granted, given the genre, it's hard not to be derivative: westerns are essentially a set of conventions and homages within a very specific period and location. I know that it's asking a hell of a lot for this game to defy expectations when that's exactly what consumers are purchasing it for, but couldn't it distinguish itself a little?

 

The beginning and end of the game are pretty good. The rest is a retread of old ground and old mistakes. Thanks to excellent voice acting and a great character model (though somewhat stilted mocap) the protag is sympathetic and endearing. Unfortunately, he's just as often as unbelievably gullible as GTA IV's Nico Bellic. As in that game, we might have had a compelling story about a mercenary playing both sides of the conflict until (reluctantly but decisively!) swearing his allegiance to the more principled of the two. And as in that game, instead we get an errand boy who sullenly complains about the tasks he's enduring - often for information that any real outlaw would just take by blackmailing, extorting, or stealing. I do understand that we need a certain amount of handholding in order to present and justify gameplay, but the fact is that other games (and indeed past Rockstar games) have in the past presented us with more decisive protagonists who actually plan and instigate the plot underpinning the gameplay.

 

Toward the endgame there's some little garble of freshman pseudophilosophy delivered without irony by the story's principal villain, Edgar Ross--though once you get over that hump, the story improves. In fact the endgame, despite being rather slow, is as suddenly and breezily plausible as the game's first two hours. So the beginning and the end are pretty good. It's everything in between (the actiony bits) that I take issue with.

 

I'm not saying that this needs to be Deadwood (and in fact that comparison is sure to be unfair) but is it too much to ask for plot and characters on par with, say, The Shield? Everything that's "mature" about this game is just a reminder of how immature the content is. If you play the middle portions of the storyline in front of any non-gamer peers, expect to be embarrassed.

 

Other games have benefited from hiring decent working writers--for instance, Warren Ellis for Dead Space, or Paul Dini for Batman: AA. Would it have killed Rockstar to hire an actual writer? Offhand I can think of Garth Ennis, Brian Azzarello, or several of the scriptwriters who've been in Joss Whedon's stable. All are apt choices, and while not luminaries, they're a far sight brighter than the usual Rockstars.

[Majek]

He doesn't speak Spanish, what other choice does he have but to play along with the fighting parties in Mexico?

[deganawida]

He doesn't speak Spanish, what other choice does he have but to play along with the fighting parties in Mexico?

 

Heh, slight derailment, but his inability to speak Spanish makes Mexico a laugh-riot. The things people say around him that he just never knows. Rockstar did a good job of making you feel like John in Mexico, by making so much of the dialog in Spanish and not having translations.

[Jackalmonkey]

He doesn't speak Spanish, what other choice does he have but to play along with the fighting parties in Mexico?

Though on its face this sounds logical enough, bear in mind we're talking about fictional characters and events. And as such, you're putting the cart before the horse.

 

The writers needed a justification for their decision to make Marston into a relatively passive accomplice. In this regard, the language barrier is in service to their plot and character decisions. It's a convenient rationale to make him function as an errand boy for a dozen missions or so. Any argument re. verisimilitude seems more than a little disingenuous given his ranch's proximity to the border.

 

And bear in mind that the Mexico storyline (as interminable as it may seem) isn't the only instance of Marston's implausible passivity. The plan to invade Fort Mercer in New Austin is engineered entirely by Wes Dickens. The means of luring and combating Dutch's men in West Elizabeth is devised solely by the Bureau and the American military. In both cases Marston is either a gopher or an outsider.

[Niten_Ryu]

Looks like rockstar's high stakes gamble paid off.

 

From take2 q2 report

 

 

[GreasyDogMeat]

Free multiplayer Coop missions are coming on the 22nd and they will also be releasing the two gamestop preorder bonus outfits that didn't make the cut as free downloads.

 

http://www.shacknews.com/onearticle.x/62668

 

The Deadly Assassin outfit (rightfully) won and I don't think it will be released to non-preorder players, but the other two (Savvy Merchant & Expert Hunter) will be released for free. A cool aspect is that while each of these uniforms comes with a bonus like better prices from merchants or faster dead-eye regeneration you still have to complete various tasks to actually earn these outfits and they aren't just 'cheat' items given to preorder customers.

[Aram]

The Mexico storyline was basically straight from the 60s era "Mexico Westerns" that were, themselves, allegorical for US foreign policy and the Vietnam war. Marston's uncertainty about which side is right, and the fact that his actions mostly tend to do more harm than good, and that despite it all he's really just trying to serve his own interests--well, that all should sound familiar enough. I don't know if Rockstar was trying to make a similar statement or just following the spirit of their favorite films, but the game simply follows the tropes regardless.

[Gorgon]

A fistful of dynamite is seriously awesome.

[Majek]

I like those other 2 outfits more than dassassin so i'm really happy for that. free Coop is also great news because i'm bored of Freeroam and Shootouts as well as other types of games included just infuriate me while playing them.

[Aram]

A fistful of dynamite is seriously awesome.

I was thinking The Wild Bunch and The Professionals, but yes.

[heathen]

Comparisons to The Wild Bunch and The Professionals? This game is getting more and more tempting by the day...