Red Dead Redemption II

[Abraham Smashington]

I've been spending cash like it's going out of style. I run up crazy bounties, rob a ton of people, pay off bounties, rinse and repeat.

You guys find the wolfman yet?

[Captain Russ]

Felt bad for the dude post-killing. Read his diary and felt double plus bad. Then he got back up and I put him down again.

The feels continued unabated.

How about that vampire tho? Fucking dork.

[Anderson]

I found the circus freaks and almost got my ass beat by the Pinhead.

[BillyG]

I have not met wolfman or the vamp, but I served Pinhead his ass.

[BillyG]

So...I got assaulted then raped and dumped in the swamp by a hillbilly. That was uncomfortable and portrayed all of Rockstar's worst sensibilities.



Found out acts 2, 4, and 6 all have side missions that can be missed/lost preventing a 100% play through. I found a stranger quest to go get exotic items for him, and figured it would be fun to do. Turns out you get a custom gun from him...then I found out it's 6 parts and takes between 6-10 hours to do depending on luck with animal spawns AND if you use a map for the exotic flowers with static spawn points. Fucking hell. I also got a quest to find rock carvings, with no hint on where to go.



I think I had the finale spoiled for me, and now I feel the need to stop and do EVERYTHING before I move on.

[Abraham Smashington]

Wait, was it a dude and chick hillbilly? If not, that means there are two versions of this at least (or close enough).

[Abraham Smashington]

Was the rock carvings quest from that weird dude that talks funny?

[BillyG]

Wait, was it a dude and chick hillbilly? If not, that means there are two versions of this at least (or close enough).

Nope, just done dude pretty near Saint Denis. He invited me in for some grub then hit me over the head.

Was the rock carvings quest from that weird dude that talks funny?

Yes. I kind of want to do it and see if there's reasoning for his black eye and talking like a meth fiend.

[Abraham Smashington]

Nope, just done dude pretty near Saint Denis. He invited me in for some grub then hit me over the head.






Yes. I kind of want to do it and see if there's reasoning for his black eye and talking like a meth fiend.

I think that guy is a time traveler lol. I found a shack with a mural about him and it was weird as fuck.

[BillyG]

I've read that the etchings have to do with time travel. There's also a crazy UFO cult you can find and see a UFO at night, which probably has something to do with it.

[BillyG]

I am, I think, about done with part 2 of the epilogue. I got thoughts. I got feelings. I played from 9am to 2:30am on Tuesday and I played from about 10am to 6pm yesterday.

  Spoiler: Ending shit 

As soon as I heard that first cough I knew where the story was headed. What I did not expect was it came from Downes. I also didn't expect them to have tied it back to the stranger missions with his family, and also that Downes was the man that was asking for money for the poor and broke up our fight in the saloon in Valentine. That was all very fucking good.

I loved all the stranger missions in chapter 6. Rockstar did a great job showing Arthur trying to do a small bit of good, even though he's a murdering bastard. It showed back to what Dutch and the gang claimed they were, Robin Hood of the West. His journal during that period is also wonderful.

I played honorable, and got a pretty great ending. I knew the end was coming and took a ton of screenshots of my Arthur, because I honestly knew I would miss the character. I think he's very well written, and interesting protagonist. He died overlooking the heartland sunrise.

The epilogue is definitely overkill...but honestly I don't care. I love it. I love spending that time with Sadie, and Charles, and John again. I love seeing RDR1 again. I loved seeing Abigal and Jack show up at Beecher's Hope.

Jesus and I didn't even touch on Guarma! What a weird thing!

With all that said, the pacing in this game really is terrible. Someone at Rockstar looked at Chapter 6, said "we are still going?" and made a decision to use a lot of cutscenes for transportation and push the story to a much quicker pace. Granted a lot goes wrong very fast, but they still used cinematic touches to expedite the story that could have at least been options available to us earlier in the game. I ended up finally using the cinematic camera option to auto travel while I did some chores and made breakfast or lunch.

Then they do it even MORE in the epilogue. Like, they broke all their rules about immersion for the sake of "OH NOW WE GET IT!" and the player really feels it. And considering I started seeing repeats of roadside events (I actually still saw new ones like 80 hours in as well too, even variations on the snake bite) I would have like better fast travel options.

The controls are still wonky as hell, and I don't know why they didn't make a handful of simple tweaks. LB instead of LT to focus on people would make so much more sense. Make LT pull your last gun and aim. Done. Simple. The Euphoria engine is still the Euphoria engine and yes the movement is weird and sometimes annoying, but it's been like that forever. They're not going to change it. I think it's only more noticeable in RDR2 than GTAV because it fights you when trying to loot things.

The easter eggs are great, and I recommend going for them. Here's some easter eggs in spoilers for you to go find.

  Spoiler: Easter Eggs 

The strange man from RDR1, the ghost train of Lemoyne, the ghost of the Lemoyne swamps, the graves of your dead gang members, the 5 cabins (there's a challenge for this I believe), the vampire! and the time traveler, the DEVIL in a cave

So overall, I love this game. It is definitely not without it's flaws, but RDR1 had flaws as well (those characters? All racist and stereotypes) and is one of my favorite games of all time. I think I may like RDR2 more...but I don't think I will return to it like I did RDR1 just because of the time commitment. I could get through a damn near 100% play through of RDR1 in about 40 hours. I had to have spent close to 100 with RDR2 and I left a TON of stuff behind. And the thought of doing a second play through? I just don't know.

In my head canon Arthur took off after whatever happened at Blackwater, because he saw where the gang was headed. He took off to Big Valley. And we start the game there. In Big Valley making a new life, and eventually sending for Mary Linton.

I do know I want RDO right fucking now though.

[BillyG]

Played about 2 hours of Online last night. Seems pretty cool. The story is fairly interesting, and I want to see where it goes. Lots of characters from RDR2 and even RDR1 are in the world, and quest givers. Honor ranking seems like it will make a difference in online for sure.I was asked to not kill these smugglers that stole a boat, and the game told me "go get a posse to make this easier!" The game wanted me to hogtie them, but since I was solo that wasn't happening. So I put a pump action into their faces and took back the boat. The story missions push you into matchmaking and that was always smooth and went pretty well. Had one fun mission where you needed to recover an outlaw that escaped prison. We had to fight our way into the canyon from RDR1, then recover the outlaw and fight our way back out.



Seems like you can't turn off PVP in the world like in GTAO though? You can set your camp as a safe place, and you can't be attacked while shopping. But I was standing in the street, in the menus, and this asshole gauged me in the face. Then I heard him shooting up the rest of the town when I respawned. Respawns are generous though, you come back quickly and very close to where you died.



I don't understand why your camp moves around though. The game tells you that you can pay cash to move your camp. But then after missions your camp will just be moved. So if you want to make it to your camp to change outfits or something, don't stop for a stranger mission because the camp could move to the opposite end of the map. Also, apparently it's a crap shoot where you start off the game? Probably not a big deal, but I think it's interesting to think that everyone could start off working on a different set of early quests.

[Abraham Smashington]

Made my dude and made it past the tutorial in online last night in RDR2. Digging this a bunch more if only because I could make my dude look so goddamn skeezy. Let me know if you fool wanna play some rounds.

[BillyG]

I may be able to play some Friday night, but I won't be up late because I have to be up at 6am for my math class. Saturday I have a stupid Christmas party for Sarah's office.

[BillyG]

Who's on Xbox and wants to try and play some tonight? Not sure what our plans are but I can try and be on this evening until about 11 central.