I love RDR2. For the record I greatly enjoyed GTA IV, GTA V, RDR1 and pretty much everything Rockstar puts out there. Almost done with my second time through RDR2. The controls take some getting used to. Although if you play one Rockstar game you'll probably be able to pick up another one pretty easily. It's also a lot more drawn out than any prior Rockstar game.
One thing the first RDR didn't have is expectations. Back in 2011, Rockstar didn't release gameplay trailers like they do now and they were and still are pretty good about keeping leaks off the web. Not too much was known other than it would similar to GTA in a Western setting. Then it came out. RDR1 had a few songs, but offered very little variety in music. There were no boats. You couldn't swim. It didn't matter because there was no prior RDR titles so it was what it was. And people enjoyed it for what it was. I felt like expectations for RDR2 were pretty damn high. Some would obviously be disappointed.
Big G I think you just convinced me to drop the game. I'm about 12ish hours in and I'm not sure I'm game to play another 60+ based on what you've stated.
The controls are honestly the least of this game's problems. Like others have stated, they're pretty par for the course with Rockstar games and shouldn't take too long to get used to.
I was maybe about where you were the week it came out, and I didn't necessarily drop the game because I wasn't liking it (Hitman 2 came out, and then Smash, and I just felt like playing those more). When I got back to it, I did tweak some settings to make the game more palatable. From that point on, I played the game entirely first-person except for riding horses/vehicles, and I found it much better that way. It doesn't feel as good as most first-person shooters (because of course it doesn't), but I found it less offensive than moving around in third-person. And I actually felt that did a better job of putting me into Arthur's shoes.
Beyond that, I do think Chapter 2 is a really rough stretch of the game and things do get better in Ch. 3 and 4. I could honestly say I was mostly enjoying the game during that stretch, and then it turned for me in the other direction again. YMMV, I guess I would say. I would at least get into Chapter 3 before deciding if you want to dump it or not.
One thing that's almost objectively worse in RDR2? Retrieving your horse.
Man, people complained about this a lot in BotW. If your horse is out of range, you need to travel to a stable to retrieve him. You can use fast travel to somewhat dull the pain of this, but I get it, it's annoying.
RDR2 is so much worse though. Before you make an expensive upgrade purchase at camp, you have to physically go to your horse's location in the world to retrieve him. This is a huge problem, as there are a number of missions that completely separate you from your horse. And since the game has an incredibly limited fast travel system (which also is locked behind an expensive camp upgrade!), you can waste large amounts of time simply retrieving your animal buddy. And heck, once you finally unlock the ability to retrieve your horse, you can only do so at your home base. It doesn't work in other parts of the map.
RDR2 is full of design decisions like this, I assume due to the desire for authenticity or realism. But it's insanely frustrating.
It's weird - I was in love with this game a couple days ago (just started playing over the weekend), but I'm already souring on it.
Here's the thing... Spider-Man 100% nails movement, pacing and fun factor. RDR2 ask you to play a boring 60 hour story for maybe 4 hours worth of good scenes and interactions? Awful.I don't keep throwing anything. I'm giving an example of a game where mission variety ain't brilliant at all and people like for its strengths like movement and combat without continously needing to ask for stuff that the game doesn't try to do.
Very cool you give up bathe and feed for better missions without taking into account the cost of either or the design philosophy of the game.
Also, nobody is saying that mission variety is good so no need to warn about anything at all, all is been said is that wasn't a focus for the game at all, as it wasn't on spiderman either and hasn't caused controversy. Same goes for odyssey and all of them open world games.
You're describing why Red Dead Redemption 2 is much better in my mind. The main problem with open world genre of games is how shallow and mindless they are. Little things like your horse not being able to magically teleport from the other end of the map at push of a button are exactly what these games need, not just for the obvious reason that it's more realistic, but because having to keep track of your horse forces you to be just a teensy bit more mentally engaged with the game. That's fun.
This is only an example, as you said, Red Dead 2 has a bunch of mechanics like this one, which I think really help elevate the game.
All of these moving parts probably come together best when you go out hunting, which went from an utterly inane side activity in Red Dead 1 (if you can even call that hunting) to one of the most high points of the game.
Maybe, but maybe that time in production for RDR2 went to make a unbeliveable world that feels alive and not to the diversity of the missions since one can clearly see that the main goal for the game was the narrative.
And even then, are we now judging games based on their development time or how much their production costed?
And after all that my point still stands, there are absolute blockbusters this past year like spider-man which are accepted for their strenghts and people dont ask for stuff that the game isn't trying to do but somehow RDR2 has to be revolutionary in every aspect (it already is in many) to avoid controversy.
I must be the only person who likes the controls. Honestly, I think some of you just need to git gud. They were complicated and weighty but that isnt a negative imo.
Even my girlfriend, who had never even held a PS4 controller before, was riding around, fishing, picking herbs etc with no trouble.
In response to the OP: nah man. RDR2 > RDR in every single way.
Trying and all I come up with is herding sheep. The mission design in the first one was good you say? Haha
Trying and all I come up with is herding sheep. The mission design in the first one was good you say? Haha
Cant say I agree at all
RDR2 is the best written, and best acted game I've ever experienced. The epilogue is one of the best things I've ever played
...This thread is negative yes, but I still liked the game... But for me it's a 7/10 that has flashes of brilliance but is ultimately disappointing.
So, I beat the game last Saturday and while I enjoyed most of my time with it, I still think the game has a ton of problems that I can't ignore. Mainly the controls, mission structure, pacing and some late game story moments that to me didn't have a satisfactory result. I'll break it down now (D-Generation X!!)
The controls in their default state are frankly unacceptable and I have no idea how they thought they were good enough to ship as is. I had to spend the first... Maybe 5-8 hours wrestling with the controls and trying different settings, layouts, etc. Eventually my mind adjusted, but it should not take the length of some other full games to be able to get used to a control scheme. To me it's crazy that this game comes out 8 and 1/2 years after the original and controls worse in every way imaginable... How is that possible?
Mission structure... Ooh boy... This is... Something...
Pretty much 90% of the main story missions boil down to... "Arthur we need to get over there for some reason"... Ok, let's ride"
Horse riding for 4-8 minutes. Poke around, cutscene triggers, things go wrong, shootout happens. You have to haul ass from wherever you are...
"I think we lost them...meet you back at camp"
Every. Single. Time.
There's meaningful character interaction in said missions but man... They really stuck to one template for most of the game.
Pretty much hand in hand with this issue is the pacing. I understand that it is deliberately slow initially and that's what R* set out to do, but frankly I thought it was flat out boring till halfway through chapter three which is a HUGE chunk of the game. The stranger encounters (side missions with personal stories) weren't as interesting as RDR1 imho, which also made the pacing duller since you weren't as inclined to search them out as much this time. Then in the second half of the game, it goes into the other extreme with every mission being a huge shootout where you kill a small army...
This thread is negative yes, but I still liked the game... But for me it's a 7/10 that has flashes of brilliance but is ultimately disappointing.
Red Dead Redemption is far superior game and time will not be kind with RDR2.
Of course there are always going to be priorities, but it's not like it is an either/or situation when you are talking about literally the most ambitious game project
in the industry at the moment. I can basically guarantee you that there was probably a dedicated team just for the story missions.
I also think it is a bit weird to try and spin it as if the main story missions were not a priority considering the game is sold more as an incredible narrative experience over some free roaming open world game. Those are a bigger part of the narrative than the 3 different guys I sucked snake poison out of during my travels.
I was just pointing out that there was a bit of weak logic in your argument at trying to point out games of similar scope, because they really don't exist.
FFXV is probably the closest in terms of development scope, but there is info leading people to believe that team was mostly a skeleton crew for several years.
That was most certainly not the case for RDR2, though I do expect the early years had a lot of iteration and throwing out scenarios. Just speculation on my part of course.
I wasn't comparing scope but genres. RDR2 is an open world strongly focused on narrative. Not the first open world to have dull missions, other games get redeemed on gameplay while rdr2 does it with storytelling and character development. I also didn't say main missions weren't a priority but rather are just another tool for the game to tell its story, the mission variety is not a priority here and it shows.
You keep speaking about scope and development time like those thing would tell us where the time was allocated.
RDR2 is basically this gen's Doom 3.
With graphics, animation and level of detail ahead of its time. Yet the game itself is garbage.
It took people some time to accept that it's a shitty game but eventually everyone agrees.
I must be the only person who likes the controls. Honestly, I think some of you just need to git gud.
There was nothing to "gut gud" about, you just had to adjust the settings to make the camera not move like molasses and the aim so Arthur wouldn't take a week to aim his gun at the next guy. It's a basic shooter with almost zero options other than pop and shoot. Uncharted 1 has better combat mechanics than this game and that is just baffling.