Did not see a thread for this. Lock if old. This is the review of RDR2 by one of my most favorite game critics - Mark Brown from Gamemakers toolkit. Mark is always so very insightful and even if I disagree with his criticism in some reviews I can always understand his point of view. With that being said here are some excerpts from his review that I largely agree with
His Overall Summary of the game
Do give the entire review a read. Def worth your time.
https://www.patreon.com/posts/22570692
Overall, I'm left pretty disappointed by the game - and that's largely because it feels staggeringly dated in its core design.
A lot has happened in open world games in the last eight years, since the release of Red Dead Redemption 1.
Shadow of Mordor focused on relationships and procedurally generated stories. Ubisoft's recent games went hard on systemic interactions to create crazy anecdotes of rampaging elephants (Far Cry) and gang warfare (Watch Dogs 2). Metal Gear Solid V took immersive sim agency into the open world. And Zelda Breath of the Wild blurred the line between the main and side quests, and built an entire chemistry system to play with.
RDR 2 has tiny pinches of this - a stranger might remember you from a sidequest. There's some light fire propagation. There are some opportunities to make choices - but for the most part, it's using the exact same structure and gameplay as the first Red Dead.
Like most Rockstar games, these missions are extremely restrictive in what you're allowed to do. The game constantly tells you what to do, with a pop up command at the bottom of the screen, and if you don't follow this script to the letter you'll be hit with a "Failed" screen.
I've failed missions for trying to flank around the bad guys - that's counted as leaving my crew behind. I've failed for trying to take enemies out using stealth, instead of loud gunfire. I've failed for trying to solve problems in creative ways. I've failed because I broke the law - never mind that I'm playing as an outlaw, and the game has a whole police response system built in.
The missions can also remove mechanics arbitrarily. In one, I wasn't allowed to take my gun off my horse. In another, I wasn't allowed to whistle for my horse so I had to chase on foot. And the bandit mask system works randomly during missions - most of the time you'll still get a huge price on your head and have to use most of your earnings from that mission to pay off your bounty.
His Overall Summary of the game
And that's despite Rockstar's extreme push towards realism. Because the game just ends up feeling like those phoney western movie sets that look like saloons and banks on one side, and unpainted planks of wood on the other. It's not fooling anyone.
Here's the thing. The game's narrative is all about trying to hold onto the old way of doing things - and sticking to practices of the past while society marches on around you. That's an interesting theme for a story - I just wish the gameplay didn't stick to it as well.
Do give the entire review a read. Def worth your time.
https://www.patreon.com/posts/22570692