Red Dead Redemption 2, A BIG FLOP!!!!

What a pile of shit!

As far back as I can remember, ever since I finished the PS1 & PS2 parts of my current project, I’ve been looking to expand on my gaming collection, which meant going outside the normal realm of games. This hasn’t stopped with acquiring the PS3, PS4, and finally, the PS5.

Red Dead Redemption 2 has been out a few years at most, and while I’ve had the game on my PS4 dashboard for a long time, I’ve been peeking and looking at the playthroughs on the IGN and the Pluto gamer channels. The game appealed to me. I usually try to keep an open mind about games and really try them all out, so they may have a coveted spot on my forever game roster, as it were.

Well, for the last 3 nights, I’ve been playing Red Dead Redemption 2, and what started out as an experience I’ve been looking forward to turned into scantiness, wandering, no clue about having upsetting controls, irritation, and no natural barrier between side mission and main missions.

Red Dead Redemption 2 is nothing like any game I’ve ever played. I know it's about survival in the wilderness and trying to stay one step ahead of the law in an ever-changing land, but I think the game did too good a job milking that part of it. I felt like the game was trying to turn evil into good.

Furthermore, I know you have to kill animals in the game, but I felt like, for the first few hours, that’s all I was doing, not to mention listening to Dutch drone on and on about his big plans.

I was wandering around attempting to find the legendary bear with Hosea, found the bear, shot it 6 times, and left me roaming the mountainside searching for it for 45 minutes. Even after making my way to the bear but before setting out, I couldn’t be bothered to care about the meaningless lives of the Van Der Linde gang.

I know money was an issue, driving the point home by robbing trains and trying to find work in a nearby town. I mean, why not just do that from Jump Street, then rob trains as a last resort or even as a big score of a train, then have things in place so you could leave without a trace?

Likewise, I felt that the game was trying to push too much on you too soon and telling you to deal with it; it was almost like you didn’t have much of a choice in doing either. I kind of felt like the blood feud with the O’Driscolls was pointless from the jump, too.

One of my biggest gripes about the game was the wonky controls. Now, I treat all of my gaming products like fine China. I occasionally drop my controller on my carpeted floor when I doze off on my throne, but the floor is carpeted, so it only barely falls inches up.

Anyway, the controls are so wonky. It’s like there were times when I was trying to stop Arthur, and it felt like he was still moving for a second or two afterward. Stopping the horse was even more challenging. When I was on the train of Leviticus to Cornwall, I was trying to keep up with Lenny, and Arthur was all over the place.

I even got shot several times trying to get Arthur into cover. Now, I know what some of you will say, and it had nothing to do with my learning the controls. I had them mastered the first night.

But, the controls made taking cover from unnecessary damage difficult, and it felt like I wasn’t even in control.

Next, the Horse

On my mission, Arthur took someone’s horse, and I borrowed the animal to hunt the legendary bear. After finally deciding to give up and head back, the horse tripped over a rock and fell over. I couldn’t get it back up, nor did the animal get back up on its own.

So there I was out in the wilderness, vulnerable to every wild savage animal to existed in that neck of the woods; the only thing that could’ve helped me get away was lying at my feet, waiting for me to put it out of its misery.

The horse needs to be revived before you can get back on it. This is the stupidest concept of a game mechanic I’ve ever encountered. In games like Assassin’s Creed Odyssey, you fall off your horse, you get back on it, and go on your way. The same goes if you’re using a private boat. You don’t see those guys needing to revive the boat so they can keep using it, do you?

I was so infuriated I just stopped; I couldn’t even go on because I was bothered by the time I wasted waiting on this horse to get from its ass and take me back into town.

Personally, the game screwed me in that regard because that’s part of the story, so that means hoofing it back to civilization with nothing but your revolver and quick wit abilities. With the whole horse ordeal, I feel like I got pissed on, like a teacher who doesn’t get their due diligence from the principal at review time.

I like to think I’m one of the most patient gamers on the face of the Earth, and I pride myself on being that way because I need my notes to be precise down to the letter. However, when figuring out what to do, there’s no line that separates the story from side missions.

I mean, I guess there is to an extent, but it's like you have to do every side mission or everyone who has a side mission before moving on with the story. The chapters are short, thankfully.

I sat through the story for many hours and wasn’t sold on it at all. I usually try to give certain games with exciting stories the benefit of the doubt, but there was no saving this. Not only that, but I couldn’t sit through another minute of it; I felt like the story went nowhere.

There are controls that you practically have to memorize just so you can keep from dying, and even though there are on-screen prompts, they’re in the background and, from what I’ve seen, don’t really stand out until you need to be reminded of how to do something.

For example, when I played last night, I was at the bar where Bill started a fight. I didn’t even remember how to hit someone, but the supposed on-screen prompt just didn’t show up until about the time I got hit.

I mean, if you’re going to tell me how to do something, do it, but don’t expect me to try to figure it out if you’re not going to make it evident or remind me before shit hits the fan!

I could’ve won that fight with the burly guy marching down the stairs like he was Emperor Napoleon or some shit if the on-screen prompt was a little more transparent than opaque! Yeah, it told me what to do, but I feel like that could’ve been done much better.

Playing that part of the game and trying to figure it all out on my own, I felt like I got on pissed on, like a person who finds a genie that doesn’t grant wishes! Terrible!

And I want to revisit the Legendary Animal deal for a minute. You know, its one thing if the animal finds and challenges you to mortal combat with the intent of killing you. But, it's another when said animal can’t be bothered to stick around long enough to get finished off.

That bear vanished like a drunkard’s chances of not getting spotted by the police. I don’t know the extent to which these legendary animals are supposed to be hunting you or trying to get at you until you critically wound it, but I do know that waiting for them to reappear while hanging around in their domain is pointless.

This reminds me of a quote that General Tsao from Sly 3 said to Sly and I quote, “You had better not be wasting my time wedding planner, I get very uncharitable when people waste my time.”

I wasted 45 fuckin’ minutes looking for that brown-haired bastard only for it to disappear, leaving me alone with a motorless, lacking a better word, horse. I’m so done with this game; it, much like Legend of Zelda's Tears of the Kingdom, was NOT worth the money I spent!

I’m moving on to Assassin’s Creed Odyssey and other little gems on my dashboard. Red Dead Redemption 2 was not worth it, not by a long shot!

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