The Finest Game I've Ever Played

[smokeless6]

This is gonna be a long one. There is no TLDR. Spoilers for sure.

 

There ain't room for folk like us no more.

 

I've been around a while, longer than most 'round here I reckon. I've played a lot of games.  And Red Dead Redemption 2 is the finest of them all. I've been around long enough to have played Half Life on release. At the time I declared it the best video game ever made. It was revolutionary, a paradigm-shifter unlike anything that had come before. Duke Nukem or Quake it was not. It blew me away and moved PC gaming forward a leap and a bound. Two years later a contender emerged in the guise of Deus Ex. Another phenomenal game that again set new boundaries of what a PC game could be. And for the next fifteen years these two titles were my standard against which all others were measured. Many good and great games came and went, but failed to unseat those two in my mind.

 

Then Witcher 3 came along and for me this became the new standard, the finest PC game ever made. From a design standpoint there was no better, and I think the biggest achievement in gaming to that time. Three years it reigned until Rockstar released Red Dead Redemption 2. I knew of RDR, but I'm not a console gamer and had never played it, though I was aware of it's stellar reputation.  RDR 2 intrigued me, and when I discovered it would have a first person mode it's was a sure-fire purchase. Matter of fact it became the only game I'd ever pre-purchased. Usually I give a new game time in the oven to become it's best version while buying it later at a lower price. But RDR 2 was different, or it felt that way. Free Ardennes out of the deal anyway.

 

That was bought on Epic of course, with the distasteful exclusivity. But I wasn't going to wait, principles are fleeting.

 

And I loved it. Within hours I knew this was the new standard. I see games from two distinct perspectives -- design, and personal enjoyment. And in both, RDR 2 strikes gold. It is the best-designed PC game ever. Folks may have another opinion, but when we consider all aspects of game design, from story, to writing, to mechanics, music, voice acting, UI, sound design, world-building, pacing and well, everything, I don't think another game matches RDR 2. Combine this exceptional design with a first-person mode which is my jam, and yep, we have the finest PC game yet.

 

When I reached chapter 6 and Arthur began to decline it jarred me. I actually stopped playing, intending to pick it back up in a day or two, which became a year, and when it was finally released on Steam I bought it again, and started over. This time I've seen it through to the epilogue, forging through the sad end game.

 

Pacing is a mercurial thing.  A shadowy target shaded by subjective taste. What I find perfect you may disdain. In RDR 2 we have a game so exquisitely designed that it allows any player to find his pace. And it feels tailored to me. The finest free-roam in gaming, in the best game world we've seen. Los Santos and the world in Kingdom Come Deliverance were my reference points before RDR 2 came along. But RDR 2 is better, by some margin. It became the new standard, and hundreds of hours (and years really) later it remains so.  It allows the player to strike his balance between the fun but heavily-structured Rockstar set pieces, side missions and his own direction in free-roam. I effortlessly fell in to this rhythm, striking that balance. All in due time, partner.

 

I warned you this would be a long post, and it already is, but there's much more to go. Virtually every facet of this masterpiece is worthy of praise, but I'll need to parse it all down a bit and so I'll talk about a few things that really stand out to me. But those omitted are not because they are inferior or substandard, but because I gotta try and keep it reasonable.

 

Authenticity -- This is the word that always comes to mind when I think of this game.  It's authentic in so many ways, from the clothing, to the weapons, how eagles hunt fish, or a duck bobs under and back again. How stage coach ruts vary in depth according to the firmness of the ground, to the shades of paint on the trains. It's phenomenal and it's everywhere you look.

 

Hunting and fishing -- No game has done it so well. The artwork on the animals is exceptional, a pheasant or a rainbow trout are beautiful and detailed. All of them are. So many types too. It says much that even hundreds of hours in to this game that I still do this nearly every single day.  Just yesterday I was angling on the shore of Lake Isabella, taking big muskies and pike. Superb.

 

Horses -- Until RDR 2 came along, KCD was the standard for horses, but this game is on a new level.  Rockstar nailed the gait aspect of horses, and well all of it. I feel attached to my horse in a way not experienced in a game before. I think of Roach ya know,? then I compare that to my dark bay Turkoman called Max and it's just so much better. Top marks for how horses are done in this game.

 

Story, dialog and voice acting -- Lumped together to save space, but really, has any game done this better? I don't think so. Fantastic story arc, characters, writing and voice acting. It makes the world feel more real and the characters too. The conversations around the camp, the hey misters and good boahs, the soliloquys while riding to the next bad job. The writing is phenomenal with performances that do it justice. I'm still hearing new stuff and it is mind-boggling how much of this Rockstar wrote and recorded, much of it will never be heard by the average player.

 

Journal -- Other games have a similar thing of course, but this one's my favorite. So much of the depth I found in Arthur Morgan came from what he writes in this journal, and the sketches are brilliant. It served to help me form the character I was role playing. Outlaw's what I do, not who I am, or something like that.  It revealed how conflicted he is, that he can see the beauty in things, that somewhere in there is a good man. That Arthur is just making the best of the lot he's been cast. He's a dangerous man in dangerous times, but I sense it could have all been different for Mr Morgan, had his stars aligned a little differently.  He's a good man in a bad spot, and well, you gotta do what you gotta do to survive. And that's how I played him.

 

Map -- Most games have maps of course, and again, RDR 2's is the best. How it reveals more and more detail as you zoom in, how the things you encounter are sketched in, and it even has contour lines! I love maps and study them for fun, believe it or not and I put an outsized importance on the quality of a game's map. RDR 2 nailed it with a functional and fine-looking map.

 

I could go on but I reckon I've lost most of you by now. You probably already agree with all of this and don't need reminding. I spent about 250 hours in my Epic run, and the Steam run has just hit 300 as I free-roam to my heart's content after finishing the epilogues. There are challenges to meet, and compendiums to fill you know? I'm aiming for Zoologist and have just nine more to go. I can think of no other game that would inspire me to find so much to do after it's already over. No game designed better. No game world, story or characters to compare. It is the finest game I've ever played.

 

 

 

[BigBoyBertram]

On 9/17/2022 at 10:27 AM, smokeless6 said:

Authenticity -- This is the word that always comes to mind when I think of this game.  It's authentic in so many ways, from the clothing, to the weapons, how eagles hunt fish, or a duck bobs under and back again. How stage coach ruts vary in depth according to the firmness of the ground, to the shades of paint on the trains. It's phenomenal and it's everywhere you look.

 

I couldn't agree with you more. Although RDRII takes place in a fictional timeline, it is by far the greatest recreation of a historical period from any game of the previous generation, quite possibly in gaming history. This level of attention to detail and authenticity is seen pretty much everywhere, from little pieces of lore dating back to the Civil War to breathtakingly authentic US Army Uniforms from the Spanish-American War period. 

 

A lot of people argued that the details in RDRII didn't really matter. I disagree wholeheartedly. RDRII is special because it is the culmination of an effort the magnitude of which we have never really seen before in any game. 

 

RDRII is a aesthetic triumph. 

[GrandTheftPots]

It was so good I played it to 100% story back to back when it first came out done the skin deep and zoologist I sat by the waterfall hunting birds for hours and hours on the rocks, I actually don't leave the house much due to my anxiety this game made me feel like I was a part of the world going to do another playthrough now and take my time 

[smokeless6]

6 hours ago, BigBoyBertram said:

A lot of people argued that the details in RDRII didn't really matter. I disagree wholeheartedly. RDRII is special because it is the culmination of an effort the magnitude of which we have never really seen before in any game. 

 

RDRII is a aesthetic triumph. 

 

I was reading a review or something once and the writer said something about how Rockstar didn't need to make such a great game, but they did anyway. And really, that's true. RDR 2 would still be an amazing gaming experience even if was half the game it is. It's astounding the lengths they were willing to go to in order to make it right.

[ganked89]

And people worry about GTA 6 becoming the new Cyberpunk