Red Dead Redemption II Review

Right! So, its time for a new review with new content again (no revisits yay!) and this one will be a review of a game I have just completed (well mostly!) and that is Red Dead Redemption II, which I played on the PS4 and is a prequel to the events of the critically acclaimed original.

So, given all the hype surrounding this game on its release and thereafter, how does RDR2 stack up??? Well, let's find out.

And as I will mention a little about the story I will give the follow warning...

PLOT SPOILERS ARE AHEAD!!! (BUT NOT TOO MANY!)

ALSO THIS SMALL BIT OF PLOT WAS TAKEN FROM WIKIPEDIA 

STORY

"After a botched ferry heist in 1899, the Van der Linde gang is forced to leave their substantial money stash and flee Blackwater. The gang realize that the progress of civilization is ending the time of outlaws, and so decide to gain enough money to escape the law and retire. They rob a train owned by Leviticus Cornwall, who responds by hiring Andrew Milton and the Pinkertons to apprehend them. Arthur and the gang perform numerous jobs and heists in Valentine, and Dutch continually promises that the next heist will be their last"

And its from here that Arthur must find a way to keep surviving against the law, rival gangs as well as maintain his loyalities to Dutch and his gang as events keep taking a series of dramatic twists and turns...

THOUGHTS

As a sequel (or really a prequel) Red Dead Redemption II is a very entertaining, solid game with a terrific story that is gripping from start to finish and it has plenty of very engaging and memorable characters. And I really would have to say that the story is the game's main success and its main character, Arthur Morgan is easily perhaps one of the most likeable characters in a video game in recent memory, as despite being an outlaw, Arthur shows plenty of compassion, heroism as well as a good, dry sense of humour throughout the game. The game also succeeds in making the villains pretty loathsome as well but I won't say too much about them as I don't want throw in spoilers here!  The game however does have some gameplay issues that don't quite make it perfect but I will save those for the flaws section.

GAMEPLAY

As for the gameplay, well this is where things suprisingly are a big mixed as the gameplay has it strengths and weaknesses but I wil get more into them in the flaws section of the review.

OPEN WORLD STRUCTURE AND MISSIONS

However for starters I would say that the gameplay is largely the same as in the original game as it is from a third person perspective and you basically can ride around on horses and shoot people and that's about it! Just kidding of course! No, but in the game it has the same open world structure to it as the first Red Dead and indeed similar to the GTA games where the player also take on a series of main story missions as well as side missions that will allow the player to interact with strangers and other characters.  The main story missions are of course required to be completed in order for the player to progress through the game whereas the side missions could also potentially earn the player more money (e.g. bounty hunts) or gain new contacts.  

WEAPONS AND COMBAT

As for weapons, your character, Arthur, get's a large selection of firearms to use such as pistols, shotguns and rifles in addition to this he also can use melee weapons such as knives, bows and tomahawks in addition to explosives such as fire bombs and dynamite. Arthur can also even use a lasso to rope in enemies such as when he is on bounty hunting missions and is trying to capture a criminal. As for hand to hand combat, Arthur can engage in fist fights with enemies, which will require him to either block or hit his opponents in order to subdue them. Arthur can also use a targeting system known as "Dead Eye" which enables him to slow down time and aim more precisely at his enemies, which can be refilled by the use of certain items such as coffee or snake oil.

HEALTH, STAMINA, CORES & MAINTAING ARTHUR

Throughout the game, it is important to try and maintain Arthur's health as his performance in the game will also largely depend on his health and stamina but it can also be dependant on his weight too. So, its important for Arthur to eat fairly regularly in the game to keep his weight up to a reasonable level because if he is underweight, he will have less health but he will have more stamina whereas if he is overweight, he will have higher health but lower stamina.  In addition to this, Arthur also has health and stamina cores that will regenerate at different rates and they can also be refilled via the use of specific items. Arthur will also require sleep to function well because after a while he will become visibily exhausted and you can have him either go to sleep at the gang's camp location or set up a tent when he is out on horseback. And lastly, Arthur can also get haircuts and trim his facial hair to keep himself tidy because he will end up looking like Grizzly Adams if he doesn't!


HORSES, WAYPOINTS AND FAST TRAVEL

As in the original game, horses are by far the most common form of transportation in RDR2 and Arthur can either buy horses or claim them from the gang's camp and you can even name his horse! Arthur can also interact with the horses in different ways such as patting and feeding them or if they become agitated, he can calm them down by speaking to them. In addition to this, Arthur can also equip horse saddles and stash equipment in them such as tents, food supplies and even weapons such as rifles or bows.

You can also set up waypoints in the game from the game's map that will allow you to set out a path to lead you to a mission or certain point of interest in the game. This can be very useful especially if you have a long way to travel to get to your next mission, which can often be the case! However an even better shortcut system in the game is the use of fast travel, which will allow Arthur to use a map and set his destination and the game will automatically take you there without having to control Arthur although there are a limited amount of fast travel options in the game.

HONOUR AND MORAL CHOICES

Another key aspect of the game comes from its honour system, which determines the level of Arthur's morality because for Arthur to have high honour, he will need to keep doing good deeds and choosing positive outcomes in missions or side-missions or in helping out strangers while enroute. Having low honour however will result in Arthur making amoral decisions such as hurting people in need of help, making evil choices in main story or side missions and without giving anything else away your level honour can also affect the outcome of the game's ending. So, it is another staple of the game's missions that Arthur will have to make these choices for himself and decide the impact they will have.

HUNTING ANIMALS

Another aspect of the game is hunting animals, as Arthur will at times be required to hunt them for food either to bring back to the camp to eat or for Arthur to eat while out in the wild. Arthur can also hunt and kills animal for their skins, which Arthur will cut off with a knive and can stash them on his horse to take back to camp where the animal skins can be used to make new bags to increase Arthur's ability to hold more items. If Arthur intends to skin animals however, it is best he uses a sniper rifle to go for a head shot, so that animal skin is kept in good condition as it will be worth less to sell on it isn't. It also recommended to cook the dead animals fairly quickly as they will decompose over time if Arthur doesn't return to camp with them in time.

BOUNTY SYSTEM

Similar to the original Read Dead, RDR2 brings back the bounty system, which determines Arthur's wanted rating and this will vary depending on the severity of his crimes as the bounty can range from a small amount up to "Dead or Alive". This means if Arthur is wanted in a certain area for a crime, he will need to escape that area if the law comes after him or if he returns to that area he will need to be careful not to be shot and killed. Arthur however can pay off bounties if he has the money by travelling to a post office and posting the bounty off to a sherriff's office for a specific area. Arthur can also even surrender himself if he has committed a crime in a public area and law officials surround him, he will be taken into custody but later let go after which a small fee will be deducted from him money.

MAKING MONEY 

As for making money in the game, Arthur usually can make money through quite a few of the main story missions and indeed the side mission ones also. However, Arthur can make money through other means as well such as playing card games or even just simply looting dead bodies. Another way Arthur can make money is buy selling items to general store workers or to fences Arthur has made contact with and items that tend to sell well are watches and jewellery.

CHARACTER INTERACTION

Arthur can also interact with the main gang characters in the game while he is at camp as he can often stroll around the campsite and chat to them either simply saying hello but sometimes Arthur will speak to a specific character about what happened on a previous mission. This is actually a pretty neat inclusion in the game as it let's the player have a little extra bit of insight into what Arthur and the other characters are thinking.   

GRAPHICS

As for the graphics, well this is another area where the game excels as the visuals are simply stunning and the game's environments are rich, detailed and very varied in design as there is a great mix of open landscapes to urban/city areas as well as the inclusion of different environmental weather effects. The character models are also for the most part pretty good too although they are perhaps a bit crude looking in comparison to some games but the main characters such as Arthur, Dutch and Micah are all well done. Overall though, RDR2 visually is a real treat for the eyes and it certainly remains one of the best for either the PS4 or Xbox One consoles.

VOICE ACTING

Next up is the voice acting, which is excellent in RDR2 and the voice cast all put in top notch performances as they have been given a great script to work with but for time I will only mention a few of the voice cast.

Starting with Roger Clark, who is great in his role as the game's main character, Arthur Morgan and he plays Arthur with a rather dry, droll sounding tone but more importantly he also nails Arthur's innate goodness as a decent man trapped in a bad life. Benjamin Bryon Davis is also excellent in his role as Dutch, the charismatic gang leader, who preaches to his camp like some sort of evangelist with promises of loads of money and paradise but let's just say things don't quite go according to plan!  

Rob Wiethoff also returns in his role of John Marston (the main character from the original Read Dead Redemption) and he does a good job although my only complaint is that he gives Marston such a raspy voice like he's just chain smoked a 100 cigarettes! Peter Blomquist who is also excellent in his role as the loathsome outlaw Micah Bell, who is part of Dutch's gang but is frequently at odds with Arthur, who despises him and Peter really does a great job at making Micah hateful and despicable.

And the last a few I will mention are Curzon Dubell as Hosea Matthews, Dutch's best friend and co-gang member, who acts as the voice of reason and Dubell certainly does an excellent job with his role. Noshir Dalal is also excellent as the Native American member of Dutch's gang, Charles Smith and he always seems to talk in a very hushed tone most of the time! And last of all is Alex McKenna as Sadie Adler, another one of Dutch's gang, who is a female bounty hunter not to be messed with and she gives a fine performance and its safe to say that Sadie is the female equivalent of John and Arthur in the game and the best female character overall here.

MUSIC

As for the music it was composed by Woody Jackson and its an excellent score overall, which perfectly captures the tone and the period of the game as the score can be atmospheric, haunting, sad and playful all at once. Jackson also composed the original Red Dead and also quite a few of Rockstar games previous titles such as L.A. Noire, Max Payne 3 and Grand Theft Auto V.

FLAWS

As for flaws, does RDR2 have any worth pointing out??? Well, yep despite how enjoyable and good it is, I'm afraid it RDR2 still has quite a few worth pointing out.

For starters I would have to say my main complaint with RDR2 is to do with its game save system, which in my opinion is probably the WORST I have ever seen! And the reasons why it so bad is first off because the game will NOT let you save your progress as you go along properly, as it randomly autosaves it for you at different points, so if you want to load in a save you made at a certain point, the game will not reload it into the very point you left it, which is a real pain and it will load you in somewhere else! 

However, second of all and what is even worse is if you are in the middle of a mission and at any time for any reason have to switch the game off, it will NOT save the game during the point you were at, it will reset to BEFORE you started the mission! And this can be hugely frustrating especially later on as there are some missions that can require a fair bit of backtracking to get to and the game will reload MILES away from where the mission is located! Further to this point, I feel like the game forces you to try and complete missions in one sitting because this is its way of punishing you if you don't! So, yep to say that I am not impressed with this game's save system would be a huge understatement! In short it sucks!

Another issue I had with the game is that certain missions have some VERY lengthy travel dialogues where Arthur and his fellow travellers can take ages to reach their destination and will spend alot of that time yakkin on and on and you cannot cut through any of it! Thankfully for the most part, the dialogue tends to be fairly interesting but it doesn't fully prevent the whole travel thing enroute being a bit tedious.

WARNING: THIS NEXT PARAGRAPH CONTAINS A SPOILER!

Further to this issue, I found there are also some moments in the game where you have to physically make Arthur walk or ride his horse in order to progress the mission and again that can take ages! This is especially notable in the mission where Arthur is shipwrecked on a beach on an island near Cuba and you have to make him walk for ages to initiate the chapter properly as he wanders dazed around the island! And this all begs the question: rather than have you control Arthur, to save time, why not simply have a cutscene perform the same function?! It would make things much quicker to get through! But I just think that Rockstar games is trying to over-egg the pudding when it comes to reality by making you take control of Arthur rather than the game.

I also felt that at times the reasons for certain mission failures was a bit pathetic to say the least! As an example there is a mission where Arthur and his colleagues have to steal some horses from a stable and I ended up failing that mission simply because I didn't leave the stable with the horse fast enough! I mean WTF!!! I cannot imagine a LAMER reason to fail a mission in any game than that one! Another example is in a mission where Arthur, Dutch and the others attend a party in Saint Denis and Arthur has to follow the escort but I ended up getting lost and the mission failure reason was "The escort was abandoned". Again, what the hell?!! I mean all Arthur had to do was turn around and head back up the stairs to catch up with the escort! He didn't have to fail the mission for that alone! I mean, Jesus, Rockstar! You've got to try and do better with your mission failure rationale as it really is pretty crap at times!

Another problem is to do with some of the controls as there are times e.g. you will select your gun but want to also use an item such as chewing tobacco to restore your dead eye and when you finished using the tobacco, it doesn't it automatically let you re-select your gun right away you need to wait a few seconds for Arthur to retrieve it! So, yeah that's pretty annoying for sure!

There are other control issues as well that are prevalent in certain missions, such as one where Arthur goes with his Native American friend, Charles, for a ride in a canoe and he tells you to get into the canoe but for the life of me I COULDN'T figure out how to actually get Arthur into the bloody canoe! I thought it was usually the square button (on the PS4 anyway) you press for Arthur to climb up on and into things but nope not this time it was another button entirely! I later found out you use the triangle button to get Arthur into the canoe but it is really frustrating how the game just does not make this clear.

I also felt that some of the missions towards the end of the game are a bit tedious and more often than not they descend into another long drawn out gunfight, where you have to kill so many enemies before progressing onward. The gunfights and combat can tend to be fun depending on the mission but later it does have to be said that they soon become a bit too repetitive.   

Anyway that's it for the flaws.

SUM UP 

So in summing up, RDR2 is for the most part an excellent prequel to the original game and the main game itself has plenty of good action, great visuals and above all else a terrific story to tell with a very likeable and engaging main character in Arthur Morgan and without saying anything else the end of the main game is one of the most heart wrenching in gaming. The game of course does have its drawbacks with its hugely frustrating save system and some annoying control issues. 

However if you can forgive that then RDR2 is still well worth checking out and its pros still outweigh the cons and I'm sure its a game most people will enjoy.

OK, so that's it for now and I will be back next month with another post.

Till then its bye fer now, partner!