RDR2 is due for a Remake/Remaster. The flaws cut too deep.

[Those Tunnels For Child Stuff]

For main issues, see this thread here https://steamcommunity.com/app/1174180/discussions/0/2992045158722741856/

There is also a trainer for this game that allows you to fast forward the game speed and give infinite cores for you and your horse. This will eliminate much of the time wasting in this game. If you're new to this game, just get the trainer right away or you're gonna have a bad time.

Upon initial impression this game is the definition of "fizzled potential", for a "AAA" western. Read on.

Also, the writing needs to be overhauled. Everything I'm hearing in the game, especially with relation to popular contemporary American politics, is being portrayed through a year 2020 (I should say 2018 lens, but the meaning is the same) lens. This game is said to take place in 1899.... the story and interpersonal relationships are unrealistic, and completely destroy the immersion this game otherwise has.

The immersion doesn't save this game though. To be up front, I give this game a below 5/10 rating. I am never excited to fire this game up, and the only reason I keep playing is out of curiosity of how bad it all gets, and I want ammo for my arsenal when I debate this with people. This game is not worth the steam asking price of $40, and it's not worth the $20 I paid on black friday. The only reason I'm not going to return it is because this is the type of bad video game I like to play now and then, and I get a good laugh that a supposed "AAA" company pumped out *this*.

Back to the critique, the game clearly poorly stitches together the missions and story elements, and being that I'm 20% into the game, there is nothing that could save it now. Assuming the game gets better, every time I go to replay this game I will remember "oh, I have to go through the first 20% of this (slow) game before I get to the good stuff". I don't even know what the plot of the game is right now other than that we are outlaws that set up camp somewhere. I have barely gotten dialog from Dutch since we set up camp, I have no idea which missions are pushing along the main story line. There are missions that seem like side missions that (I think) advanced the plot.

I don't even know what to scrape at to "give props" to this game for doing something well. The environment? But it looks procedurally generated with people going in afterwards touching it up??? Does anyone care???

The hunting stuff is obviously rigged to have dangerous animals attack you to show off these (unwanted) scenes where the game :D :D :D smoothly transitions :D :D :D (yay for smooth transitions!!!!) into the player being attacked. The animals (even herbivores) *always* jump out from rocks where they clearly spawned. It's all too forced and pretentious on behalf of the devs, and i can hear them from their office chairs screaming "YOU LIKE THIS! SAY I DID A GOOD JOB!" Anyways, I tried repeating what happened for the bear mission you go on with Hosea and i got hit with every irritating barrier you can imagine. I died in the mission because of that lame and scripted attack transition (and it's not clear whether this is a cinematic thing or game play - stop doing this devs it's purely irritating. nothing more, nothing less. it's not artsy if that's the pretentious angle here, either), then i was dumped somewhere on the map that appeared disconnected from everything else on the map, I had a horse that was a different color and everything than what I had before, I thought the game glitched out. It took me over an hour of research online and wandering around to stumble upon the fact that I could go into the menu (the menu system is so bad I cannot even recall which menu it is to explain it here or whether it's in the start menu or in-game menus. it's 2020 guys, games in the 80s didn't have these issues.). When I went to retry the mission I think it's scripted that you can't kill the bear, so I went to lay the damn bait again and I don't recall if I had it in my inventory still or if I tried third time and stumbled upon the berries as I was leaving because I was giving up. ANyways, I went to lay the frigging bait and i get a notification that i have to WAIT to hunt the damn thing again!!!! wtf???? how long? is this in game time only? I didn't realize I can rest anywhere and camp at the time because of the horrendous controls, and on top of that when i DID try experimenting with camping/resting anyways before i was on a patch of ground that didn't allow it, and i thought i forgot the correct control to do it or i was doing it wrong!!!! anyways, when I went to lay the bait the next day (real time days, not in-game) the bear never came, then as I said forget it and I was leaving I got attacked by the bear from a nearby rock (of course this oh-so-realistic game would have the bear "slip in" undetected right next to me). Everything about this was irritating and not fun, and I wasn't wowed by these mechanics or whatever the hell the deal was here that these things all happened. Other games have done hunting, and they did it better.

I'm going to add more info as I get it, and i've been reading other forums explaining issues with the game, and I'll post that here as well.

**More problems with menus**

When I'm in camp near the donation box, I see three little icon in the upper right, one iwth a chicken leg, another with a bullet, and another with a plus sign. I take it the ones in red are bad. What are these? What do I do to change them, and why in the hell is there no way to interact with them to get information? This game CONSTANTLY tries getting the player to pay attention to things that there's no obvious way to do anything about. This is the first game I've played, not only to have these issues, but have a chronic case of doing it... I'm assuming this is on purpose due to how often it happens, but what is the purpose? because all i'm getting out of it is irritation.

Remake/remaster this game and iron out all these issues. There is quite a bit more to do here than ironing out issues though. Do the FF7 thing where you just re-write the story in order to stitch this together properly. take out all the pretentious, forced mechanics like attack transitions like with the bear and cutscenes that turn into game play. speaking of this what IS the fighting system for melee? It just looks like the game is turning on baby mode, whilst making me take tons of damage, and auto winning fights while I mash buttons like my little brother playing a game with a disconnected controller. Take out the wait times for hunting and whatever other tedium you put in this game that I haven't seen yet. I don't even mind all the horse riding, but you guys messed up in many other ways that draw peoples' attention to the horseback riding. Fix the writing and make it match 1899, not 2020 (I should say 2018, but the meaning is the same).

I'll post back with examples and other overarching complaints (because given what I'm seeing now, I know there are more).

take out Weapons durability from the game. This has never worked for a game mechanic. It's just irritating (irritation is really a theme in this game).

I'm not sure what happened here but I got in a horseback fight and after i killed everyone the corpses all disappeared by the time i looted 2 of them. why? wtf? if this is supposed to happen in this game change it so it doesn't happen. why would this be a thing?? IRRITATING.

I would turn on a trainer at this point, but I'm curious how bad this game gets, and I want to experience the real deal. Honestly, it's getting kind of funny at this point that I can make such observations about a huge friggin' game company's derps. These are derpy screw ups to put it mildly.

Do I have to use items one by one or can I use multiple at once? I have to go through that pie menu and cycle through items just to restore an empty core? How was this not taken care of in development? Someone let me know if I'm missing something here because this is.... all my wat

Is there a dialog log in this game? I'm trying to go over something someone said, and I can't find it. This game seems to love dropping the player off at dead end roads. I don't think this was intentional. It seems like this game wasn't finished.

I'm on a bounty mission and the game just told me that a hog tied passenger will drown if i go through deep water on my horse, then the guided path says to go through deep water....

The game needs to have better checkpoint save functionality. I don't mind the horseback riding but when I'm trying to redo crap I don't want to wait through the ride again, this is just wasting the player's time. This is what dark souls does and i think that's why people call that game "hard". The only difficult part about dark souls is not getting so bored that you just turn 360 degrees and walk away from playing it.

Quick time events... there are quick time events in this game... and during cut scenes.... this was the *only* criticism I had for RE4, an otherwise perfect game. RDR2 is now on the cusp of an anti-game or something... how does anyone think this game is above average? Where are the points above a 4.5/10 coming from?

I have to press and hold the button ***each*** time I want to discard an item... I have dozens of items I need to throw away right now... god. what is wrong with this game??

put an option in the menu to skip all of these pointless repeated cut scenes for skinning animals and everything else. and why aren't some cut scenes skippable until they get well into the damn thing? I have to keep mashing the button to find out if it's eventually skippable... how did any of this get past quality control at rockstar?? what is going on at that company? politics in the work place??? i bet that's exactly what happened.

I can't lasso an animal i killed and drag it behind me to camp. fizzled potential.

why hasn't this game been updated? It's been out for 2 years and they never came back to update this junkyass product? There's a lot of room for improvement.

Why do i have to stand at a particular angle from an object on the ground before the option to pick it up is given? ... how is this a problem in a video game in the year 2020? I don't think i've seen this problem in a game before. ...i mean, maybe but I can't recall it.

I couldn't tell what the game was doing with that item and weapon wheel but I just confirmed the 2 weapon load out video game trope again. Can we not do this? I want all my guns on my person in the game. Always. For every game. 40+ guns. one guy's jeans pocket. just do it.

[Zuleica]

I bought the game because the haters on Cyberpunk raved over how much better it was. I had over 60 hours into Cyberpunk and despite some issues have been having fun.

I like this game as well though it's not what the people raved about. I agree with you about the 2020 lens instead of trying to recreate how people interacted in 1899 but then even few Americans could pull that off let alone a European dev team.

Despite enjoying the game for what it is, here are the main points that would make it MUCH better for me;

1. Don't force a story arch, let us make our own character and as what we want to play (I'll get to online in a moment). I don't like being forced to play a character with a set personality.

2. Don't lock items behind a 'level' or having completed a mission; like weapons, clothing, and especially a simple fishing rod. That's just annoying and supports the fixed story arch.

3. Fixed mission progressions...bad and again enforces the fixed story arch. It's more like an interactive story than an open world. It's NOT an open world when you transition to cinematic sections that lead you by your nose and dump you into a situation where you have to find the very specific action to succeed.

4. Online; This is REALLY bad. Forcing players into a peer-to-peer lobby with strangers without an option to create a private lobby for solo play or play with trusted friends is just horrible internet security. I could imagine getting past the first three compaints if I could play alone or with friends in a private online lobby for some brain dead reason Rockstar doesn't give us that option.

[Dingo]

Both of you write a whole lot that basically should be "i just dont like that type of game" because the attempt to argue about how things need to be "fixed" is rather poor. 90 % are deliberate design descisions which you are entitled to not like but that doesn't make them broken.

[Those Tunnels For Child Stuff]

Originally posted by Dingo:

Both of you write a whole lot that basically should be "i just dont like that type of game" because the attempt to argue about how things need to be "fixed" is rather poor. 90 % are deliberate design descisions which you are entitled to not like but that doesn't make them broken.

see, the thing is, I don't think rockstar did all of this on purpose, and having been in the software development industry, I can tell you that bad management can destroy and deter good things from happening in so many ways.

However, if they did do all of these things I'm calling problems on purpose, then that means a "AAA" studio made a *huge* budget game, and even had crunch time, to appeal to a niche audience that they hadn't even identified while making the product. I don't think any company is that artsy and willing to take that kind of commercial risk, even though it's the case that rockstar could afford it.

I think this game was the product of poor management and maybe even devs with the wrong mindset making it. Again, there is nothing that could happen in the game at this point for me to go to a 5/10, and it could sink a lot deeper here.

I'm not even sure what the deal is with this story, but based on the comment above yours, it sounds like it's worse than I thought. My question now is: why is this an open world game, but they're trying to do this (poor executed) linear story. I genuinely do not understand what they're doing. There are missions that say you're going to do one thing, then dump you off with your health meters gimped (like the mission where you go drinking with the black who's staying in your camp), then it tells you to rest to restore a very low meter, and it didn't even work when I did it, and this is where I discovered the aforementioned area-based resting function. Jeez, that is *horrible* design that can be fixed in a Remaster. This game is all over with the presentation. It looks like the project changed hands 15 times during development and 3 different teams cobbled together several different systems per team. It's bad. Plain and simple, and I'm shocked that I didn't hear any of this until I went to search online for what to do; this just speaks to the level of censorship on the internet these days. Back on the story though, I do not believe i'm in the year 1899 anymore, there are too many "we're in the year 2020 moments", and it's pretty obvious. they're even making a showcase out of it over and over and over and over again. What's the point in saying it's the year 1899 if it's not 1899? To deceive young people for political purposes? That's is the single result I can think of here.

[Themightyred92]

Lmao. You people should not play games. Go into politics or something. Let people have fun and go cry somewhere else.
There are 1000 games to play and you play a game you dislike. Cant be a normal person..bunch of sadists

[Themightyred92]

Originally posted by Zuleica:

I bought the game because the haters on Cyberpunk raved over how much better it was. I had over 60 hours into Cyberpunk and despite some issues have been having fun.

I like this game as well though it's not what the people raved about. I agree with you about the 2020 lens instead of trying to recreate how people interacted in 1899 but then even few Americans could pull that off let alone a European dev team.

Despite enjoying the game for what it is, here are the main points that would make it MUCH better for me;

1. Don't force a story arch, let us make our own character and as what we want to play (I'll get to online in a moment). I don't like being forced to play a character with a set personality.

2. Don't lock items behind a 'level' or having completed a mission; like weapons, clothing, and especially a simple fishing rod. That's just annoying and supports the fixed story arch.

3. Fixed mission progressions...bad and again enforces the fixed story arch. It's more like an interactive story than an open world. It's NOT an open world when you transition to cinematic sections that lead you by your nose and dump you into a situation where you have to find the very specific action to succeed.

4. Online; This is REALLY bad. Forcing players into a peer-to-peer lobby with strangers without an option to create a private lobby for solo play or play with trusted friends is just horrible internet security. I could imagine getting past the first three compaints if I could play alone or with friends in a private online lobby for some brain dead reason Rockstar doesn't give us that option.

Lmao. Dont force a story arch. You are playing a wrong game. Most people love this game because of the story. Saying this is a bad thing is pathetic. If thats not your thing go play something else. But saying it shouldnt be like that is hillarious lmao
And also..cyberpunk has literally zero decision impacts in the entire game lmfao..yet you like that terrible game 😂😂

[PBR]

Originally posted by Themightyred92:

Lmao. You people should not play games. Go into politics or something. Let people have fun and go cry somewhere else.
There are 1000 games to play and you play a game you dislike. Cant be a normal person..bunch of sadists

But GaMiNg iSnT SuPpoSeEdDd To bE FuN U hAVE 2 StOp ThAT mANN

(i agree with ya)

[Those Tunnels For Child Stuff]

somehow the game just duplicated my horse. now we've got the glitches rolling in. *sigh* this is the best "aaa" game studios can poop out?

[tyrone shoelaces]

yea well r2d2 was created in the early 1970's, so give the poor little guy a break for gosh sakes.

[JACKSin]

They chose a walking simulator style for the story missions that's a bit heavy handed for an adventure game. Hopefully they'll let off the reins for their next game. They're also a bit unimaginative when it comes to creating challenge, resorting to cheap tricks like the predator traps and spawning enemies on top of you to create movement. But calling the game less than 5/10 makes it a bit hard to take you seriously. Call it lack of competition but it's probably the best game to come out on PC in the last 2 years. People only write novels about games that are worth writing novels about.

[Those Tunnels For Child Stuff]

Originally posted by Big Bad Wolf:

They chose a walking simulator style for the story missions that's a bit heavy handed for an adventure game. Hopefully they'll let off the reins for their next game. They're also a bit unimaginative when it comes to creating challenge, resorting to cheap tricks like the predator traps and spawning enemies on top of you to create movement. But calling the game less than 5/10 makes it a bit hard to take you seriously. Call it lack of competition but it's probably the best game to come out on PC in the last 2 years. People only write novels about games that are worth writing novels about.

I'm using a trainer now to fast forward through the travel times (you can set it to 10x the speed if you want). I didn't mind it, but when missions fail due to bullsh*t or my horse glitches into something and dies I get pretty pissed off. I also turned on unlimited cores to bypass that incredibly stupid element of the game. I was having to spend all my money on food for my horse and I, and I wasn't even full up. Then I got attacked coming out of my camp in this condition and used every last thing I had and was worse off than before. And for whatever reason the $600 I got after killing everyone in that o'driscal camp isn't in my money pool, and it didn't go in the donation box in the camp so Idk what happened but I used the trainer to give myself that money and i don't see a reason for items in the game any more so I'll probably just put unlimited items on now.

I'm serious about a less than 5/10. the game play is not good, and other games have done what this game is trying to do and they did it better. san andreas is a better game than this. this game is an HD texture mod with work done on smooth animations, and I never cared about graphics. Again, with the story, it's 2018 political propaganda with a western theme, rather than a western rpg in 1899. What is left in the game to say it's above average? Where would those points come from? And if this is the best game in 2 years, then I might as well just not look at other games, because I'm returning to gaming after a 10 year hiatus and this is simply bad. I'm guessing you're about 20 years old or something if you think this is a good game; try going back to games before 2007, or even better 2004, and compare them to what you have now, and then tell me if these improvements look like 13+ years worth of progress. They're not and these supposed "Aaa" studios are squeezing out turds like this game.

The environments look decent in this game, but I can go see that on my property in real life if I want that, and sometimes the textures for trees degrade into something that looks like it's straight out of serious sam 1.... this is not a "good" game by any metric to me. and it's not worth half the $40 asking price on steam right now

[Those Tunnels For Child Stuff]

After the game giving me a notification that my inventory was full, and that I should go through it to discard stuff, then seeing that it's making me discard ONE - ONE!!!! - of ONE type of item at a time I just set the controller down and quit the game. That inventory system has pages of types of items inside tab of items, and I have dozens of items to throw away... omg. why? how does this get past quality control at rockstar? how?

Maybe I'll come back later, but I have a huge library of 20 year old games I can be playing instead of this trash video game... holy crap my mind is blown by all the hype that I heard the past 2 years... how? I want to know who was hyped about which things in this game.

[tea]

literally complaining about problems a 60 year old schizophrenic man would only have issues with. well done

[Dingo]

Maybe you should turn around right away and put down gaming once more.
it seems like you are getting irritated about a whole lot of nothing while looking at older games with rose tinted glasses.

Money is not an issue in the game and managing your cores is neither neccessary nor hard if you decide to mess with them. Plain and simple: you are doing it wrong.

Your take on the story is again... nitpicky. If you have the same problems with movies being innacurate, sure rdr2 is pushing your buttons aswell but that is a specific you-problem again.
Considering anime a tad retarded, you don't see me watching one and then acting suprised about the nonsense i watched.

The point about the games look and how you have that in front of your door... well, maybe you should not play a game with this setting then? What kind of point are you trying to make here? procedurally generated? Really? Sorry but sometimes a few arguments are just so absolutely terrible that they can easily taint everything else you say.

What are these amazing games of the past?

[crizzl]

Originally posted by I heart White people:

Everything I'm hearing in the game, especially with relation to popular contemporary American politics, is being portrayed through a year 2020 (I should say 2018 lens, but the meaning is the same) lens. This game is said to take place in 1899.... the story and interpersonal relationships are unrealistic, and completely destroy the immersion this game otherwise has.

RDR2 does not pretend to be a wild west simulator seen from a historical perspective. It IS portrayed by means of actual political immediacy like every GTA out there. You must have overslept the last 20 years of Rockstar games if you're really baffled by that.

I have no idea which missions are pushing along the main story line. There are missions that seem like side missions that (I think) advanced the plot.

Be glad that you haven't seen through the wispy story lines at the moment. It only feigns complexity and influence by the player.

Remake/remaster this game

Oh hell no, it would be exactly like this, possibly more bugs.

[The Commendatore]

Come on, boahs. That username alone should tell y'all enough.