An outstanding narrative work that continues in its predecessor's legacy as an exploration of the means by which video games are able to construct deeply emotional stories with a cast of nuanced, human characters. Part II starts off with an earned — and bold — emotional gut punch that sends the various characters spiraling into an emotionally charged saga of revenge and forgiveness, demanding player attention by virtue of the introductory moment being an arguably diegetic moment of agony as Ellie Williams is compelled to move heaven and earth to enforce her vision of justice on the poor bastards of Seattle. Abby Anderson's role as the work's antagonist-turned deuteragonist humanizes the many victims of Joel Miller's actions in the first title, and the many that lay in Ellie's path, as both women have their lives devastated as part of the cycle of revenge in service of finding meaning to the tears.

You're probably aware of some degree as to what this title entails, but it's set twenty years after a parasitic fungal infection transmitted to humans from ants and destroyed society in what is effectively a zombie apocalypse with some interesting creative differences that gives its apocalypse a unique vibe. Despite the presence of infected as frequent enemies, human factions play an equal, if not ultimately more consequential role in the modality of combat, as new societies emerge and fall into the same cycles of war that nations have since their emergence. As such, combat ranges from having to avoid echolocation-reliant zombies, to armed soldiers and militiamen of the two major factions warring throughout the Seattle area. As the game goes on, Ellie's mental state declines as more and more bodies are left in her wake, while Abby's guilt propels her into a moral decency the likes of which her murdered father would admire. With a sliding-scale of difficulty meters allowing for a great variety of play, Part II boasts high-pressure, well-realized gameplay alongside its poignant writing and characterization of its world in service of a game that feels massive in its scope, while maintaining its focus as a story of deeply flawed people struggling to make sense of the broken world they're all scrambling in.

Graphically, the game is gorgeous, and speaks to the continued dedication by Naughty Dog in this franchise to a realistic, and detailed world struggling with the degradation following two decades of national institutional collapse, as remnant Federal authorities increasingly lose control of cities to newer factions. This collapse at times compliments and contrasts its characters' drives to help and maim the people around them, creating a dark world populated with hope and goodness that is often dashed as much as it is championed.

This is one of the first titles in a long while with the emotional resonance to make me cry in its conclusion, a status shared with 2018's Red Dead Redemption II, sharing in emotionally-charged writing that earns its moments of tragedy and heartbreak. Part II: Remastered features excellent gameplay to fit with its story, and this remaster manages to even run pretty well on the Deck. An incredible port to one of the most important games of the past decade, as designers increasingly push the boundaries of emotional depth through the medium.

Red Dead Redemption II is a video game that often doesn't want to be. An open-world title that regularly demotes its vibrant and colorful vistas to distant backdrop for deeply constrained, linear storytelling that desires to be as tiresome and drab as possible, with every limitation imaginable to its typical gameplay loops of pressing buttons to milk cows or reel in fish, when you aren't depopulating rural towns in scripted gunfights that would realistically destabilize local demography for generations. While it is charming, filled with a dynamic cast of well-realized characters, and carries deeply intimate, warm, emotional beats, Redemption II is a hard game to play more than once in short order while retaining your sanity, requiring hours of dedication to its slow speed, often for minimal accomplishment. Its story alone, should you ignore its myriad of side-activity, pushes 60 hours, including a lengthy epilogue that is muddled by a desire to extend its lifespan far beyond what it deserves.

All this to say it's a very contemporary Rockstar release, and doesn't really build on the linear methodology of previous titles such as Grand Theft Auto V. Like Grand Theft Auto V, Redemption II relies on its setting and writing to hook its audience, something that it personally does well. Using an often idealistic sense of personal morality to guide the tumultuous narrative of its antihero outlaw protagonist, Arthur Morgan, the game illustrates an earnestly dramatic and tragic story in the final days of the American Frontier, with Arthur discovering what he ought to live for as the 19th century takes its last breath. Redemption II emulates Romanticist depictions of the vastness of the American interior — as opposed to the Spaghetti Westerns that inspired its 2010 predecessor — with its many breathtaking environments drawn from the landscapes of Albert Bierstadt and Thomas Cole, and resembling historical epics in how it dramatizes the tale of the Van der Linde gang, Arthur's criminal outfit. If the characters and world hooks you, it hooks you, but all this is up to personal taste and interest.

But you probably knew all this. You're here because you want to know if this is a good port. This is a very good port. It has a lot of video options, runs swell on the Deck, has NVIDIA DLSS optimization, and other specifications that'll help you tailor your preferred graphical experience. You should mod this game and spawn a two-headed skeleton that beats people up in the town square. You should regularly break this game's immersion so it can take its head out of its ass about how slow paced it is, so you may have fun with your time and enjoy it on your day off.

I know I just said a bunch of mixed things about this title, but that's my relationship to this thing. It's a massive game that is often very humorous, emotional, exciting, and dramatic, even without mods that allow you to sic a goon squad of bodyguards on people, or spawn in a meteor shower in a montage. On one hand, this game is incredibly long, and I would not continue to play it if not for the fact that there exist mods that allow you to inject your own free-form style into it. On the other hand, its story is enjoyable, its characters charismatic, and its world dynamic, beautiful, and full of life. Even if its upsides are often stymied by a desire of the title to inhibit action in the name of realism or linear gameplay, Red Dead Redemption II has easily been on my hard drive the longest of any game in my Steam Library. Is that because of mods? Yes, but its world, story, and characters breathe a familiar life into it that I can never truly stay away for long, especiallywhenyouspawnabunchofgrizzlybearsincampusingconsolecommandsandeverybodyfreaksoutandunclegetsmauledbyabearandeverybodyisfightingandchaosreignsandyouspawnameteorshowerandatornadoandablackholeusingatrainerjustforkicks.