

That’s gonna hurt in the mornin’
Given the budget and time spent making this game, this was a giant missed opportunity to provide more freedom with the mission parameters than their past games. You’re playing as an outlaw flaunting the law; shouldn’t the gameplay support this idea of personal freedom, and not fly in the face of it?
Ignore the screen, focus your attention solely on the lower left. RDR1 got this part right… so how’d they get it so wrong for the sequel?
Maybe Arthur’s satellite-fed GPS radar is all the realism we can handle. So just sit there and do what Rockstar says, when they say it. Don’t have fun. Don’t try to break the rules. What, you think you’re an outlaw or something?
RDR1 used yellow Xs to follow if the hud was off.
Them’s some beeee-autiful filters
And your interactions with the law in this game are just bad. One of many frustrating encounters began after I accidentally bumped a stranger in the middle of nowhere; he started shooting at me. A witness popped up and took off to report me for bumping him, entirely ignoring the fact that he was the one firing shots. I chased down and dealt with them… just in time for another witness to show up. While dealing with them another witness showed up. I’m supposed to be on top of a mountain, there are no towns, no houses, nada. And by this point the law magically knows a murder has been committed and 5 officers have spawned onto the scene out of thin air. Luckily my pocket gps started flashing red to let me know they were coming. Man, this is some wild west simulator! 2 or 3 dead witnesses later, I found myself on a beach with bullet fire exploding all around me, low on ammo, with a $5,000 bounty on my head and the dead bodies of about 30-40 lawmen strewn about. As they finally break my defense, I collapse into the surf next to the shredded body of my horse. With my final breath, I can only laugh maniacally over how this came to pass – I bumped into someone in the woods. Road rage, writ large.
I could begrudgingly accept the above if the law systems were at least built upon a good foundation. Nope. Lawmen constantly spawn out of nowhere, in numbers no small western community would ever be able to support. I understand that letting you ‘depopulate’ an entire town and keeping it empty forever would interfere with the story, but sending 50 mustachioed terminators after you for petty crimes just seems preposterous.
And yet they found time and money to really perfect horse poop.
For a game that forces me to craft and cook things one at a time because ‘realism,’ this is highly disappointing. Don’t give me the ILLUSION that I can be an outlaw and commit crimes, only for you to spawn invisible Terminators with GPS tracking and magical guns. I just ultimately don’t understand how a game this large, this well-financed, whose very premise is being an outlaw… can have such horribly inferior systems for managing the law. Did they copy-paste this from GTA III’s source code?
The Morality Meter
You’re given the option of playing as a nice guy with high honor, or as a horrible dirty outlaw with no honor. You’re probably never going to play as a horrible dirty outlaw, because it’s nothing but pain, Highness.
Outside of a few outlying places, this has ZERO impact on Arthur’s actions throughout the campaign.
The lie detector determined this was a lie.
The Continuing Adventures of Murdy McMurderFace
This won’t end well.
Couldn’t take a few hours to tidy this up, guys?
Updates based on X’d items to right.
This is my dedication.
I have issues, or a lot of time on my hands. Maybe both.
Yes, it’s Lloyd Bridges.
Key Mapping isn’t grayed out. It just doesn’t exist. C’mon, Rockstar. If you want it to be inactive on the main screen, GRAY it out, don’t REMOVE it.
Yeehaw.
I could do this all day.
Mmmmm, variable lens focus.
I’m surprised this number isn’t bigger.
Spoooooky
Shadowlicious.
Slushy
Accidental or intentional, lamps, lanterns and random sticks of dynamite can become fire hazards. The system is not implemented as well as in Far Cry 2, as fires won’t propagate and spread across the heart lands, but during shootouts, knocked over lamps can cause minor camp fires and destroy tents, chests, and loot. Sadly, buildings can’t be burned to the ground. I tried. Multiple times.
Arthur is a dirty, dirty boy.
Tearin’ it up & burnin’ it down!
Zoom in on anything – it will be highly detailed.
Meet “Pierced” Brosnan
First person has a lot of custom animations.
You are a very fine person, Mr. Morgan, and I am very fond of you;
but you are only quite a little fellow in a wide world after all.
Cities have their own flair.
These guys are not practicing appropriate social distancing.
… whatchu lookin’ at, pardner?
$41 fer that gaudy mess?? Shuddup an’ take mah wooden nickels!
Sooo… do they offset each other? It’s such a hard thing to answer. Maybe? Sometimes? I’m conflicted. The 5-6 hours between missions where I’m just free roamin’ are wonderful. The linear missions are a total gameplay slog. But at the end of the day, what can I say? I haven’t even finished the campaign yet, and I’ve put in a LOT of hours. Not sure if that’s a badge of shame or one of honor, but I guess that’s the ultimate point here – much like the honor system, it doesn’t really matter. Good, Bad, or Ugly… I’m still here playing it to find out what happens next, enjoying both the beauty and atrocity of it all.
I’ve played a lot of hours.
Hi, Mom!