I enjoyed Red Dead 2 much more than the first game. I’m not there for either of their story throughlines because as we all know they can’t really balance between po-faced HBO aping and the bluntest satire this side of Family Guy.
But Red Dead 2 is a point where the game has become so comically massive that there’s an endless (quiet) amount of time to be had moving and watching and poking and prodding. It’s a beautiful watch laid out for you and you don’t need to be chased around by the second hand, you can just watch it tick.
(I can’t emphasize enough how important it is that this game can be quieter than any other AAA game, and how many scenarios and interactions are novel just because nobody has tried to represent these in games before. There’s an incredible number of views and quiet scenes inside this thing that doesn’t exist anywhere else in games. And it’s entirely outside the main campaign.)
And have I mentioned how wonderful the pickup interactions in camp are, including the singing?
There’s no sense in arguing it’s good, it’s far too huge to have any pacing or intent or anything like a considered experience. It is, and like almost every game I like, I don’t necessarily like it as a whole but it’s got such pieces in it you can rip out and chew.
oh and Felix the interesting stuff is almost entirely outside of systems and mechanics, you won’t find genius breakthroughs here outside of raw technical and visual ambition that won’t be equaled for a decade in some respects
oh god now I’m getting flashbacks to how upset playing FFXV makes me even as I trudged through because there was reliably a wacky/terrible/audacious/awesome bit every hour
Prompto, I swear, if you don’t stop taking saying “hashtag YOLO” I’m going to confiscate your teeth
yeah I miss early ipad gaming too (this X is only the second iOS device I’ve ever had) but it’s just as well that “any iPhone” is a pass to the whole ecosystem nowadays
he just says “hashtag sorry not sorry” and like I say that out loud sometimes in the same sort of post-ironic, deliberately obnoxious manner, so imo prompto’s personality profile is actually “appeallingly cringe” and I think they did a great job nailing that. I’d still rather chill with prompto than like zell or tidus