Fog in a 3d game used to mean the developer was hiding texture and geometry streaming but fog in a 3d game now means the developer is just making things look gorgeous.
You can almost feel the humidity in the swampy, marshy area.
Absolute greatest game fog since Silent Hill 2.
Back in 2010, I used to listen to Songs of Leonard Cohen while I played RDR. I listened to the whole album before I played this game and my Arthur Morgan dresses (and basically looks) just like Beattyâs McCabe. If thatâs all I take away from this game (and it isnât, but itâs a perfect encapsulation) then I struggle to subjectively choose a better game, even if Persona 5, the last game I was playing, is right up there too.
Now I really want to watch McCabe and Mrs. Miller again in all its anti-Western glory.
My complaints about the dragass aside, I just got to the big southern city and the size and detail in this game is still insanely impressive.
iâve been spending quite a bit of time in first-person mode, particularly in camp and towns. itâs a lot easier to navigate inside of buildings that way. iâm convinced you move faster and itâs not just a matter of perspective. it feels like you put on ice skates in first person.
i still love how much of an Event it is to even pull out your gun, let alone actually use it. you really have to think very deliberately for virtually every encounter.
weird shit bugs me though about the AI, like when I happened upon a guy shooting targets in the canyon. he asked if I wanted to challenge him to a shooting contest and I said yes. we were getting set up, but I still didnât have the controls down and I wound up pulling the trigger âtoo soon,â which prompted the other guy to go WHOA and just start shooting me instead! what the hell? Iâm trying to be nice here
You do move faster in first person. Basically you run in first person with the stick fully tilted and have to half tilt it to walk normally. It was like that in GTA V as well.
I havenât spent much time in first person but there are so many things I like about the game. PROTIP: hold the pause button to skip the menu and go straight to the map.
Also if you double tap L1/LB when holstering a pistol youâll do so with a true cowboy flourish. But only on foot. I couldnât do the flourish on horse back unfortunately.
Itâs also possible to shoot yourself in the leg in first person but I think you have to be sitting down.
The big thing Iâm most interested in is how the game handles persistence over time. You can kill an animal and the carcass will stay where it falls and slowly decay, attracting scavengers who will eat it until eventually there are just scattered bones. But NPCs also remember your interactions with them. Iâve rescued a few people from some pretty harrowing situations and now I canât wait to run into them again.
It blows me away, all the details. One of the people I rescued was a man with an injury to his arm, who was almost dead, that I gave a ride to the doctor in Saint Denis. The doctor said he wouldnât be able to save the arm and told me to leave because I wouldnât want to see what he had to do next. But I stayed and watched as he gave the man enough morphine to knock him out and then proceed to saw his arm off with a saw, finally dumping it in a waste bin after bandaging the stump. Then he looked at me and told me not to fret, that the man would be alright and I could leave now. I had Arthur greet him on my way out and Arthur told him he had done a good job with that arm. Really hope I run into that guy again eventually.
Itâs like, every encounter Iâve had so far had that level of detail to it. I think the entire game might just be hand crafted to a degree that has been unheard of so far for open worlders. Iâve come across a few places where people were building things like houses and Iâm really curious to see if those structures actually get completed eventually. How much of this is by hand and how much is systems-driven? I canât tell and itâs amazing to me.
looks like the beard growth is a bit fucked?
I did not expect this game to be a spiritual sequel to Ultima 7
For real!
The honor system is so much more expanded itâs wild how many small things effect it. You gain small bits of honor from doing things like throwing back fish youâve caught or mercy killing animals when hunting. Youâll even get some honor for killing rats in towns and cities.
I feel like you can do a million things in this game and none of them are exceptionally fun. It all comes together to create a unique thing but that thing isnât very compelling either. I donât think itâs going to hold up well after all the hype has died down. Iâm really looking forward to Timâs review, wonder what he thinks after heâs done with it
My hot take is that their biggest mistake was going for realistic everything. They should have just made a fun videogame. Theyâre great at that.
itâs just smokescreen simulationism perfected
Iâd rather have a game with three systems that all interact with one another and contribute something meaningful to the game than a million systems that do nothing or very little. Like whatâs the point of gun cleaning? I think this was in the Slate review too and itâs true that them getting dirty doesnât affect gameplay much and just adds busy work for the player⌠Itâs careless things like that that bother me about this game
Rockstar has reached a point where all their money is actually a detriment to game development. They can afford to put more and more stuff into their games and donât have to cut anything anymore. And boy, does this game need cutting
any game I play some part of my brain is always wishing it were more like ultima. gun cleaning that serves no real purpose sounds beautiful
It is beautiful. The models look great, dirty as well as clean. I guess you can use it for role playing while youâre sitting at the fire place eating beans.
It just bugs me the way it is implemented
This sounds like the greatest.
Simulationism is NOT for everyone. Shouldnât be, really.
I think thatâs a bit too dismissive. Thereâs still the argument to be had if itâs well done simulationism or not. And there can also be different kinds. But sure, maybe this is acctually well done for what itâs trying to do and itâs just not my style. Possible.
I mean, I think of myself as someone who is way less interested in simulationism than the average bear, insofar as it doesnât do much for me beyond whatever is directly in service of the mise en scene, and I rarely want to just hang out in game worlds and shoot the shit, but there are honestly very few games that I think even rise to the level of having substantive simulationism for its own sake beyond that, so I canât see complaining about those that do. but I am consequently not much interested in this game, no.
For open worlders the choice at the present moment is Ubisoftian icon cleanup and whatever you want to call Rockstarâs design âbrandâ. One of these trends is more ubiquitous but also clinical and devoid of real personality. The other is harder to pull off but also feels more meaningful to me on a human level.
i like this and I think it kind of reminds me of something Iâve been thinking about for awhile wrt these kinds of games, and âsimsâ in general. Is this a term with a longer history (or some more explanation) attached to it?
