I've been thinking a lot about 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Red Dead Redemption 2, mainly because of 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Elden Ring. A lot of you seem ready to christen 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:FromSoftware's latest controller-breaker as the greatest open world game of all time, but with its 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:lousy UX/UI, 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:arcane and obtuse menus, and just 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:the fact it isn't really for me means I'm unable to make that leap with you. 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:I'm stuck on Red Dead Redemption 2, and I think I always will be. With its living, breathing world, excellent soundscape, and the way it bursts with engaging stories to tell you, it feels as if it's the most well-realised open world in video game history. The only problem is the missions kinda suck.
I know I'm going to get a lot of flak for that, but please hear me out. I think I've written enough versions of 'Red Dead Redemption 2 Is Great, Fuck Yeah!' to have earned the benefit of the doubt. I've 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:defended Guarma and the snow - I'm all in on the Red Dead train baby. But the missions, they're just not that good. Narratively? Brilliant. I think we 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:overstate storytelling in video games sometimꦿes because 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:we have been starved of ᩚᩚᩚᩚᩚᩚᩚᩚᩚ𒀱ᩚᩚᩚhigh-q🅰uality narratives, but Red Dead Redemption 2 has one of the few that stands toe to toe with other mediums in its genre. I'd go so far as to say it's up there with Tombstone, Unforgiven, and The Revenant as one of the great modern westerns. Certainly it's better than Cowboys & Aliens. From a gameplay perspective though? Not so much.
As I've already written about, the best thing to do in Red Dead Redemption 2 is to do nothi🔜ng. Partly that's because the open world is so fantastic, but it's also because playing the missions of Red Dead can be a chore. This is only a roadblock on very specific missions, but when it happens it's impossible to avoid and highlights the one, dated drawback to RDR2's design - you have to play it the game's way. In one mission, you must make your way through a small town, shooting at the army while they try to strongarm a Native American reservation. You can run up the middle of the town gunslinging, but this doesn't feel like the most sensible option. So, naturally, I tried to skirt around the back of the barn. I wasn't fleeing the battle, I was just heading another ten yards to my left to get a better position. This decision results in an instant failure of the mission, because it demands you go right up the rootin' tootin' middle.
There are a handful of other missions like this where any sense of player agency or creativity is not allowed. Red Dead Redemption 2's narrative is constructed as a movie, and you are merely the star. You're not the writer, not the director, not the producer. You're the talent. The poster boy. Just hit your marks and say your lines, and don't you dare come knocking on my trailer door again to suggest a scene rewrite. You will walk up the middle of that there town set and you will smile into camera two, because that's what you're being paid for!
What's most frustrating is how much freedom the rest of the game offers you. Once you're out of the first patch of snow, you can pretty much go anywhere, ignore the main quests and meet Strangers, hunt animals, or just take in the beauty of the Old West. It's like Elden Ring except the menus make sense. Most of the Red Dead game is improv, it's b-roll. Do whatever you want, just be sure to be on set by 10am. Because when those cameras start rolling, it's Rockstar's way or the highway.
If you do go along with what Rockstar wants, you will be rewarded, but it's bizarre that in a game where you are ordinarily encouraged to carve your own path, you're punished for doing it during missions. And not just punished with a lower mission score or fewer rewards, but straight-up killed and sent back to the start. I'd understand some form of failsafe if I got on my horse and hightailed it in the complete opposite direction, but we're often talking about taking a slightly deviated route to the exact same destination.
Red Dead Redemption 2 remains the greatest open world title ever, regardless of any challenges from Elden Ring, but it doesn't change the fact that when it closes up, it grips you far too tight. Replaying RDR2 to get that open-world buzz back, it remains a gaping flaw in the game's design.
