There is little denying that Red Dead Redemption is the best current iteration of the Wild West genre in gaming. With its epic vistas, well written characters and expansive world it almost had the whole package... almost.
With the impending release of Red Dead Redemption 2, so many who loved RDR have been waiting for since they finished the game, everyone is on the edge of their saddle to see what Rockstar will bring to the sequel. In this blog I want to detail some of the things that really should be improved and indeed I'm hoping that they will be as it's not just been me who's commented on them in the past.
John Marston's Amorality.
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This is something that bugged me and many other players, especially those - like me - that played the game more than once and played it for more than just the rip-roaring wild west gun-slinging. The one thing you become starkly aware of set against the colourful background of supporting character is John Marston's rather grey and amoral stance.
RDR likely will not feature John as the protagonist unless they go for a prequel of course but this is something I hope to see addressed in RDR2 - you soon learn that although the game features a "morality bar" for want of a better term it's largely redundant.
Firstly, John seems to have no personality of his own with which to help the player guide his actions in game and constantly walks this line where he is neither a villain or a hero. How many times did you want John to just punch West Dickens in the face? He occupies this odd grey area in between for the whole game. Maybe the finishing scene in the barn is a something of a reminder of the common saying that if you don't stand for something you'll fall for anything.
In RDR2 it would be nice to have the game world reflect more strongly the players decisions besides getting a manky looking horse and some shops getting all moralistic on you and refusing to serve you or doing a token 24hr stint in the local slammer. Nothing that you do in RDR really changes anything and it would be nice to have a protagonist isn't just an idle bystander to anything in the game, who often eclipsed in character by the other people he or she interacts with who do actually have a position on things and stand up for their values be they right or wrong.
So, a more colourful protagonist please !
Sterile Game-world
For all New Austin, 'Mehico' and Tall Trees gave the player a lot to look at and ride around one cannot deny that fact that after a good while in-game you fast realise that there's a whole bunch of empty space with nothing of any real interest in it.
The game world is rendered beautifully and even now as it nears being 7 years old it looks fantastic - the lighting, the textures, the world design overall is brilliant. This isn't something that Rockstar have every had a problem with though, what they have a problem with is populating their visually stunning worlds with things of interest, GTA5 suffers the same sort of fate despite it's good points.
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| Tumbleweed - another beautifully rendered by completely empty place. |
I'm not syaing they have to go full-on RPG with side quests every 100 metres in game but some more things to do would be great. The mini-games in RDR were good but be honest, how many times did you play horseshoes apart from the time you needed to do it to make up a costume for John?
After you clear out the bandit camps they just kinda respawn after a time, the trader's stock doesn't change, nothing really happnes in the game world over time or through player actions. It's all very sterile, there just isn't that much to do outside of the story off your own back.
More stuff to do, more people to interact with please!
Financial Incentives
If like me you made a habit of gambling and hunting you too will have figured out you can go through the whole game with a steady balance of about $2,000 and that's generous too.Nothing is that expensive and if you keep yourself topped up - which isn't hard - there is no real incentive to earn more.
While I don't make a call to realism here - 2000 bucks was a fucking fortune in the time the game is set, the average person earned about $40 a month - it would have been nice if money was harder to come by and stuff was more expensive. Yes, a basic revolver was probably about $100 back then, but as you can see that was about three months money's worth. So the financial challenge to buy that new rifle or some dynamite just wasn't present.
In game economics are hard to get right. Assassin's Creed suffered the same fate, so did much of the Saint's Row franchise, though oddly enough the first one got it pretty balanced actually making you feel like you had to commit crime to make it pay. RDR was no different in getting stuff kinda wrong with money.
So a more challenging financial system please!
In-game challenges
These were clearly put in to address the issue of an increasingly empty game world but in realism if you do ever get round to skinning your last beaver (no that's not a euphemism for something else) to complete the master hunter challenge by the the time you get to reap the reward you're basically in the last throws of the game anyway so .. meh.
This is how I and many other's felt about the in-game challenges like Master Hunter, Sharp Shooter etc, that while fun they were essentially pointless as it was often too little too late. It was cool to be able to make medicine from vittles but by that point in the game I had enough money to just buy the doc out every time I was in town.
Largely these challenges added very little to the game besides unlocking an outfit or two.
Story mission variety
This was arguably my biggest gripe, 90% of the story missions followed this pattern;
> Go meet some guy
> Ride with some guy to X location while he feeds you white-washed US history
> Shoot some other guys who some guy dislikes for reasons
> [occasionally] escape withe some guy while other guys chase you
> Get paid $20 for your hassle and left in the middle of nowhere
> Grumble to yourself...
> Ride back
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| Still one my favourite characters from the game. |
Initially I was fine with a bit of high ho silver gun-slinging action on the range while biding my time in New Austin in the company of the Sheriff and Bonnie Mc-why-the-fuck-are-you-with-that-other-bint-John? but I soon became tired of the repeated mission dynamic, hoping to find something new to do in Mehico and Tall trees, I, as you, were greeted with the same dynamic as described above with the odd interlude where you herd some cattle for Bonnie or hunt some rabbits..
Ultimately the rides with some guy were about as interesting as the inevitable shootout at the end of it, not necessarily any less painless either. I know it's a wild west game but not everything was gun toting bandits and horse chases into the sunset. I think what made this worse was the fact that John often alluded to being a bit more intelligent than your average gunslinger, and ode to his character writing or perhaps a lack of realisation thereof, nonetheless opportunities were wasted I feel in resolving story missions with something other than gratuitous amounts of flying lead.
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Overall Red Dead Redemption was a hugely enjoyable and repayable game but it suffered for what I felt seemed to be an effort of the game writers to not make things too smart and satirical to pander to the younger audience - I honestly the feel the shrewd irony of Michael and Trevor's conversion about hipsters in GTA5 was lost on about 90% of it's player base - being of that social subset themselves and that's what made it so funny. Oftentimes it seemed like RDR backed out of it too much but if you played the GTA franchise, into which RDR firmly sits in terms of style and representation, they were always clever, satirical and smart behind the blazing gun and rampant anarchic violence and Red Dead Redemption 2 needs to realise this.
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