For the past few months I have been playing copious amounts of Red Dead Redemption 2, sequel to the much acclaimed Red Dead Redemption, spiritual sequel to the lackluster Red Dead Revolver. Does anyone even remember Red Dead Revolver? I know I don't, except for a multiplayer deathmatch mode where each kill counted towards cards in a poker hand, and you were trying to somehow make a winning hand.
RDR2, which I constantly have to correct from R2D2, is a prequel more than an actual sequel, and tells the story of what the fuck happened to John Marston and his gang to cause the first game to happen in the first place. This time you play as Arthur Morgan, a member of the Van Der Linde gang along a younger John and their leader Dutch and company. You're all on the run from The Man after a botched robbery, leaving you all stranded in a cold frozen hell that acts as the games tutorial phase. From there the gang ventures out to try and rebuild and recoup their losses while plotting and scheming to get rich, and get back the nest egg they were forced to abandon in Blackwater, an area where you are permanently wanted by The Man, aka The Pinkerton Detective Agency, the black suit wearing douchebags from the first game who had no qualms about kidnapping a wife and child and holding them hostage to get a saddle weary cowboy to do their dirty work for them. It was a more sensible time in American history.
Gameplay wise, there's a lot in this game, far too much to cobble together coherently so I will regale you with some tidbits from my time in RDR2...
-While just out for a ride on my horse, purchased for a whole 15$, which is a lot of money by 1899 money, I didn't see a short cliff and sent me and my pricey pony sailing off the ledge. I survived, but ol' Gluestick was dying, and it was a little heartbreaking. Especially when it gave me the prompt to put him out of his misery. I couldn't do it, and I had no Horse Revive on me at the time, so I just walked away...forcing me to walk an in-game day to the nearest train station back to the major town of Valentine to get a new one. Thankfully, my saddle game-magic'd it's way back to the horse merchant. Because I hadn't taken my saddle...I had been forced to walk, without my rifles, because they all go into your horse saddle. Keep this in mind, it's a major gameplay feature.
-Poker and other table games make a return, and they feel immersive and lively as in the first game, to the point I was down 50$ at 5$ a buy in...because I am really bad at poker.
-One of the early missions had me tracking down renowned gunfighters to get quotes from them regarding a book some city fellow was writing. Naturally all but one thought I needed more lead in my blood. One in particular I met on a train, and he took off running, assuming I was some government bounty hunter. Our chase led to the top of the train where we had our expected gun duel. After which I noticed that the train by now was very far from my original destination, and still running. So I figured I could ride it to the end, and then noticed my horse was still keeping pace with the train. I saw the prompt to leap from the train to my horse, but apparently my input was off timing-wise, and I leapt off the train and landed just short of my horse, face down in a muddy bog. Arthur lay there for a moment, as though contemplating his life choices before getting up. We proceeded to ride the rest of the way to the biggest city in the game, San Denis.
-San Denis is a playground if you have money to spare. On top of actual vaudevillian acts you can take in for cheap, there are saloons, stores, and other distractions to separate you from your ill-gotten gains, it is also where you can get the most fetching of wild west clothing. One such instance was a man selling me a book on how to get rich quick...for a whole 50$. What I had bought turned out to be a wordy and lengthy reference to modern get rich quick E-books that can be summarized as "you got scammed, you bitch", though I have no doubt this book actually existed.
San Denis is also where I learned that people will get annoyed if you are walking directly behind them for too long. And by too long, I mean longer than five seconds. The city is dense and the streets are crowded, so this will happen a lot, with you using the context sensitive prompt to apologize and try and wiggle past the crowds, or get rowdy, or risk getting rowdy, just trying to get to the barber...
-A mission concluded with me out in the middle of nowhere with my horse too far away to hear my sirens whistle call to beckon it to me, forcing me to hoof it to the nearest train station once more to get back. I was bitten by a snake in the brush.
-I came across an oddity in the road, it turned out to be a dead eagle. Thinking it might be worth something to the Poacher, I tossed it on my saddle and proceeded to hoof it. On the way to the Poachers camp, the Eagles remains started to decay, which unfortunately ruined it's value to the poacher.
-I happened upon a bandit riding off with a woman as his hostage, so I gave chase. I managed to shoot the bandit dead off his horse, but the horse kept riding with the woman in tow. I never saw her again. I can only hope she and the horse, made it out okay, and lived happily ever after.
-After a pivotal story mission, the Van Der Linde gang had a hootenany, aka a party. This culminated in everyone singing a song that was about anal sex.
-There are hookers, but you can't acquire their services, much like in the first game. You can however take a bath a hotel should you and your clothes get filthy, and employ the aid of a comely lass to assist you, which it does appear she gives you a handy.
-The story mission A Quiet Drink is perhaps the funniest damn thing you will ever see in your life.
-RDR2 Online feels more of the same, but now you play as a character of your own creation, centered around you being sent to prison for something you may or may not have done and sprung out by a rich well to do woman hunting down the very people who put you away, and wants your help in settling a score with these choice individuals. It feels almost exactly like GTA 5 Online, but in the wild west, and character creation is honestly horrific. Hilariously horrific.
If you haven't played it, you should. At the time of this writing I haven't completed it and spend most of my time wandering around and messing about. I'm at the point in the story where I have to rescue Micah from jail and to be honest...I know how this story ends. We all know things are going to fall apart which leads to John Marston's one man war against the remnants of the Van Der Linde gang. When last I checked there was no Arthur Morgan in Red Dead Redemption 1, which means his story will take a grim turn in the worst of ways, much like John's story ended in a hail of gunfire.
9/10, go play it.
Wednesday, March 6, 2019
Still playing 76
It's early 2010 and I'm trolling around in the Bethesda Softworks official forums during the hype storm of Fallout: New Vegas. The post that comes to mind today now that we have Fallout 76, is one that begged the question, does the game even need a story? Why not a game where we start on one end of the map and make it our goal to just survive? Well, eight years later they got their wish. And I am certain they are still complaining. Because that is what you do when you're in a gaming fandom- you complain.
Flash forward to today. I'm playing Fallout 76, wandering the zone that encompasses a majority of the beginning content. I call it the Green Zone, sandwiched between Toxic Valley to the north, and the Mole-Person ridden ash pit that makes up the south. I'd been relying on .308 ammo so much that now I was pretty much ammo starved and what ammo I did have I didn't carry that particular weapon. My inventory is almost always 90% full for some reason despite judicious management. Even with all of my weapons, which just get heavier the more you upgrade, that only dropped about maybe 40 to 50 off my weight. That still begs the question what all in my inventory is adding up to 134 pounds on my person unless it was all the crap in my Aid tab. My stash box is very soon to hit the 600 pound limit thanks to missiles and fusion cores eating up a decent chunk of weight.
I'm still enjoying the game, but I also feel I am not progressing, or at least not in the way I feel I should be. I'll be hitting level 50 soon, and level 30 enemies can still give me grief. Some of the quests at this point I can't really do by myself because they usually involve wandering where Satan himself wouldn't stick his pecker.
It hearkens back to my days in City of Heroes, where if by level 20 you weren't running with a couple of friends, you probably weren't going to be getting through the questlines easily. It was going to be a painful slog, but you might get to the end if you're stubborn and tenacious.
For the most part, I wander the realm, poking into ruins and hoping the game doesn't decide to have a Wendigo decide it wants a piece of me. I'm constantly on the search for materials to keep my weapons and armor repaired, because eventually they will break, and normally at the worst possible times, and frequently. I can't really rely on my Luck based perk card that grants a chance for my stuff to repair itself when I really need it to. Hunger and thirst are also an issue, and I'm always keeping an eye out for my next meal, be it a tin of dog food, or blackberries in the bushes to stave off the health damage.
This is my goal. Survive. Not so much hunting nukes or trying to get upgrades or to progress a story. My objective has become to not die and safely return to my camp. Maybe I specced wrong, and some lack of cohesion in my perks has left me squishy and vulnerable. Maybe the games just hard unless you grind out a lot of resources. I tend to favor single shot or semi-automatic weapons over the heavy miniguns and the like because you can make ammo last longer. Usually the Hunting Rifle upgraded and a sniper rifle. A combat rifle also gets the job done. I'm not exactly pulling the levels of damage some of my friends do, but they're already in the higher levels, so that's to be expected.
As an avid roleplayer, I found a community for it. Good people, but even they are slightly frustrated with the game. It's all voice chat, with the lack of a text chat to connect with players in the world. I wonder if this is by design to get players to go to each other and seek each other out. It creates an isolated and at times lonely atmosphere with only your radio to keep you company at the best of times. It fits the game they made.
But through it all, I keep thinking to myself...This could be better. This can be improved. And granted they've cleaned it up a lot since the B.E.T.A. The game doesn't crash when I log out anymore, they expanded the stash box. The usual tweaks and fixes. I see big things on the way
Flash forward to today. I'm playing Fallout 76, wandering the zone that encompasses a majority of the beginning content. I call it the Green Zone, sandwiched between Toxic Valley to the north, and the Mole-Person ridden ash pit that makes up the south. I'd been relying on .308 ammo so much that now I was pretty much ammo starved and what ammo I did have I didn't carry that particular weapon. My inventory is almost always 90% full for some reason despite judicious management. Even with all of my weapons, which just get heavier the more you upgrade, that only dropped about maybe 40 to 50 off my weight. That still begs the question what all in my inventory is adding up to 134 pounds on my person unless it was all the crap in my Aid tab. My stash box is very soon to hit the 600 pound limit thanks to missiles and fusion cores eating up a decent chunk of weight.
I'm still enjoying the game, but I also feel I am not progressing, or at least not in the way I feel I should be. I'll be hitting level 50 soon, and level 30 enemies can still give me grief. Some of the quests at this point I can't really do by myself because they usually involve wandering where Satan himself wouldn't stick his pecker.
It hearkens back to my days in City of Heroes, where if by level 20 you weren't running with a couple of friends, you probably weren't going to be getting through the questlines easily. It was going to be a painful slog, but you might get to the end if you're stubborn and tenacious.
For the most part, I wander the realm, poking into ruins and hoping the game doesn't decide to have a Wendigo decide it wants a piece of me. I'm constantly on the search for materials to keep my weapons and armor repaired, because eventually they will break, and normally at the worst possible times, and frequently. I can't really rely on my Luck based perk card that grants a chance for my stuff to repair itself when I really need it to. Hunger and thirst are also an issue, and I'm always keeping an eye out for my next meal, be it a tin of dog food, or blackberries in the bushes to stave off the health damage.
This is my goal. Survive. Not so much hunting nukes or trying to get upgrades or to progress a story. My objective has become to not die and safely return to my camp. Maybe I specced wrong, and some lack of cohesion in my perks has left me squishy and vulnerable. Maybe the games just hard unless you grind out a lot of resources. I tend to favor single shot or semi-automatic weapons over the heavy miniguns and the like because you can make ammo last longer. Usually the Hunting Rifle upgraded and a sniper rifle. A combat rifle also gets the job done. I'm not exactly pulling the levels of damage some of my friends do, but they're already in the higher levels, so that's to be expected.
As an avid roleplayer, I found a community for it. Good people, but even they are slightly frustrated with the game. It's all voice chat, with the lack of a text chat to connect with players in the world. I wonder if this is by design to get players to go to each other and seek each other out. It creates an isolated and at times lonely atmosphere with only your radio to keep you company at the best of times. It fits the game they made.
But through it all, I keep thinking to myself...This could be better. This can be improved. And granted they've cleaned it up a lot since the B.E.T.A. The game doesn't crash when I log out anymore, they expanded the stash box. The usual tweaks and fixes. I see big things on the way
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