Topic: Red Dead Redemption

[PyroMenace]

That doesn't bother me, this sort of thing is done far more than you realize.

[Pugnate]

Doesn't bother me either. As long as my name, address etc aren't public information, I don't care. I think people overreact when it comes to this stuff. I guess the only problem is when you wonder when it stops, and who decides.

[MysterD]

FOUR new upcoming DLC's for Red Dead Redemption revealed.
Details of the 4 in this link (from G4TV).

[TheOtherBelmont]

Well, I finally finished this game and got 100% completion.  What an amazing game, I look forward to Rockstar making more games in this series.

[MysterD]

If this rumor is true...
Holy crap!
 

[Cobra951]

Yes, it is.  (See the link above, which has been updated.)  The game is released.  The devs are now redundant.  I love that British euphemism.  It's so apt.

[MysterD]

Red Dead Redemption: Undead Nightmare DLC
GameSpot -> X360 - 8.0 (out of 10).
HD Video Review.
Written Review.

SP Portion

Depending on how much of the optional content you choose to complete and how much you use the fast-travel option, Undead Nightmare's story might take you anywhere from five to a dozen or more hours to complete.

The add-on ends every bit as well as Red Dead Redemption did, and if you haven't beaten the original game yet, you'd do well to do so before playing this add-on. That way, you can fully appreciate not only the superb ending but also the appearance of numerous returning characters whose predicaments are made even more amusing by your knowledge of them from previous encounters.

MP Portion

In addition to its sizable single-player offering, Undead Nightmare introduces a new multiplayer mode titled Undead Overrun. Up to four of you team up and then, after deciding on which of the four weapon loadouts you each want to play with, you're dropped into a spooky environment and must survive for as long as possible against increasingly tough waves of undead.

In a neat twist on the formula, the in-game clock counts down rather than up and can be replenished only by opening coffins that appear on the map between waves. This not only forces you to move around rather than fortify yourself inside a structure, but also encourages you to take risks so that you can clear the waves as quickly as possible. Cooperation is a must, and if you stray too far from your teammates, they're less likely to come and revive you successfully should you find yourself incapacitated.

[MysterD]

Destructoid -> Red Dead Redemption: Game of The Year Edition confirmed.

It will include the full game plus all free and premium downloadable content, including Undead Nightmare.
The exclusive pre-order bonuses will also available as will Solomon's Folly, previously only accessible on PlayStation 3.

In addition to the original game and Undead Nightmare, this package will contain:

The Legends and Killers Multiplayer Pack: Adds nine new maps, eight characters from Red Dead Revolver, and new weapons including the tomahawk.

The Liars and Cheats Multiplayer Pack: Expands the Free Roam multiplayer with multiplayer poker, liar's dice, horse racing with combat as well as new gang hideouts and hunting grounds and a new competitive mode -- Stronghold.

The Outlaws to the End Co-op Mission Pack: Adds six new co-op missions for 2-4 players.

The Myths and Mavericks Bonus Pack: Features new multiplayer characters and locations.

[K-man]

Ok boys, the GOTY edition came out today. The game, Undead Nightmare, the DLC, and EVERY preorder bonus.  The whole shebang. 

It took some doing, but I managed to track down a copy.  Seems retail is a little skittish because they have so many copies of RDR/UN they still haven't sold.

I've been waiting and waiting for this to be a thing.  I've managed to hold off knowing that it would eventually get a similar GTAIV Complete treatment.  I haven't been this stoked about a game release in a while.

[Cobra951]

I've been holding off on RDR forever.  Now it looks like it's going to pay off.  Thanks for the news.

[K-man]

I was able to put an hour or two in last night.  Made it through the intro and a few missions.  I got distracted a little bit playing horseshoes and poker, both of which I enjoy much more than GTA IV's distractions.

It's only natural the game be compared to GTA IV.  There is a lot more dialogue between John and other characters than there was in GTA IV, and it feels much more organic.  Long conversations aren't limited to long horse(car) rides like they were in GTA. 

Apparently there is an option to turn on the "snap to" shooting mode of GTA IV.  I haven't felt the need to do that just yet though.  The few missions I've played haven't been too difficult in terms of aiming.

Cobra, if you're interested in just running out and grabbing it at a brick and mortar, I'd call first.  It wasn't even in Wal-Mart's release schedule, K-mart didn't buy in because they had so many copies of the vanilla game left, and there wasn't a copy at a Gamestop within 100 miles of my location.  I lucked out and found it at the ONE Best Buy in my area that had it in stock.  Even Target didn't have a copy.  I can only assume this is because, like K-mart, they had too many of the original in stock to warrant purchasing a bunch of these.

[PyroMenace]

Man I wish I could go back and play through it for the first time again, fucking fantastic experience.

[K-man]

I didn't get to play much last night.  I finished up the Ranch missions (for now, I'm assuming).  I broke a somewhat rare horse, but then on the way back to the ranch I triggered a random in-world quest.  When I finished the horse I originally had came back.  That was sort of a bummer.

I continually stop and marvel at how pretty the game is, and how well it seems to grasp the atmosphere of that era.

[Cobra951]

I went to Best Buy to grab Forza 4.  I saw the regular edition of RDR, but no GotY.  A clerk asked me if I needed any help, and I asked him about it.  He said he could check when it was going to be released.  I told him it was released already.  He went and checked.  Came back a minute later and said they had just received it, and it was still in a box.  Would I be interested?  Yes!  So now I have RDR GotY and Forza 4.  Damn.  Haven't splurged like this since last year.

[K-man]

You go Cobra!

[K-man]

I had to divide my time yesterday between Shadow Complex (currently on sale for 600 points!) and RDR. 

I swear I could seriously just spend hours playing the mini games in this game.  Whereas in GTA IV I found most of the minigames to be boring, I actually enjoy these.  Probably something similar to how Idol feels about the stuff in Yakuza.

[Cobra951]

I'm impressed so far.  I learned the basic moves.  I thought riding a horse was ridiculously hard until I discovered the "camera-relative" setting.  Now it behaves a lot more intuitively.  I'm surprised they didn't make it the default.  I learned about skinning animals, watched a movie, and got in my first gunfight.  They've done an awesome job here with the mechanics and visuals.  The atmosphere is spot on, thanks in no small part to the music.  I still feel very much like a tenderfoot, though.  It will take a while to ease into the role.  Great stuff.

[K-man]

So guess what's on sale at Best Buy for 40 dollars...

[K-man]

I'm starting to feel like I'm blowing through the game.  I'll clip off 3-4 missions at a time.  This worked in GTA IV because there were always 3-4 different people to get missions from.  They have obviously toned it down a bit in RDR.  I need to slow it down and enjoy some of the optional stuff.

[Cobra951]

I noticed in the stats that I have already completed 7.1% of the game, even though I've done very little other than run around discovering and enjoying the world.  I think you're right; I could blow through this game if I stuck to the mission path.  I'd rather not.  It's all so beautifully done.

I found a shotgun last night, and I didn't even know it until the chest in my safe house gave me ammo for it.  It's my first extra weapon since the obligatory 2 from the early story.  Haven't tried it yet.  I guess I got it as loot from a bad guy I was helping someone hunt down to get his herd back.  The mechanics of running and gunning are so much fun.  I wish there was a health meter, though.  The business of depending on color-palette changes kinda sucks.  It's hard to tell if you're just about dead or you can take a bit more lead.

[K-man]

One thing I discovered last night that I found pretty hilarious:  You can't swim.  At all.  I stepped foot off a dock into pretty shallow water and died instantly.

[Cobra951]

That's disappointing.  Thanks for the heads up.

[K-man]

Yeah, I thought it was a little lazy on Rockstar's part.

[Cobra951]

This is quite a mixed bag.  The good doesn't need a lot more coverage.  Audiovisuals and mechanics are generally outstanding.  The world is huge and compelling.  The story and voice acting are good as well.  What a shame, then, that all this great work is hamstrung by a 1990s player-punishing system of progress-robbing saves, deaths and continues.

You are punished for saving.  You have to pay a 6-hour price to save your game.  You lose 6 hours out of your game day whenever you save.  This was never a good idea in GTA games, and seems even worse in a new game.  There are autosaves, but these are limited to completing missions and a few other milestones.  If you are just exploring, hunting, gathering collectibles, and so forth, you are responsible to save your own progress.

You are punished for not saving.  When you see "DEAD" on your screen, think "GAME OVER" in a 1990 arcade game.  Everything you've done, everything you've acquired, everywhere you have discovered since your last save is gone.  The most recent save file is loaded, just as if you were booting up the game from scratch.  If dying were a rare event, then perhaps I could live with this deficiency.  But the fact is that there are a lot of gotchas in this world for a tenderfoot.  It's not a hard game, but when things go wrong, they go wrong in a hurry, and end up with you DEAD.  I've lost easily 3 hours of progress because of this, plus a random game freeze while I was in a room about to save.  I haven't experienced this kind of seething rage at a game in so long that I've forgotten which one that was.

So I decided to cheat.  There is an official invincibility cheat which I'm now using.  It disables achievements and autosaves.  Fine.  What I love about games like this are exploration and discovery.  I don't particularly relish difficult deadly combat.  Invincibility would prevent losing progress by dying, without having to become a save whore, right?  But get this: every time you get a mission cutscene or you save the game, the cheat is silently turned off.  It took me a while to understand why I was still taking damage and occasionally dying after activating and turning on the cheat.  Once I saw the dumb reality of it, I couldn't help but laugh.  I ended up doing most of the missions all the way into Mexico with the cheat off after all, including the hardest.  I guess it's true:  Cheaters never prosper.

[K-man]

i can definitely see both sides of that particular issue, Cobra.  The save system has irritated me to no end with all of Rockstar's games.  It's why I never finished GTA 3, and never really gave Vice City or San Andreas the time of day.  I think RDR contains its best iteration.

I don't think the 6 hour price is that big of a deal.  I've completed just as many missions so far at night as I have during the day.  I make it a point to make a campsite or do something to automatically initiate a save (taming a new horse, for instance).  You just have to get used to it.  It sucks, and it's pretty ridiculous compared to other games today, but I have to remind myself that I persevered through and conquered much worse as a 10 year old kid as far as saves go.  Granted I had much more free time at that point.  On the normal difficulty I have only had one mission give me any significant trouble.  That may change.

But hey, you paid your money for the game.  Play it how you want to.  I certainly do not begrudge anyone for just wanting to go through the game to see how the story plays out.  It's pretty excellent so far.

[Cobra951]

i can definitely see both sides of that particular issue, Cobra.  The save system has irritated me to no end with all of Rockstar's games.  It's why I never finished GTA 3, and never really gave Vice City or San Andreas the time of day.  I think RDR contains its best iteration.

I don't think the 6 hour price is that big of a deal.  I've completed just as many missions so far at night as I have during the day.  I make it a point to make a campsite or do something to automatically initiate a save (taming a new horse, for instance).  You just have to get used to it.  It sucks, and it's pretty ridiculous compared to other games today, but I have to remind myself that I persevered through and conquered much worse as a 10 year old kid as far as saves go.  Granted I had much more free time at that point.  On the normal difficulty I have only had one mission give me any significant trouble.  That may change.

But hey, you paid your money for the game.  Play it how you want to.  I certainly do not begrudge anyone for just wanting to go through the game to see how the story plays out.  It's pretty excellent so far.

Yes, excellent is the right word.  I'm surprised at how good it is.  But my intention is not to play the game just to see the story unfold.  I want to engage in all the game's challenges and discovery as well.  I want to live in that world, see and do as much as I can find.  I've decided to sacrifice the danger of combat to prevent the archaic save and (lack of) continue system from pissing me off.  I would love to find a way around this issue other than invincibility.  It's the only cheat I'll use.  There are several others like infinite ammo, horse stamina, and dead eye.  No thanks.  I also won't cheat to unlock weapons or outfits.  I'll find all those myself.

As I said, with so much excellence, Rockstar's inability to move into this century with the save system is a crying shame.  It mars and diminishes a grand experience.

Edit:  And to elaborate a bit more, I ended up playing all the way into Mexico without realizing that the cheat which cost me achievements and autosave was turned off most of the time anyway.  Bahaha!  I said as much before, but I'm not sure if that was clear.  I also played all the way into Fort Mercer without knowing that the medicine you can buy from doctors restores all your health instantly from the safety of a pause screen.  Duh!  Man, how I miss the days of complete instruction manuals.  So the fact is that I can handle the combat just fine.  It's not hard at all.  Want hard?  Play Borderlands' DLC3 in playthrough 2 after autoscaling has kicked in.  That's hard, and enjoyable too.  The save and continue system there is brilliant.

[PyroMenace]

Weird, I never in any instance of the game did I have an issue with the save system, I remember it autosaving all the time. Also I didn't find the 6 hour lose of time being an issue either, I would either head to a safe house and sleep and do some other stuff in the world.

[Cobra951]

What I hate is being in the midst of a beautiful day, saving, then being in the dark of night.  All I wanted to do with save, not lose the rest of the day.  It's a needless disconnect. And what's the idea anyway?  I can only think of it as a penalty.  Why should you ever pay a penalty to save your progress?

Some of my bad experiences were flukes, like having the horse jump off a cliff, or the game freezing when I opened an armoire in my room just before saving.  Yeah, the game autosaves regularly, provided you're mostly doing missions.  If you're just roaming the land, hunting and chasing other random challenges, hours of real time can pass without any autosaves.

[Cobra951]

I've now opened up the whole map.  I've played the game for well over a day of real time, according to the stats.  My impressions remain mixed, but fortunately the good is very good.  Mexico offers by far the most impressive vistas, but it also exposes some serious deficiencies in handling the Spanish language.  Come on, guys.  There are oodles of native Spanish speakers, and all you needed was one good Spanish proofreader for your script and subtitles.  No excuse here for voice actors who don't even understand what they're saying.  The weird thing is that most of the minor-characters' dialogue is authentic, while it's the major Mexican characters who tend to speak the embarrassingly bad lingo.  It would have been funny in a Speedy Gonzales cartoon from 1955.  Not here, not now.

The last area that unlocks is relatively boring after the beauty of Mexico.  Also, I have given up trying to have fixed brightness and contrast settings.  It's impossible for the game to look right everywhere, and at all times of day and night, with a single setting.  Brightness needs to come up at night and indoors, and it needs to come down in Mexico during bright sunny days.  It's a disappointing deficiency in the way the world is lit, where luminance is allowed to clip at both extremes, rather than the engine adjusting the luminance dynamically across the limited range available.  So either you have the sands become an indistinguishable sea of white, or you can't see indoors.  In fact, the only thing that looks amazingly good is the great outdoors during a bright sunny day, provided the display settings are good for it.  Sunrise to sunset outdoors during a pretty day: awesome, the best yet.  Everything else ranges from lousy to mediocre.

The story remains quite interesting, and I'm itching to see where it goes next.  I think I'm quite far into it, with Marston getting near his goal.  I wouldn't be surprised if I wrap that up in a couple more play sessions.  Overall, I'm glad I got the game.  With a little more effort on Rockstar's part, it could have been one of my top games ever.  As it stands, it's bittersweet.

[K-man]

For someone ignorant of Spanish language (despite 3 years between high school and college dedicated to learning it), the voicework doesn't really bother me.  I agree with you on the lighting.  I find myself wishing things were brighter at night, and toned down during the day.

I haven't done a ton of exploring.  I regret that, too. I just find myself heading toward the next mission-giver.  I'd like to obtain a few of the suits, but seem to always be one or two tasks short of doing so.  Maybe I'll make that save game just prior to finishing (pyro informed me that it would be obvious when to do so) so I can just go explore at my leisure.

I have to purchase Uncharted 3 today (I have a k-mart gamer coupon that expires at the end of the week), so I'm not sure whether to power through the rest of the story so I can jump on Uncharted, or Just put RDR on hold and do the 2-3 day playthrough of Uncharted.

[Cobra951]

Oh, so when the story finishes, the game ends and you can't keep exploring?  Thanks for the heads up.

So I played several hours of Undead Nightmare yesterday (Halloween).  That's a lot of fun.  It's more lighthearted than the main game, and I found myself laughing a bit.  This is the standalone version, which came with the GotY, but was also released on its own at retail.  Headshots galore.  It's forced me to get better at those without Dead Eye, since they're pretty much needed with zombies.  I did get some phosphorous bullet coating recently, but I haven't had a chance to try it yet.  That hopefully will alleviate the need for busting craniums.

They fixed the save system!  If you get UNDEAD'ed, it asks you if you want to start near the town you were in or closest to, with your ammo (and I imagine other stuff) as it was when you died, or if you want to restart from the checkpoint.  I wish they'd retrofit this into the main game, but I know that's a bitch on the consoles with their very limited patch space.

Oh, and my horse is now War, as in the 4 horsemen of the Apocalypse.  Found him and broke him.  Did the same to Pestilence, but War is just too awesome.  I now feel like the dude from Darksiders.

[TheOtherBelmont]

Oh, so when the story finishes, the game ends and you can't keep exploring?  Thanks for the heads up.

Nope, you CAN explore after finishing the game.

[K-man]

Really?  Pyro really stressed the importance of making a separate save before I go on to finish the game.

[TheOtherBelmont]

Really?  Pyro really stressed the importance of making a separate save before I go on to finish the game.

That's probably a good idea, as I think there may be certain side things you can only do before you beat the game, but you can explore all you want after you finish the game.  I can't really go into details as to how and why without spoiling the game.

[Cobra951]

OK, I finished the game, after having gone back to my last save before I started cheating.  After playing through Undead Nightmare (without cheating) I realized how dumb it was to use the cheats.  By disabling autosave (which results from enabling cheats), I had made progressing much harder than invincibility could possibly compensate for.  I also discovered a ridiculously easy way to force a save, when I felt the need for one on the spot (without safe house, camping, or 6 hours lost): change your horse.  You go into your satchel, and select one of your other horse deeds.  Done.  I used this more than once right after I was challenged to a duel (not that I get killed in duels anymore, now that I understand exactly how they work, but it's good to be safe).

As a result, I enjoyed the game a lot more.  Rockstar excels at figuring out ways to annoy me, but bad surprises were kept to a minimum the rest of the way.  It was an outstanding experience, and I wish I had more reasons to keep roaming the world.  The ending* disturbed (and annoyed) me greatly, since it came out of nowhere, and wasn't even explained.  It felt tacked on for shock and otherwise emotional value, rather than a natural consequence of the events leading up to it.  Other than that, wonderful trip through the old West, wonderfully brought to life.

* The ending . . .

(click to show/hide)

Why?  It would be safe to say that the premise of RDR echoes the Clint Eastwood spaghetti Westerns.  The protagonist is not a mortal man, but a mythical figure able to survive any challenge with superhuman reflexes and aim (not to mention infallible weaponry).  The Man with No Name never dies in this fictional setting.  Hell, even Josey Wales didn't die, even if he did get shot up.  So why the hell would John Marston get killed, out of the blue, in a completely gratuitous attack that served no purpose other than to shock and dismay the player?

I was livid with anger.  Sure, much of that anger was caused by, and directed to, the smug face of that bastard federal agent.  When I was basically reincarnated as John's son, Jack, I immediately headed to Blackwater to kill every living thing in sight.  Fortunately, a '?' was waiting for me at the railroad station, and I was able to get payback properly through the storyline.  But I'm still pissed.  If they were going to kill me, why didn't they do it right after I did what they wanted, in the last substantive mission (before all the domestic ranch stuff)?  If they were going to try to kill my family, why didn't they do it while the wife and son were in captivity?  Instead, big production of cutscenes about resolved issues, new chance for John, ranch, family . . . only to send a whole army after them wordlessly and suddenly?  And then to have it actually succeed?  Fuck that noise.

[K-man]

Well,

(click to show/hide)

for starters you'd expect Marston to win based on all of those movies.  And while it pays homage to those movies, it is obviously nothing RDR was attempting to replicate. 

I believe the time spent back on the ranch serves to amplify the impact of Marston's eventual death.  Jack taking up arms and seeking out Marston's killer not only provides eventual satisfaction, it also essentially turns Jack into the very thing Marston tried to avoid with his sacrifice.  While Marston's death really bothered me, that fact alone made it an impactful ending.  Hell your admitted reaction to the ending proves that it was effective.  You felt the emotions conveyed by the characters, what more could you want?

Also, I love how Rockstar expressed Bonnie's admiration for John without beating you over the head with it. 

[Cobra951]

Good points all around.

(click to show/hide)

I confess I wanted more between Bonnie and John.  It was handled in a more mature way.  I have no problems at all with the tone and thoroughness of the storytelling.  Also, I just read the latest in-game newspaper, where an article talks about Edgar Ross retiring.  The article describes how he mopped up all the criminals during his watch, including of course John Marston.  He got medals for it too.  So from a motivation point of view, it makes more sense to me, even if I'm still angry about how it turned out.

[K-man]

(click to show/hide)

Oh yeah, I'm still pissed Marston's dead.  I really really liked his character, and was looking forward to exploring the open world with him after the game ended.  But it makes it way more memorable than an ending where everything worked out and everyone lived happily ever after.

I honestly wouldn't mind a prequel exploring the dynamics of the gang and what led up to the eventual breakup.

[gpw11]

Shit, I should not have read that last spoiler.  I'm actually kinda choked that this is the one Rockstar game to never hit PC.  I have it for PS3, but rarely get a chance to play it and think I'd be able to get into it a lot more on a PC.  Damn it.

[Pugnate]

Shit, I should not have read that last spoiler.

I can't believe I read it either. I don't know why I read it! I never do that.