General gaming discussion

Sephiroth_dude

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121753480#Comment_121753480

I loved it too, thought it was a work of art, beautiful game, never understood the hate it got.

Potential-Monke

I loved it as it gave me the expectation that Rockstar would redo the first one in the RDR2 engine. Boy was I disappointed when they released that low effort port. It should have been done like RDR2 and released as DLC. Should have learned my lesson with GTAV.

I don't think people really hated the game, just that it wasn't the GTA Wild West a lot of people incorrectly expected. And it's no doubt one of the finest games crafted, but it's not without its flaws, with the slow travel even after end game being a major one. Great if you love getting lost in the world, but not everyone does. I'm so thankful of the decent fast travel in Skyrim. If RDR2 had a lot more fast travel points, regardless of how immersion breaking it may be, I may have played a lot more of it after end game. And still no single player DLC, but that's expected at this stage tbh.

All these decisions are stopping me from getting on the GTA6 hype train. I know it's gonna be a great game, they do deliver when they try. But recent decisions on zero to low level re-release efforts, and strict concentration on online modes for the ADHD generation, when proper re-releases should be done by a company that big and with that much money... The money has ruined them. Hopefully the apparant failure of Suicide Squard will turn heads back towards strong single player content like Sonys first part studios are doing, and doing exceptionally well. I was never big into the "make your own fun" multiplayer/co-op recent games, give me a story to play out. The market is still there, but Rockstar are gone too greedy to care. GTA6 will be their launch platform for GTA Online 2.0.

PixelPlayer

The slow travel is intentional. The game is meant to be at a slower pace to give a feel for the time period and wild west location.

There is a photographer in one of the towns that lets you pick a background for for your portrait. It's basically a giant painting behind you that you use a lever to change. When you pull the lever it takes ages to change as it winds down the next background. I thought this was class. I can see it annoying people because it's so slow.

If you're not into the slow pace then this is not a game for you. When I first played it on release I didn't have the time to put in long sessions. 20-30 min gaming sessions isn't enough. You'll find yourself spending most of that time traveling to your next destination and barely having time to do a single mission.

You need to put in at least 1-2 hour sessions, relax, take your time and enjoy what is a master piece and a work of art.

Penn

I think there's a balance between being intentionally slow paced and keeping gameplay flowing, and I think they got that balance wrong in too many areas. There are so many needless systems, animations and just generally stuff that work against you for the sake of realism to the point where it becomes more of an annoyance than immersion. Stuff like when you're on a long horse ride (of which there are many due to the lack of fast travel), Arthur will randomly put large weapons like a rifle in his horse saddlebag, meaning if you get into a firefight or get off the horse and forget to take it with you, you don't have it. I don't want the character to unequip my favoured weapon due to realism. I don't care if he does the video game thing of having a whole arsenal of weaponry in his back pocket that he can access at any time.

Then you have cleaning your horse, feeding your horse, cleaning and feeding yourself for health, and for stamina, and for deadeye (all with a multitude of different inventory items which just clog up the inventory system). Weapon maintenance, camp upgrading, animal hunting, and so many animations for absolutely everything, like opening every press and searching every downed enemy.

It's all hugely, hugely impressive. But God it can also be so f*cking tedious at times.

Potential-Monke

And I did all that, but when there's no longer a story to keep me going, the exploration gets boring very quick without fast travel. Don't get me wrong, I thoroughly enjoyed the majority of my playthrough, but the slow pace at end game stopped me enjoying it then.

I also prefer games where you feel like you've actually done something by the end. Didn't get that in RDR2. Felt like I needed to play RDR1 again to get the "true" ending, but they ruined any hope of that with what they gave us instead. I think it also comes down to how I prefer fun over reality. Rockstar have been going for reality over fun imo, and while some people love that (I assume the same people who love the, ahem, gameplay in Death Stranding) that's great, but they're not for me. God of War, for all it's attempts to try and make a god killing psychopath more relatable and realistic, was still fun, but that's also the setting. GTAV was still fun but stepped back from the realism of IV. I've played every GTA at least twice, I've played RDR1 three times over the years. I've little to no interest in playing RDR2 again... Maybe in RDR3 they'll go back further again to the beginning of the cowboy era. The realism then will be great fun I'm sure! Kinda want old Volition to make their version of RDR now.

johnny_ultimate

The slowness isn’t the issue I have with RDR2. I want games that move at a calm, considered pace.

The problem with RDR2 is that it’s slow in frustrating, irritating ways. Like it makes you go through a whole rigmarole to prepare or eat food, in the name of realism. And yet you’re still a video game superman who can take countless hits, and the food is ultimately just tweaking glorified video game health meters. It just takes ten times as long as most games for the same end result. It has dreams of being something grander and deeper, but without the courage to fully commit to the bit. It’s a game that wants to be the ultimate in video game immersion, but ironically I felt less immersed in it than most games because of how contradictory and intrusive all the attempts at faux realism were. That and the **** endless GTA3 tutorial boxes.

It’s an incredible technical achievement of a game, rich in peerless technical execution, that is deeply, deeply annoying as an actual video game. It’s one of the only games I’ve ever played that felt like a 60-hour tutorial for a freeform, emergent video game that never actually arrived: a stunningly rendered open world but missions that want to be a cinematic, highly choreographed, linear story game. It’s a fundamental contradiction that for me the game never came close to resolving. So many systems and ideas that never coalesced into a successful whole, and crucially one that ultimately felt like it was repeatedly and aggressively wasting my time for no worthwhile goal.

Sorry for the Sunday rant :)

Luna84

I enjoyed my time with the game. It was weird though playing the beginning of RDR at the end. I suppose I could have restarted RDR as I owned it from backwards compatibility on Xbox but never bothered in the end.

Also there was the massive area of the first game in the second game that was never used in the main story. I played a tiny bit of online in RDR2 and you started in that area but it is weird to have the area and never use it.

PixelPlayer

Jeez lads/lasses, dont be such party poopers.

I loved everything. Skinning the animals, setting up camp, cooking the meat, cleaning my guns. I didn't feel it was all about realism. It's not trying to be.a sim. It's to do with pace.

Zero-Cool

Nakey Jakey had a great point about it. If you turn off the minimap and try to do missions by using the road signs and scenery to find out where you're going, it becomes incredibly immersive and rewarding but rockstar awful mission design wrecks it by making you complete missions on very precise ways like, for example, "dump the body". He tried for ages to dump it in hidden trees, swamp, etc but no joy. Had to turn on the map to find an exact little circle on the map where it had to be dumped sir no particular reason.

Watching his vid, i was tempted to reinstall it and try without the map but that ruined it for me. Also agree with the above, it got in its own way too much with way too many sub systems. Also, could take a leaf from cyberpunk when your driving on a story mission and the people stop talking, you can choose to skip the drive.

Jordan 199

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121754453#Comment_121754453

A mighty fine house at that.

Penn

I remember for a while on tiktok I was getting a lot of videos of secrets in RDR2, about being in a certain place at certain times of following hints about what people say etc. The map is chock full of interesting things. But it was always just the systems of the game that put me off exploring and playing after I finished the story because it felt so laborious and tedious.

Varik

Liked the RDR2 epilogue, it was nice and relaxed after the big main Arthur ending.

Main memory is almost dying after going into the water the first time into epilogue to get an animal carcass as unlike Arthur you can't swim with John as he couldn't in RDR1.

Luna84

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121755769#Comment_121755769

That is something I never knew regarding John not being able to swim in RDR2.

Penn

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121755822#Comment_121755822

From what I remember it was to prevent people swimming over to the Mexico part of the map early, so they just made it that John couldn't swim.

Similar to how CJ in GTA San Andreas was the first one in the GTA games who could swim, but if you swam to other parts of the map too early you got an instant full wanted level and wouldn't be able to clear it, then once you died you'd be kicked back to the area you were supposed to be.

Retr0gamer

I agree with everything JU said about RDR2 but one thing that really baffles me about the game is that something with such a high budget and supposed realism manages to make controlling the main character feel like playing QWOP.

pixelburp

So which is the better game: RDR1 or 2? Only ask 'cos tempted to pick up the first on Switch as it seems like a half decent port, but the bullshít busy-work of 2 has always been an instant turn-off.

Jordan 199

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121756550#Comment_121756550

RDR1.

McFly85

1 definitely. I’d probably say 1 is the high point of rockstars single player open world games.

Retr0gamer

Definitely RDR1. I'm not wild about Rockstars output but RDR1 is up there with Bully and the Warriors for their best game.

awec

I couldn’t play RDR2 at this stage as I cannot cope with Rockstars awful aiming system.

pixelburp

Good to know there' a relatively clear consensus; will add it to the Wishlist anyway in the meantime. Sounds like RDR2 gilded the lily a tad too much then.

Penn

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121757291#Comment_121757291

I would say RDR2 is still a great game with a terrific story and set pieces, and the world they created is outstanding. But yeah they tried to throw too much into it and it ended up confusing and over-complicating the good.

PixelPlayer

The complaints about RDR2 do not affect the game. You can play the game without skinning animals, cooking meat, fishing etc.

I would say if you don't like these aspects of the game then don't do them. You're not forced to.

But if you find riding your horse tedious then it's definitely not the game for you.

To say its a game to be avoided would be very much an opinion of a very small minority.

PixelPlayer

On the topic of games to (potentially) be avoided, I don't know why but I've started Horizon Zero Dawn on PC.

Initial impressions is it is very basic. Feels like its an RPG for a younger audience. Dumbed down and very guided. The story is a bit meh and it's always the story that pulls me through PS games so I don't know if this has legs.

I'm not far in, just at that proving rite of passage thingy. Does it get better after that?

On the plus side I've nearly seen a loading screen. I don't think it uses Direct Storage but Sony really have their PC ports streamlined.

Penn

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121757913#Comment_121757913

I enjoyed the story. It's not fantastic and a lot of it amounts to Aloy talking to people, them saying "I'm a useless prick, please help me", and Aloy saying "You're a useless prick, I'll help you". But the underlying story about what happened to the world and made it the way it is is pretty decent. A bit overwritten, but the core of it is decent. The gameplay gets a lot better though once you start getting better weapons and come across more dangerous enemy types.

Montiii

Afternoon all, not sure if anyone is playing COD MW3 Zombies. I'm enjoying it as it's a great time killer however whenever I exfill with a pack-a-punch level 2 or 3 crystal or schematic they disappear / are removed from my items.

Any ideas how I can stop that happening?

McFly85

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121757845#Comment_121757845

You can, but then it becomes a fairly linear, structured game.

GTAV has the same problem, they create an incredibly detailed world, but the main missions are pretty narrow, and it’s all about going from one dot on the map to another, shooting something, then going back to another dot etc. I know they have heists but they felt pretty narrow in scope too.

I was able to finish RDR2 because I was far more invested in the characters, I’ve tried GTAV multiple times but I just can’t get through it without getting bored.

I would love GTA6 to have a more open ended mission structure that takes advantage of its world, rather than simply using it as a place for characters to have conversations while they travel to dots on a map.

Luna84

GTA V was brilliant also RDR1 had a tonne of horse riding too and I forget now as it's years since I played it but I THINK there was no fast travel in that game either.

OptimusTractor

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121758630#Comment_121758630

Wasn't there campfires that could be used as fast travel points.

PixelPlayer

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121758240#Comment_121758240

Yeah gameplay is picking up. I was thinking I'll just blast through the main quest but I've hit a point where it's forcing me to level up.