Red Dead Redemption 2
Howdy partner. So, you’re from the generation that listed “cowboy” among their planned careers with all the determination of a 9-year-old, among “firefighter” and “football player”? Every costume party the same style? Hat, scarf and cap gun in a holster at the belt? “Favorite western: yes.”? “Who’s your hero and why John Wayne”? Then giddy-up because Red Dead Redemption 2 won’t discourage you, as it’s an objectively excellent game and suits you well enough. In any other case: hold your horses! If you dislike challenges and this is going to be your first rodeo, then this title might trample you.
Alright, enough with jokes as dry as the prairie. RDR2 is a hard game. Not a newbie’s nightmare, but its difficulty level is noticeably above average – as is the case with all of Rockstar’s games. Dexterity plays a big role, the controls are hard to get used to, the amount of detail – both in the world and the menus – is as impressive as it is overwhelming, the plot and characters don’t tend to stick in your memory (to a casual player’s despair), combat is mainly with firearms, so good, quick aiming is required, and missions have only one allowed way to be completed, more resembling interactive video scenes than a game. Especially in comparison with the rest of the open world game, that’s almost a sandbox.
RDR2 defends itself in certain ways. You can help your aiming with optional assistance (which I find necessary when playing with a controller), and similar solutions in our Control review got our thumbs up. Besides, the map contains a familiar system of markers that won’t let you get lost in the gigantic world. You can also save the game – although only outside missions, so they can still have the charm of a rattlesnake in your boot. And finally, the crown jewel: missions can be skipped. More on this below. But that’s basically it in terms of support for newbies or casuals.
Just as Hogwarts Legacy gives the impression of a huge world in which we would inevitably get lost, but turns out to be accessible even for children, so RDR2 throws us into gameplay that seems straightforward – just an RPG in a western style – but is filled with a million nuances. Numerous game elements seem as if they were initially meant to play a significant role, but were limited later in production because they overwhelmed even the beta testers. This is just a hypothesis, but to name a few: benefits from food products, types of weapons and bullets, regular cleaning of weapons and horses, different clothes in warm regions – different in cold ones, setting up camp and generally sleep. The tutorial brings all this to attention, but only some of these points are actually significant. It seems as if all this, in the long run, turned out to be too cumbersome and was left as just an ornament and something to do to improve immersion. The multitude of these embellishments adds realism to the game world, but can overwhelm a newbie with a sense of chaos: if I forget to manually take the shotgun off the horse every time, will I really not have it with me? Will my horse die of hunger? Will a hat lost in battle somehow return? Do I need to know how to use a lasso? Where is my oil lamp, how do I turn it on, does it need fuel and will it set my tent on fire? And speaking of fire: can I light a campfire in the rain? Will cigarettes worsen my character’s cough? What about alcohol and cocaine (yup, it’s there)? – All this lets you feel like a real cowboy. A real, lost, disoriented cowboy who, eventually, tired of the multitude of details might just stick to the linear plot and performing linear missions, without taking the time to immerse themselves in the beautiful though rough and untamed world of the Wild West.
However, nothing in RDR2 is more repelling than the controls. The person who decided that to ride a horse you need to keep pressing a button should redeem our controllers. There isn’t even an option to keep that unfortunate button pressed. No. To maintain a good riding pace, you have to rhythmically press it all the time. And we ride a lot here. All controller buttons have been used, some even in configurations where you have to hold one to click another. Selecting some options risks finger injuries from complicated holding-click combinations with simultaneous joystick movements. I swear, changing the type of shotgun in the menu is more complicated than the entire gameplay of some games, and button mapping itself seems weirdly unintuitive. To the point where sketches mocking this aspect of RDR2 appeared. There are games like Black Desert Online and many other online RPGs where the interface resembles an airplane cockpit (and we call these games ”nightmares” around here). RDR2 does not have this problem. The interface is clear. But the controls indeed transform our poor pad into a Boeing dashboard.
And finally: missions. There’s a mission in another Rockstar game – GTA Vice City – known as “the helicopter mission”. It’s famous because it was so frustratingly difficult. It had a very limited time to complete and terrible controls within the mission and only one way to get through. Failed? Try again. A similar problem, though to a lesser extent, exists with RDR2 missions.
But here’s the twist: missions can be skipped. Failed 3 times? You can just give up and continue playing. This is a huge plus, as sometimes it will be the only way for a player to complete the story. But… It’s hard to find a less satisfying solution. Just admit defeat, you won’t know the mission’s details, but go ahead and play away. How much better it would be to improve your stats or equipment and then come back to deal justice (or injustice – depending on the mission)! Even through cumbersome grinding. The leveling offered in RDR2, however, is essentially negligible. Yes, it slightly improves the play comfort, yes, it improves movement, accuracy. But if you don’t press the right button at the exact moment the screen informs you that NOW is the time, no new pistol or better stats will help. You start the task over or give up on a chunk of the gameplay with your tail between your legs.
Can a n00b or casual have a good time with this interactive western? Yes, definitely. It’s one of the games of the decade. One of those that broke through to the mainstream and established games as a serious branch of entertainment. A monumental piece, an element of Western culture, like movies with Clint Eastwood or Gary Cooper – it’s worth knowing. And more importantly – it provides a lot of good fun… If you dedicate proportionally a lot of time to learning it and also have enough time for the gameplay itself. If, however, this is going to be your first big game, especially the first on a console using a controller, if you don’t have 120 hours to spare, of which the first 20 require a lot of patience, and the Wild West has never been your cup of whiskey, then – I regretfully advise against it.
Final Izzy Mode Score for Red Dead Redemption 2
Casual score: how suitable the game is for casual players – casual players who like a challenge from time to time, but generally just wanna’ have fu-u-n🎵 a few hours a week without stress and just for the fun of playing. The higher the score the more casual-friendly the game.
n00b-o-meter: how suitable the game is for n00b players – new players whose gaming career started and ended with Candy Crush, Tetris or browser games or even never played a game and would like to start. The higher the score the more n00b-friendly the game.
General Izzyness Level: between Izzy Mode, Normal, Hard and Nightmare – how would the title score in the difficulty scale known from games?
