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The day of the release of Red Dead Redemption 2 has arrived and brings an update of the first day. Although not technically necessary, Rockstar recommends that you download the patch to receive "a number of changes, bugs, and last-minute fixes." And as the game is so vast, we have started gathering guides and tips to help you get the most out of your experience. There are also cheat codes to be discovered in the coming days and weeks, as well as other secrets. Read on for our full review of Red Dead 2.
Red Dead Redemption 2 is a game of consequences where you have only the illusion to choose. Yes, there are decisions to make, and these decisions will shape your character and the world around you. But some of the most disastrous choices have been made for you even before the game starts, allowing you to cope with the fallout. And because it's a prequel in Red Dead Redemption, you also know (probably) how the story ends. All that remains is to discover what is happening between the two and make the most of it. To this end, you fight the repetitive nature of the missions, the frequent moral dilemmas and the inconveniences of doing what is right. On the whole, the frustration of tension is also what makes a story compelling, and when everything is together, your efforts are not in vain.
At the start of Red Dead Redemption 2, the Van der Linde gang is already on the wane we've known since the previous match. After a flight that went wrong in Blackwater, they are on the run, with a few limbs and about to get caught, starve and succumb to a snowstorm. There are familiar faces – the protagonist of Red Dead Redemption, John Marston, in the lead – as well as new ones. As a senior member Arthur Morgan, you are in the prime position to be the right arm of Dutch Van der Linde, aware of his machinations and included in the most important outings. Once the gang has left the storm and settled in a temporary encampment, you are also responsible for the finances of the camp, which means you choose all the improvements and supplies. If Dutch is the center of the gang, Arthur is adjacent to all his vital parts at once, which gives you a lot of power.
With this power, you are encouraged to do what you want and at your own pace. At the beginning, a long series of history missions will show you some of the ways you can spend your time, including hunting, fishing, horse breeding and robbery. There are many systems and covering the basics takes several hours. Although they are not cleverly disguised to the point of not looking like tutorials, their learning is punctuated by its integration into the story, and the missions also familiarize you with the characters and the surrounding area. For example, the fishing tutorial invites you to take out Jack Marston because John is not very good at fatherhood. Jack is pure and kind – and incredibly vulnerable to all gang fouls – and the mission is memorable for her.
In addition to the mechanics of various activities, some elements of semi-realism that you face are also presented. Primarily, you must eat to fill your "kernels" of health, endurance and Dead Eye ability, which run out with time. Eating too much or too little leads to weight changes and weakened statistics. Eating oneself is not a problem, as is keeping carrots in general, but eating enough to maintain a medium weight is intrusive; Despite the experiences I've had and how many times I have eaten, I could not get Arthur out of underweight, and eating more frequently would take too much time to justify. You do not need to sleep (even if you can spend time and recharge your cores), and surviving hot or cold temperatures is tantamount to choosing the right fit for your gear wheel, so that manage your weight remains superfluous rather than conducive to immersion.
The limited fast travel options are the best-implemented side of the realism of Red Dead 2, perhaps counter-intuitively. There is hardly any fast course at first and few methods in general. You must rely on your horse to move. It can be slow, but things to do and see do not miss. The chance meetings are numerous and often interesting. you might find a stranger who needs a boost to get to town or a snake bite victim who needs someone to suck venom from his injury. You can come across a grotesque murder scene that makes you completely irrelevant, or you can ignore a person in danger and keep rolling. And just as you can decide to steal or kill almost everyone, you will also meet people who will do the same. Even the longest journeys are not a waste of time and it's hard not to have the impression of missing something if you opt for a quick trip.
The American version of Red Dead Redemption 2 is vast and very open: it extends from snow-capped mountains and great plains to the new Austin of the original game, to the southwest. Further east is the Deep South, inspired by Louisiana, which is still suffering the effects of the Civil War after nearly 40 years. There is a distinct change when traveling from region to region; As the grassy hills become swamps filled with alligators, the Union's veterans give way to Confederate robbers in anger, and good intentions and occasional racism turn into despair and in absolute fanaticism. Variety gives the world a sense of richness and reacts and changes regardless of your involvement. new buildings will increase over time, and some of the people you talk to will remember you long after your first interaction with them (for better or for worse).
The fortuitous moments of your exploration constitute a large part of the moral system, in which you gain and lose honor according to your actions. The "good" moral is relative – you are a member of a gang, after all – but in general, it is more honorable to screw up rather than lose. Helping an outsider, even if it's an escaped convict and even if you have to kill police or burglars, can earn you points. In these situations, it is easier to be noble than a true outlaw. It is difficult to detect a dishonorable crime, even in remote areas, and usually requires you to trace, threaten, hide and hide from the law, or pay a premium. . Although you earn money faster by doing "bad" things, we offer you a nice discount in stores and you will earn a lot of money in scenario missions.
In many ways, you are encouraged to play a "good" Arthur. The gang members with whom he is closest from the beginning are the most righteous, those with principles, who are motivated by loyalty and the desire to help others, while insulting him, discusses and generally reacts negatively to those who are in a hurry and vicious. The most rotten of them is Micah, who is so easy to hate that it is hard not to follow the example of Arthur and take the highest road. Unlocking upgrades in camps, such as fast one-way trips and better supplies, also requires you to be honorable; Although everyone makes a donation, you have to invest hundreds of dollars yourself if you want to afford anything, and that automatically brings you a ton of points of honor, whether you like it or not .
Arthur's diary is one of the most subtle and unobtrusive details of the game. It summarizes the big events as well as random people you've encountered and more banal and everyday things. He draws the places where you go, scribbles the plants and animals you find, and writes thoughts that he hardly talks about. The diary changes with your level of honor, but at least for a relatively honorable Arthur, the pages are full of anxieties and existential crises – inner turmoil on good or bad, for example – that makes you want to see him become a better person.
Like any good precedent, there is a huge tension in knowing what's going on without knowing exactly how.
However, it is much harder to feel like a good guy on the main missions. Arthur, with almost everyone, is above all loyal to the gang. This means that the Dutch are in trouble, take their friends out of prison and commit several robberies in the interest of making money for the gang. Even if you do your best to be good, you will inevitably slaughter entire cities in mandatory story missions – stealthy and non-lethal stakes are not always an option, and the lock goal Vivid automatic greatly facilitates the option shootout anyway. Dissonance is frustrating, but it is extremely important to Arthur and your understanding of the band as a whole. To say more, we would venture into the territory of spoilers.
This extends to the structure of story missions, which begin to be predictable towards the middle of the game. It's not that they're boring – the opposite is true, in fact, and you see a lot of action from one beat to the other. But after a while, a trend is emerging and it's easy to understand how a flight or raid will unfold. This also becomes frustrating, in part because you often have no way to affect the outcome in a meaningful way despite the decision-making power you thought you might have had. But your fatigue is also that of Arthur, and it is crucial. The middle of the game hangs in the service of storytelling, which only appears much later. There is also enough variety between missions and free exploration to keep it from growing to the point of becoming a chore to play.
Like any good precedent, there is a huge tension in knowing what's going on without knowing exactly how. If you play Red Dead Redemption, you know who will survive and, therefore, will probably not reach the end of the game. Even during the slowest games, you wait for betrayals, injuries, and other events you've only vaguely heard about. You wait for the characters to reveal their true identity, and you watch what happens is fascinating and heartbreaking if you know what will happen.
You can still enjoy the full story without this basic knowledge, however. Some of the best moments of Red Dead Redemption 2 have almost no relation to its predecessor. A mission brings you to a gathering for women's suffrage and a painful secondary mission confronts you with a woman whose husband was killed and the life you ruined. The new characters are also among the best; Sadie Adler is a personal favorite for reasons that I will not spoil. Another young black man, Lenny, says the Southerners treat him a little differently. Arthur says that he did not notice anything weird, which Lenny replied: "Respect, Mr. Morgan, you would not notice anything."
In general, Red Dead 2 addresses the relevant issues of the time with caution. Rather than defining any of his characters by the fanaticism they can experience, it allows them to play their role fully without ignoring the existence of such elements as racism and sexism. One of the arcs clearly puts the emphasis on a very serious problem, and here the lack of real choice in the direction of the story – and your resulting implication in what is going on – will put you probably uncomfortable.
While Red Dead Redemption focused primarily on the story of John Marston, Red Dead 2 talks about the entire Van der Linde gang – as a community, as an idea and as a Wild West rattle. he is about Arthur too, but as a goal through which you see the gang, his very personal story, very messy, supports a larger story. Some frustrating systems and a predictable mission structure end up serving this story well, although it takes patience to understand them and understand why. Red Dead Redemption 2 is an excellent prequel, but it's also a moving, thought-provoking story, and it's a world that's hard to leave once it's done.
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