Alright, so I was able to finally finish the game last night. It took between 21 and 22 hours to complete the campaign, and man, did it ever seem like it took longer than that.
This game went on for way too long, and I think I know why. It's because 90% of the missions are exactly the same! Follow someone on your horse or ride with them in a stagecoach and listen to them talk about "whatever" (boring). Get to wherever you're going and take out a group of bad guys. And then (the worst part) is that often you'll have to ride BACK to the original location where the mission started while continuing to listen to the "blah blah blah" of the NPCs. It's been said that the writing in the game is stellar, but I hardly think so. There was a string of missions where the only thing Marston ever said was some variation of this sentence: "If you don't give me what I want, I'm gonna put a bullet in your head!" Not only does that get old, but I didn't play the game that way so it made no sense to have my character talking like that.
Towards the end of the game, I kept thinking I was on the last mission, but it just kept going...and going....and going. I couldn't believe that some of the final missions involve shooting crows and HERDING CATTLE! And the ending......I don't think it made much sense. Maybe I missed something. Or maybe I didn't and I just think it's weak sauce. However, I do like how they let you continue on after you've completed the campaign.
There are a lot of things about this game that bother me:
-The aiming is either far too easy or far too difficult. If you have the auto-aim on you'll never miss anyone. If you take that feature off, good luck getting your pin-sized crosshair (dot, rather) on anyone in time with the sluggish control and be prepared to abuse the Dead Eye feature.
-Running is ridiculous. Why do I have to hold "A" to run and tap to sprint? Haven't we had analog controllers for, what, 15 years now?
-The cover system blows. I still don't even know if there's a button to get me out of cover. I usually just held the stick AWAY from whatever rock I was on and that takes a good few seconds to pull you out.
-The horse mechanics are terrible and that's a shame since riding a horse is one of the most frequent activities in the game. Whenever I get off a horse to pick a flower or something, the camera angle changes and it's disorienting. When I stand back up, I'm facing a different direction and the horse is in a different place or moving around. Also, whenever I whistled for my horse, it ALMOST ALWAYS comes from the direction that I'm trying to go (and it will often run about 10 feet past me) so when I hop onto the horse I'm facing the wrong direction and have to turn around. ANNOYING!
-Precision walking and platforming are impossible. You bump into door frames, can't walk up a few steps easily. Jumping is so slow and clunky. What a joke! Also, I hate how when I'm standing RIGHT in front of something (like a bed to save the game or an animal to skin it) sometimes the game won't give me the prompt to do so unless I clumsily shuffle around a bit.
-Traveling around is just...too time-consuming. I know, there's the fast travel, which I abused heavily, but that just seems cheap somehow.
-If you have a mission at night, good luck seeing anything. I don't know what it is about this game, but if it's dark, you're not going to be able to see bad guys moving around unless you're using Dead Eye or if they shoot you first.
-I didn't really love how the narrative was structured. I feel like the end goal is to get Bill Williamson and Javier Escuella. You VERY rarely even see them or hear from them, though, which makes them weak adversaries in my opinion. Then after you deal with them, there's ANOTHER guy you're supposed to get that's barely even been mentioned before that point.
Despite all this, I had an OK time playing. I guess what bothers me is that this game has been praised so highly. 24 scores of "100" on Metacritic. I mean, how can people overlook all the things I've mentioned? I didn't make them up! That's only a handful of stuff, too! I'm tired of overhyped and overrated games! I think Rockstar must have a lot of reviewers paid off or something, because I didn't like GTA IV at all and was just kinda "blah" about this game yet both of those have MOUNTAINS of praise heaped on them.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Totally fair analysis.
ReplyDeleteWhen I got the game I'm not gonna lie. I was blown away. Loved everything about it. After around 10 hours and right after I got into Mexico I just saved and haven't played again. That was 2 weeks ago. I don't know why, but I feel like I just smashed into a wall with the game and don't want to play anymore. I guess I just got really bored of it.
I don't have as many gripes about the game as you do and that maybe due to the fact that I've put close to 400 hours between Morrowind, Oblivion and Fallout 3 and some of the structuring between those games and RDR are very similar. I DID hate the non perfect movement. If you had to backup and go slightly to the side to pick something up you might as well not even try. The running it also 100% retarded.
It's a good game, but I don't honestly know if I'll ever even finish it. It seems that the game has a certain "yeah we know this game is epic" attitude and that's where it kind of rubs me. Everything is too serious or overlong.
On the very plus side though it was the game that finally kicked my ass into more sandbox games. Been having a TON of fun with The Saboteur and I have over 10 hours in it. As soon as I'm done with that I'll be rolling into Red Faction and then Just Cause 2 after that. The Saboteur is lacking some polish, but man is it fun. It's a mix of GTA (the fun elements and not the pompous parts), Hitman and Assassin's Creed.
***SPOILER ALERT***
ReplyDeleteI couldn't disagree with you guys more! You are nitpicking at tiny faults that can be annoyances but are far, far from dealbreakers. At least for me... The aim is spot on cuz you're James Marston and you're a badass with a gun. Running is the exact same as in GTA. I never had a big problem with it except if you want to sprint across the country instead of taking a horse. The horse running mechanic was fantastic. I love the numerous speeds you can go. Those last missions are the lull before the storm, when he thinks life is settled down and he's back to farming, there's a HUGE ending... the ending signifying the death of the cowboy and the industrialization of America and how it destroyed that way of life. And then to see the actions of the father passed down to the son... breathtaking. Gave me chills. Throw in the challenges, helping people, bandit attacks, grizzly and mountain lion attacks, hunting, gathering herbs... there was so much to do. Might be the best game I've played since Fallout 3. I wish it had lasted longer and it would have but I didn't get into the MP in RDR...
But then again, I'm a big GTA fan and other than hanging out with your buddies all the time, IV was fantastic. I love the fact that you can choose to be a much more honorable person in RDR.
I'm gonna finish this one. I've invested too much time to not do it, disappointing ending or not.
ReplyDeleteOne thing I will give Rockstar some credit for is making an open world, heavy mature content game, with a solid attempt at story. The nature of open-world gameplay, I think, really causes the narrative process to suffer some, but when the sequences and missions pan out in a sensible way, I feel like there is a fair amount of depth to John Marston. (Of course I'm just on my way to Mexico, so maybe that'll all go down hill before then)
It did wet my appetite for Crackdown 2. My brother and I are highly anticipating it, since we've both put so much time into it together. I know it's being put out by a different studio, but the first one really granted my wish on what I wanted in a Sandbox game, and with the Keys to the City DLC, it gets even better.
Good review though. I wish I would have finished it before reading, but I think I'm still gonna finish. We'll see though, history shows otherwise.
While I did spend most of my post ragging on the game, there are a few redeeming qualities and I guess the variety of stuff you can do is one of them. It's possible that I got tired of the missions because after a while I just started doing them all consecutively instead of taking breaks in between to do tasks for strangers or hunting or collecting or what-not.
ReplyDeleteAnd I meant that I like how you take over as the son, but I just don't get why that had to happen. What did John do to deserve what he gets?
"At least for me... The aim is spot on cuz you're James Marston and you're a badass with a gun." I don't really think this is a convincing argument against my frustrations with the aiming. Obviously you're John Marston and have a gun, but why does the aiming have to be so night and day? Use auto-aim and you NEVER miss. Don't use it and be really frustrated with the SMALLEST reticle ever in a video game.
And seriously, you're defending the walking/running? The fact that it's just like GTA is the problem. Why should we have to tap buttons to make our characters jog or sprint when we have analog controllers? This is a HUGE gripe for me, especially in regards to how well this game has been received critically. How can someone give this game a perfect score when something as FUNDAMENTAL as moving around the game world is so FLAWED?