I just finished it and holy shit, it made me enjoy videogames again and taught something about myself too

What did you learn about yourself?

Attached: 1612670854317.png (1280x849, 726.83K)

>he learned something about himself by playing a video games

It was pretty well written, but it isn't anything special either. Too bad it sucks at being an actual video game. Would've made a good movie.

Glad you liked it OP.

How to manipulate people for personal gain i guess

Attached: 5_ji5Ud018bng1i15geyxvs51b_ltfxib.jpg (509x509, 17.51K)

Being a game hurts and raises its story. Hurts from the ludonarrative issues like insane body counts every mission to no stakes until you reach the right mission. Yet it benefits from the interactivity games offer, going off to adventure and explore, chapter VI is built on player choice to find redemption or double down on the villainy.

I think the game was okay, but the story seemed to be secondary importance to the game's primary objective: creating experiences. Most things people remember from the game is not some kind of commentary on the futility of banditry or the decline of the west (these themes, or any theme at all, are barely explored) but the "badass moments". Like how cool it was when the whole gang strolled up to the Mansion to save Jack, or when you get attacked by that giant crocodile in the river. None of the character's motivations are explored in detail, they all come across as retarded outlaws, especially Dutch. Maybe that was the point all along, but "dutch is a retard with a shoddy ideology" isn't a particularly interesting one.

The overall atmosphere of the game is a departure from the blaring spaghetti western trumpets and stylised Sergio-Leone-esque pause screens to something more serious. Red Dead 2 is hard to take seriously though. The entire world is still a parody. Their stab at racial issues and civil war bitterness is barely delved into, which to be fair is difficult when your game takes place in a parody of Louisiana rather than the real thing.

Biggest theme in the game is change. The industrial revolution is taming the west and outlaws are being clamped down on. Cornwall's monopoly on the oil or whatever isn't supposed to be a profound commentary on capitalist greed or whatever, though. It's a pretence to stage cool missions where you blow shit up. That's all these games are and that's fine, but I get the impression that (sometimes) red dead 2 is aspiring to be more than that and it just doesn't work.

The game is definitely too scatter shot with regards to its themes and its characters for its own good. A single main antagonist or antagonistic force would have helped focus the plot I think. As it is, the gang at various points runs afoul of the government (or the Pinkertons), Leviticus Cornwall, the O'Driscolls, the Braithwaites, Angelo Bronte, the dictator of Guarma and the U.S Army. Then add to that Dutch and Micah. The Pinkertons in and of themselves represent the encroaching modernity just fine, and their relentless pursuit is more than reason enough to justify the gang's degradation, so you can still keep Dutch and Micah as eventual antagonists.

The plot is also hostage to Rockstar's mission formula. There is only so much storytelling you can accomplish in a way that feels natural when said story is delivered in chunks at the beginnings and ends of each mission, and during the rides to and from locations. Arthur's journal was a great inclusion, but it's hardly a testament to the story of a video game when the best part of it could have been conveyed just as well in the written form (as his journal is literally a book.) Game storytelling should ideally be accomplished in ways unique to video games, in my opinion.

I didn't mind the incredibly linear missions because the game gave you so much to explore outside of them. I'd go off to just roam the map in-between every mission to experience the hundreds if not thousands of unique encounters the game had to offer, so a highly scripted shootout felt like a good change of pace. It's understandable why people who just blazed through the missions one after the other hated it.

Even playing Genshin Impact 24/7 can make you learn something about you through videogames: in that case wasting money gambiling about underage girls can let you discover that you're a pedophile

Attached: goodfellas-cf-cropped-269-0-530-400.jpg (593x443, 32.53K)

The biggest problem with it being a game is that the gameplay is constantly broken up by cutscenes that are way too long. I don't mind cutscenes, but goddamn does RDR2 over do it even if some of them are cool af.

I definitely felt somewhat "desperate" (cant think of a less dramatic word right now) to kind of get immersed in the story and its themes but the only moments I actually really felt had any impact were jacks kidnapping, the cutscene where st denise is introduced with its industrialist filth and the end with marston and micah/dutch. even arthurs tb diagnosis was kind of a "i guess thats bad". i was steering for a high honor run and while the high honor ending of arthur was actually touching in some way i just couldnt "drink" this games story like one would with a good movie or show, so really it just felt really watered down and would pale a lot if not for the gameplay and graphics. i find it all the more ridiculous that some game critics see it as on par as breaking bad but its just them being faggots as usual