Red Dead Redemption 2 reviews

First English then German:

 I was really looking forward to Red Dead Redemption 2 (RDR2) back then. Back then, in the middle of chapter 3, I benched the game after almost 30 hours in. In June 2020 I started it again and finished the game. Why did I quit back then? I am rarely a fan of Open-World Games and the game was just too much for me. Too much of everything. It had vast open world, too many useless side quests, too many challenges. I like to lose myself in open worlds and then I'm "full" before the story is finished. I liked the story, but there is no tension in the first 3 chapters. Now that I've finished the game, the first 3 chapters are really important to build the characters and a bond to the characters. The big problem with RDR2 is that everything just feels so slow. For every little action something has to be pressed, which otherwise is done automatically for the user experience in other games. And then there's the frequency with which the game forces you to walk at the games pace rather than your own. A lot of missions start with "Follow X character to X position", where you have to walk at a snail's pace while listening to the dialogue. It's as if the game is full of hidden cutscenes that disguise themselves as gameplay. Unfortunately, RDR2 suffers from many typical Rockstar problems. Clumsy controls, erroneous interactions (have fun trying to reposition yourself a few centimetres at a time to get a certain prompt to light up). RDR2 thrives on realism and yet it goes too far. Take looting as an example. You want to loot some dead victims after a big gun battle? Be prepared for the allies yelling at you to hurry. If you loot 10 people, it'll take five minutes. Spontaneously it doesn't sound too bad, but in this game you shoot and loot hundreds of people. The world is full of things to do. Many tasks are unfortunately only pure tedious work. When I played the game, I thought it would be good and important to collect meat/furs for the camp. This is, for the progress of the game, completely unimportant and does not have to be done. In the whole new game run I have not brought a single animal to the camp. The attempt to catch a legendary fish can take 10 minutes, until the analog stick is constantly turned. Treasure maps are so vague that most of the time they are not readable. It's strange because when you're on a mission, the game gives you lots of information and instructions, but outside a mission and you're alone with little to no clues. Of course this should encourage you to explore - unfortunately it failed with me. After I spent too many hours with it in the early game, I didn't feel like it any more and benched the game. Now almost 2 weeks ago I started the game again and finished it. With the knowledge that I should not "waste" any time. So I rode from mission to mission and experienced a great story. It is definitely not a bad game. Not at all. It has the story, it has the music, it has the characters, it has the depth. Unfortunately, the finishing touches were missing in too many places and Rockstar didn't realize when realism becomes annoying and a handicap. I rate my second game run with a ⅘. But if I would have to play the game the way it was supposed to be played, I would give the game a ⅖.

German:

 Ich habe mich damals sehr auf Red Dead Redemption 2 (RDR2) gefreut. Knappe 30 Stunden Spielzeit, mitten im Kapitel 3, habe ich damals das Spiel abgebrochen. Im Juni 2020 habe ich das Spiel erneut angefangen und beendet. Wieso habe ich damals abgebrochen? Ich bin selten Fan von Open-World Games und das Spiel war mir einfach zu viel. Zu viel von allem. Es hatte eine zu große Welt, zu viele unnütze Nebenquest, zu viele Challenges. Ich verliere mich gerne in zu großen Welten und bin dann “satt” bevor die Story beendet ist. Die Story gefiel mir gut, allerdings kommt in den ersten 3 Kapiteln keine Spannung vorhanden. Jetzt nachdem ich das Spiel beendet habe, sind die ersten 3 Kapitel wirklich wichtig um die Charaktere und eine Bindung zu den Charakteren aufzubauen. Das große Problem von RDR2 ist, dass sich einfach alles so langsam anfühlt. Für jede kleine Aktion muss etwas gedrückt werden, das sonst für die Benutzererfahrung in anderen Spielen automatisch erfolgt. Und dann gibt es die Häufigkeit, mit der das Spiel einen dazu zwingt, in seinem Tempo zu gehen, anstatt im eigenen. Sehr viele Missionen beginnen mit "Folge X-Charakter zu X-Position", wo du im Schneckentempo gehen musst, während du den Dialog hörst. Es ist, als ob das Spiel voller versteckter Zwischensequenzen ist, die sich als Gameplay tarnen. Leider leidet RDR2 unter vielen typischen Problemen von Rockstar. Klobige Steuerelemente, fehlerhafte Interaktionen (viel Spaß beim Versuch, sich ständig ein paar cm neu zu positionieren, um eine bestimmte Aufforderung zum Aufleuchten zu erhalten). Apropos, es ist viel zu leicht, in diesem Spiel die Ehre zu verlieren. Das zufällige Anstoßen an jemanden, was aufgrund der schrecklichen Kontrollen häufig vorkommt, kann dazu führen, dass er wütend wird und einen angreift. Wenn man sich dann wehrt, ist die ganze Stadt hinter einem los. RDR2 lebt vom Realismus und doch geht es dort zu weit. Nehmen wir das Looten mal als Beispiel. Willst du ein paar tote Opfer nach einem großen Schusswechsel plündern? Sei darauf vorbereitet, dass die Verbündeten einen ständig anschreien, man solle sich beeilen. Wenn man 10 Leute lootet, dauert das knappe 5 Minuten. Hört sich spontan nicht allzu schlimm an, jedoch erschießt man in dem Spiel hunderte von Menschen. Die Welt ist stecke voller Dinge, die zu tun sind. Viele Aufgaben sind leider nur reine mühsame Fleißaufgaben. Als ich das Spiel damals gespielt habe, habe ich gedacht es wäre gut und wichtig Fleisch/Pelze für das Camp zu sammeln. Dies ist, für den Spielfortschritt etc. vollkommen unwichtig und muss nicht gemacht werden. Im ganzen neuen Spieldurchlauf habe ich kein einziges Tier zum Camp gebracht. Der Versuch, einen legendären Fisch zu fangen, kann 10 Minuten dauern, bis der Analogstick ständig gedreht wird. Schatzkarten sind so vage, dass sie die meiste Zeit nicht lesbar sind. Es ist seltsam, denn wenn du in einer Mission bist, gibt dir das Spiel viele Informationen und Anweisungen, aber alles außerhalb einer Mission und du bist allein mit wenig bis gar keinen Hinweisen. Man hat keine Ahnung, wo es ist und das Spiel sagt es einem nicht. Klar soll dies zum Erkunden animieren - schlug leider bei mir fehl. Nachdem ich zu viele Stunden damit im frühen Spiel verbracht habe, hatte ich keine Lust mehr und habe das Spiel abgebrochen. Nun vor knapp 2 Wochen habe ich das Spiel erneut gestartet und es beendet. Mit dem Wissen, das ich keine Zeit "verschwenden" soll. Ich bin also von Mission zu Mission geritten und habe eine grandiose Story erlebt. Es ist definitiv kein schlechtes Spiel. Überhaupt nicht. Es hat die Geschichte, es hat die Musik, es hat die Charaktere, es hat die Tiefe. Leider fehlte an zu vielen Stellen der letzte Schliff und Rockstar erkannte nicht, wann Realismus zur lästigen Arbeit und Behinderung wird. Meinen zweiten Spieldurchlauf bewerte ich mit einer ⅘. Würde ich das Spiel allerdings so durchspielen müssen, wie es eigentlich vorgesehen wurde, würde ich dem Spiel eine ⅖ geben.

Rockstar’s Red Dead Redemption 2 is a colossal disappointment, and surely not a masterpiece. “Red Dead Redemption 2 is a masterpiece. 10/10…” wrote just about every video game critic on the internet. What? Has everyone been brainwashed? With all of the extremely high critical acclaim, it was natural for me to go into Rockstar’s RDR2 with extremely high expectations. What I was met with was an aggravating, boring, mess of a sequel. This is what everyone has been freaking out about? Are you kidding? What has the gaming community’s taste gone to? I cannot properly judge the entire game because I have not had the time to complete it yet, but I’ve already spent a great deal of time with its tedious introduction. The following criticisms are based off of what I’ve picked up in the first two chapters alone.

Let’s start by saying this: Red Dead Redemption 2 is great… for an interactive movie. That’s what a large portion of this game feels like: a cinematic experience over a gaming experience. Rockstar decided to make RDR2 a prequel to the first game. The first Red Dead Redemption didn’t involve much plot. You are given the protagonist, John Marston, and introduced to the hunted antagonist, Bill Williamson. It gets a little more complicated later, but it was generally simple. RDR2 heavily involves its innumerable characters, especially at the beginning of the game. The first chapter is nothing short of a long, dragging, no-fun zone.

There’s about five minutes of legitimate gameplay in the first mission. If you decide to watch the uninteresting cutscenes, then a great deal of time is spent watching them, and then riding your horse. Then the game gives you about 5-10 minutes of what would be considered fun: taking down enemies. Then it is time to loot and travel back to your camp again to repeat the same process. This introduction leaves a bad first impression that doesn’t improve much.

Back to the first point: RDR2 is fundamentally an interactive movie. Rockstar does not care much about the player at all. Rockstar tries to make you care about their characters. Character development and an interesting plot are great when you’re watching a movie or TV show, or reading a book, but Rockstar does not seem to understand that this is a video game. A player picks up their controller to have complete agency over their character. RDR2 has barely any, and it is so tedious with its brief animations, constant cutscenes, conversing NPCs (non-playable characters), and method of traveling that playing it feels more like a movie you have to press a button to once a minute to keep it running.

The purpose of spending lengthy amounts of time on your horse is to get a sense of the map, and to admire the beauty of the game along with its abundant amount of detail that Rockstar littered throughout it. This is something many critics and fans have been praising emphatically: the detail. Detail is enjoyable, but much of it serves no purpose other than just gazing at it. It’s not wrong for a game to look beautiful, but players still misunderstand that Rockstar failed to create an engaging experience by combining beauty and detail with enjoyable gameplay (the fact that the "cinematic camera" exists doesn't help). The characters, detail, and gameplay are all incoherent with one another in RDR2.

Another factor that bruised Rockstar was realism. This explains every single brief animation and unnecessary task. At one point in the 2nd chapter, a message pops up on the screen telling the player that they should shave their character’s beard because it’s getting too long. Ladies and gentlemen, this is what video games have come to, this is what everyone is praising. Red Dead Redemption 2, the video game meant to be watched, the video game meant to mimic our boring lives.

RDR2 also disappoints in comparison to its predecessor in some ways. The controls are much more restrained and harder to handle than the loose, breezy controls of the first one, as well as the unnecessary addition of convoluted inventories for your items and practically useless horse commodities. Simple equals better, Rockstar.

Rockstar spent so much time polishing detail, writing characters, and worrying about realism that they forgot to make a fun gaming experience. Rockstar is not the only game developer who includes these elements in their games, but Rockstar stressed them so much in this game that they failed at making it fun to play. Again, I have not played it the entire way through, nor is the whole game like this, but it did not leave me with a good first impression. I only hope that the game improves, and that I have the patience to push through the tedious sections to complete it. And keep in mind that this is just my opinion. I am clearly in a really small minority.