Heh OK, I'll buy RDR2 on my next trip to the Steam store.
But come to think of it, I still have to install and play 'Subnautica' that I bought some years ago based on another DBond thread.

If you don't want to pay 79.99.
G2A.com

Yeah, get it on sale. It goes on quite often.

I was talking before about which members of the camp I find objectionable. But I left out the most objectionable because I meant to write his own paragraph and then forgot to. And that's Dutch.

As well-written as RDR 2 it's odd that the character intended to be a father figure, to instill a sense of loyalty in the player, instead instills the opposite in me. I want to reject Dutch as the leader of the gang. This is not a man I want to follow. His plans and schemes never come off, he's all bluster and platitudes. And then there's his old lady, and it got so bad I started sleeping in the wild as I didn't want to wake up again to their incessant bickering in camp. Put a lid on it!

I mentioned it before I think that the camp dynamic is poor, that the player really is the only one doing anything, and yet the others snap off shade complaining that Arthur isn't pulling his fair share despite being the only one. Stop to pour the rocks out of your boots and Grimshaw will be around shortly to take note of your loafing and tell you about it too. While I drop another $50 in the till, the rest of the camp managed to drop in a feather or two. I would have liked R* to shape this more as 'all hands to the pump'. Dutch even makes a speech about it and then does nothing the rest of the game to pull his weight.

In Shady Belle he's up on the balcony calling to me but I go the other way, you'll only lead us astray Dutch. My Arthur wonders if he should strike out on his own and leave this band of misfits and malcontents behind.

I also spoke of my struggle with the controls and not for the first time it landed me in hot water. I have not got the achievement for max honor or dishonor, so I'm making sure to greet passersby, as one does. Howdy pardner, good day to you.

Last night I was in St Denis looking for my poker game which is gone? Anyway, as I cantered through the streets tipping my hat to strangers to boost my honor I rode alongside a wagon with a nice looking family aboard.The game sort of auto-matches the wagon speed in case you want to shake them down. So I went to speed up to get by but instead of hitting the shift key I hit space and Arthur leaped from the horse I named Black Bourbon and on to the wagon where I began punching the dad in the face. Oops.

In seconds the entire town was after me, shootin' and hollerin' and all that honor I had been building was thrown out the window. Another bounty. And another day in the life I reckon.

I prefer a gamepad is RDR2.

I have a controller hooked up but don't use it in this game. If I did I wouldn't accidentally sucker punch people sitting around playing cards in the town square, so....

Yeah, that has happened too.

My scheme is first person keyboard and mouse on foot, third person keyboard and mouse on horseback. It switches between the views automatically when mounting and dismounting. First person just doesn't work well for me on horseback. The first person mode is a bit janky, but for me way better than playing in third person.

haha. I've never sucker punched some one. I like the gamepad for the action menu mostly. Interacting with my horse etc.

I tried using a gamepad a couple of times but my brain and coordination just couldn't get used to it. There are two games I've played which benefit from using a gamepad (Elden Ring and Jedi: Fallen Order) so that's why I tried the change but it's back to the tried and true keyboard and mouse for me.

i only used gamepad for helicopters in GTA and battlefield, since EA was nice to not include auto hover when you use k+m so you always have to throttle....i never realized you can slowly acelerate in gta with the triggers, but i drive too badly with the pad......i prefer to move the camera around to dynamic move around the car while driving for cool shots. one of the reasons i hate games with fixed camera behind the car

I don't do well when I have to use one stick to control the view (and aiming) and the other stick to control movement. Like anything I would grow accustomed to it with enough time. But I don't find the benefits outweigh the pain enough to make me want to try for long. In GTA I use KB & M on foot and the controller in aircraft and vehicles. The horse in RDR is fine with keyboard so I stick with that. I would really have trouble in these gunfights if I had to aim with a stick.

I loved both games. I played RDR1 a second time before RDR2 came out. So I've spent untold hours in the first RDR. I highly recommend it if you enjoy story. I also really love the game engine in RDR 1. I still would love to see the original ported over to PC. Its a great engine and to have the ability to play it at 1080p with an unlocked 60 fps it would be a dream. The environment is even though its a much older game now is done so well. The visuals and audio are great. The thunderstorms and cloud rendering is great looking so again, being able to see it all run on PC with 60 fps would be awesome. RDR 1 still has probably the best horse animations and riding around and of course RDR2 maintained that tradition and improved upon it. I've never seen any other game come close. I loved the Witcher 3 but riding Roach is a huge step back in comparison. However there was a camera mod and horse riding mod that I used that attempted to mimic RDR's horse riding controls and the mod did a pretty good job of it. Its just that Roach's animations nowhere near match the realism of the RDR series.

I think RDR is still worth playing. If you're not used to it yes, going back to the Xbox 360 and iffy 30 fps can be jarring and takes some getting used to again but you do get used it especially if you are a gamer that still goes back and plays older games like I do. The mini-games I remember enjoying the most in the first RDR were blackjack and dice. I'm not very good at poker and even though I enjoy attempting to play it I just don't have a solid understanding of poker which is unfortunate as they made poker the main game in RDR2. I feel like I should enjoy it more than I do but I suppose it just comes down to my inexperience with the game of poker. I was hoping they would have multiple games in RDR2 like the first one but its just poker I think.

One of the things I love the most about the RDR series is the escape/relaxation factor these games provide because they are so well crafted in their feel, visuals, sound design, atmosphere and immersion. On the Xbox 360 you can actually rip your own CDs to the console and play them at the same time as the game. I grew up on the old cowboy music so I would listen to my own Western soundtrack while playing the game when free-roaming. I would come home from work and just ride around the world on horseback listening to the soundtrack to Jeremiah Johnson for example which was quite relaxing. I also would love to just sit in that corner table in Thieves' Landing and play multiple games of dice as the day/night cycle changed through the window outside.

RDR1's bounty's are not as detailed as the second game. I like how the second game gave them more character which was a great way to create some small lore or world building. I just wish they would have made more bounty's in the game. It would have been nice to have a bunch of new ones unlocked when you become John Marston's character. The first RDR is definitely worth playing if you are a fan of the second game and can cope with and get reacclimated to the older tech. I hope to play a second play through of RDR2 in the near future.

I also found myself really enjoying Gwent in Witcher 3. It was actually quite fun. I'm not sure I would ever play GOG's free standalone game though unless it were truly offline. I wouldn't want to be inundated with online only gimmicks or constant soliciting of online features. They also made that Throne Breaker Witcher game which I've been wanting to get. It looks like its basically a card building, Gwent-like game wrapped around an isometric overworld with I believe some exploration and quite a significant script and storytelling. It usually goes down to $5 when GOG and Steam have sales.

And speaking of card games, Dbond have you seen "Card Shark" on Steam and GOG? That popped up in my Steam store feed and I thought it looked really good. Its got good reviews and its not too expensive.

I played RDR continuously to the end, in a few days, while I dropped RDR2 at 1/4 of the game. That's how good RDR was for me. RDR2 is still good, but less addictive.

Good post Coot, and thanks for the recommendation. I checked it out and it appears to be a card game of shady dealings. Might be worth a go.

I agree with your comments about how horses are done in this series. Authentic, great animations, especially in terms of gait. I've felt a sense of attachment to all of my horses in RDR 2. The horse care interactions help to solidify that connection. Routinely feeding, brushing and patting the horse. Good boy. Your mount is such a central part of the experience. Companion, get-away car, wardrobe closet, gun safe, transport and more.

I read an article that says RDR 2 has sold 45 million copies. That makes it the ninth-highest selling PC game of all time, and it's not done yet. RDR 1 sold another 22 million. This game has been a massive success for Rockstar and Take Two. As it should be.

I had been kicking around a return since spring and I'm glad I've done. This game is amazing. I won't cough it all up again, I've praised it throughout this thread, but revisiting it now just brings back what makes it so good. Right at the top of that list is pacing. It's open world and of course you can go at whichever pace you please. So it's not necessarily an absolute thing. The player has a lot to do with this of course, but there is something innate about it that just flows at the right pace. Or maybe more accurately, it's a game where the structure allows the player to find his own pace so effortlessly. Simply riding through the countryside is deligthful in a way unmatched in any other game for me. Until RDR 2 I thought Kingdom Come Deliverance had nailed this the best. But RDR 2 took it to a new level. Stunning game world.

I've talked about how much I like the poker in this game, but my world was shaken when I sat down at the table in the Valentine saloon yesterday. I didn't win a hand, lost $1.40 in no time flat. But that's OK, you won't win 'em all (or any of them sometimes it seems). But on one hand I stayed in with two pair, fives over twos. I was beaten by three fives. If you play poker you will know why what I just wrote is a problem. I wish I hadn't noticed.

But yeah, overall it's great to give it another go. My time away was just long enough to make it all seem amazing again

I did the opposite, I put down RDR probably a quarter of the way in. 720p just seemed blurry to me, and the 30 fps cap was a turn off. RDR2 is a great game and looks incredible on PC.

Dbond, I agree about the pacing too. I'm at an age now where I'm getting to where I can't tolerate overly fast-paced games that are too chaotic. I've also always been a player anyways that likes to take my time and absorb a game that I'm interested in so I love the slower, methodical game play of games like the RDR series. The horse gates are one of the reasons why the horse riding is so great in these games. Not only the animations but the fact that they added realistic, multple gates to the horses is fantastic. That was something that I was so tickled and pleased by when I played the first game. I thought now this is cool and how it should be done. That little dynamic alone adds significantly to the experience of a game like this. Not just riding through the world but riding at different gates and speeds. Its melodic and natural. The only thing better would be riding horseback for real out in creation. It also gives you a sense of a movement through the world that's not on the rails or confined by the dictates of limited and stifling unrealistic motions and freedom of movement. The gun combat is also a lot of fun and more so than many games. I wish they would have modeled a little more mechanics to it and implementation but overall its a lot of fun and I like the slower combat. Its more graceful in a lot ways to me and love the mechanics of the single shot weapons and then the sort of Hollywood Western abilitiy to fan your pistol. I aslo wish they would have added a prone option. I wouldn't even mind if they did not add a crawl while prone option as this isn't a stealthy spec-ops shooter but the ability to go prone with any weapon, especially the long guns would have been great. I know some folks hate the games retarded approach to movement through the world but I'm glad someone made a game like this because that's what I really enjoy, especially in a Western game. Everything has weight and it takes some time to get to where you are goind. I still hope someone makes a game world as detailed as this series, whether it be a Western or an open world game like L.A. Noir or Mafia but have the world be so large that it actually takes a significant amount of time to travel across it. I'd love to have the feeling that I'm really in the middle of nowhere whether going it by horseback or even driving a classic car listening to period music as you travel long stretches of highway in real time from cities and towns out to rural and even remote locations. This could include mini-games in the form of food and water rationing and discovery and horse doctoring in a Western or having to change tires, do some mechanical work and walk several miles with a gas can because you ran out of gas or bum a ride with strange mysterious characters along the way who may or may not be trustworthy.

The environments and sound design in RDR2 are second to none. The folks who made the effort to make the world feel alive and organic and consistant did a wonderful job of it. One of the flaws that bothered me the most about the game and I don't know if it was ever addressed was the random weapon cycling that constantly took place when I play the game and sometimes it got down right infuriating. The whole point of having a mount and saddle and saddle bag is to have a system where that should have been a little gameplay element in of itself. For example, if you did not bring the right weapon or enough ammo and ran out or the the weopon was not maintained and failed on you that should be on the player and part of the experience. It would make it more fun and rewarding. That could then lead to scenarios where you have to procur weapons and ammo out of necessity. But what bugged me the most was that weapons just constantly moved around on my character against my knowledge or activation. The worst instance of this was when you apprehend a creepy murderer and bring him into the sheriff. I was already well aware of the random weapon cycling issue at this point. Before bringing him into the jail, I specifially stowed my long arms onto my horse so that all I had were the two cattleman revolvers on my persons so that if I needed a weapon for whatever reason, I thought surely it will only utilize what is on me. I proceeded to bring the criminal in the jail, having no rifle on my and only two pistols. Sure enough something happens with the story that requires a weapon. Not only did the game not use the only two weapons that I had on me(two pistols), it somehow magically retrieved a rifle from my mount storage and teleported into my hands for the encounter. That just furthered my suspician that this random weapon cycling was indeed a flaw or bug that Rockstar somehow either missed or let slide because perhaps they did not know how to fix the problems themselves. It also teleported by fiat to my character's hands the varmint rifle which is like a .22LR which could work but makes no sense either has I owned larger caliber rifles at the time. So that's the worst sort of jarring, taking out of immersion moment in the game that I can recall. Thankfully it did not happen like that again as I can recall however the random weapon equipping happend all the time which really irriated me. I don't know if this was ever fixed or if its somehow corrected in the PC version or not. I played it on PS4.

I've heard of keeping an extra Ace up your sleeve, but an extra five? That card shark came prepared!

Reminds me of the Simpsons https://youtu.be/6XGoVdkB4OM?t=65 from 1:05 to 1:13

secret things and spoilers

https://www.tiktok.com/@red.dead.cljps

Another fine post Coot. I was reading a review or something and it said that RDR 2 didn't have to be so good, but it is. And it's true isn't it? That this game could have been far less than it is and it would still be a top game. I like to use the word 'authentic' when talking about RDR 2. So much effort was clearly put in to getting it right. The weapons, the clothing, the insane detail on animals and fish or the way carriage ruts form reflecting the shifting firmness of the ground it passes over. There are a lot of great open world games with amazing game worlds. But Red Dead Redemption is just on another plane, isn't it?

You got it Bob, five fives. If I pass it off as a dirty trick it fits, but then there'd be a shootout upon discovery of such nefarious ploys. We ain't a-gonna allow cheatin' at the poke table.

I said before I like to play at the saloon in the NE corner of St Denis, but there's a dive saloon there that either doesn't have poker or it's only at certain times of day. There's a more high-end game at the saloon near the "D" of Denis on the map. Five dollar buy-in. Players in their finest duds. I played here yesterday and won big, about 16 dollars which is good money in 1899. But it's quite rare to take such a haul away.

I want to also correct what I said about the hands to the pump. The ledger now has a number of significant contributions from camp followers, especially Charles, Lenny and Hosea. But even Dutch had an entry. I think this was tweaked a bit.

I'm in Chapter 4, having picked up my suspended run. Just taking it easy, doing side missions and random activities as at some point in Chapter 4 you trigger the point of no return story mission, so now's the time to do the stuff that isn't the main story. And there's plenty to do.

I remember early on in my time with the game I used to contribute a lot of good stuff into the camp's coffers. I'm not sure but I supposed it would have some effect as I think the game or Dutch tells you to chip in. I kind of felt like I was Oliver or one of the street gang kids bringing in trinkets to Fagin. I'd put in precious dollars and valuable pocket watches and bring lots of game only to see the humorous offerings of others. I suppose perhaps this mechanic in some way effects your overall honor rating? I've never even see the alternate finale. Are there more alternate cinematics other than the ending if you really play up the ne'er-do-well? When I play a second time I'll probably do the same exact thing. Play kind of nasty at first then calm it down except for with other outlaws and get what I guess everyone calls the "good" ending. Again I've never seen whatever the bad ending is so I may watch that someday. Redemption is a profound thing. The game doesn't at all do the reality and theology of redemption justice but I do like the storytelling of man facing his mortality and wanting to change knowing there's something very big to be faced by each of us.

I also remember when I first played the game I did not yet understand the camp idea or mechanic so I actually spent very little time in the very first place up North in the winter. Next time around because I didn't know better I'd like to stay there longer and bring in game and see if there are any camp discussions I've never heard because I moved out from there too quickly if my memory serves.

Was your comment about the poker incident one indicating that the game was cheating at it? Do you still find the poker a sound rendition compared to other games or do you think you'll start noticing flaws in its execution more and more or perhaps that was rare instance?

As Bob pointed out it meant that the deck had five fives, which of course, it should not. Or probably more accurately, it's just a computer program attempting to appear random and organic even though it's all just scripts, ya know? There's no actual deck, just a probability of any card making an appearance.

It's the first time in hundreds of hands that I've noticed anything like it. Until that point it's all been quite convincing. So I'll treat it for the moment as an anomaly and forget it happened and carry on, but now with a more suspicious eye.

As for the camp, my complaints are about the contributions of the other camp members, especially Dutch in light of his long-winded speech about how every one must pull their fair share. But now that I've returned to the game, it's better. I had played hundreds of hours previously to cement this opinion, and now it's fine, so I reckon it was tweaked in a patch.

And while I complain about those contributions, or lack of, as it used to be, I think the camp itself is fantastic. Many games have a similar thing, but RDR 2 really nails it. I mean the interactions, the conversations. The good mornings and snide remarks. The stories around the camp fire, the songs sung after a few too many. Every time you return to camp something new and different is the scene. It's remarkable how much of this stuff Rockstar recorded, and so much of it has every chance of simply being missed by any particular player. And while I dislike several of my camp mates, the whole thing just feels right, and who likes everyone, anyway?