“The Greatest Video Game of Modern Times”: A Review of Red Dead Redemption 2
EDITORS' PICK
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EDITORS' PICK -
Lauded as one of the best video games of all time, a subject of mass controversy due to the 2018 Game Awards, and considered a favorite by millions of people, including students at Sequoyah, Red Dead Redemption 2 (RDR2) remains a frequent topic in the gaming community, even seven years after its release. However, does this highly praised game live up to its reputation? That was the question I sought to answer in my recent RDR2 playthrough.
You begin as an outlaw named Arthur Morgan. He and the rest of the Van Der Linde gang are on the run from Pinkertons (the government, basically) after a botched heist. After fleeing into the snowy mountains, you spend the first couple of hours grabbing (let’s be honest, stealing) supplies, rescuing gang members, and robbing trains—all typical outlaw shenanigans. Through these beginner missions, one is slowly introduced to RDR2’s gameplay, from shooting at your enemies, hunting animals, riding horses, and looting houses. Via this design choice, RDR2 does a brilliant job of introducing its mechanics in a way that doesn’t feel forced.
After Arthur exits the mountains and settles with the Van Der Linde gang in a place reminiscent of the Midwest, the real game begins. RDR2 is an open-world game first and foremost, meaning you can go wherever you want, whenever you want. And boy, is it fun to explore the map.
Exploring the beautiful world on my trusty horse.
If graphics are your thing, then RDR2 has some of the best graphics a video game has to offer. Everything is stunningly detailed, from the way the trees sway in the wind to the tracks left in the snow. You can’t spend your entire time wandering around (well, you could, but then you’d be missing out on the best part), so RDR2 has an incredible story for you to experience through about one hundred or so missions. While any mention of what happens in those missions would be crossing into spoiler territory, I can confidently say that RDR2’s story is one of the most well-crafted I’ve seen yet. There is a great mix of action and dialogue, along with a wide variety of what you do in said missions. The cutscenes are beautiful, the fighting is adrenaline-inducing, and the emotions are palpable behind every mission. You will experience some of your highest gaming highs and some of your lowest gaming lows in RDR2.
A photo of Arthur Morgan in one of the many missions in RDR2.
So, there’s a bountiful open world and a gripping, entertaining, and emotional story. What else? The combat in RDR2 mainly consists of shooting adversaries with revolvers, rifles, repeaters, shotguns, and bows. Every shot feels real and has weight behind it as the crack of the gun goes off. As a third-person shooter, RDR2 delivers.
How difficult is RDR2? In my experience, it was fairly difficult in the beginning; you start out with three “cores” governing your health, stamina, and “Dead Eye,” and a lower core means your actual health, stamina, and Dead Eye regenerate more slowly. As you progress in the game, your cores get stronger, meaning you have more health, stamina, etc. I had weak weapons, few bullets, and little experience with the mechanics of the game, so it was easy to die from only a couple of stray shots! As I got more and more experienced, however, and obtained better guns, RDR2 went from a challenging game to a fairly normal-to-easy one.
If you want the game to be even easier, you can use RDR2’s signature mechanic, Dead Eye. Dead Eye slows down time, turning you invincible and allowing you to shoot more accurately and precisely in this slowed-down state. Dead Eye isn’t infinite—upgrading its “core” can increase the duration of Dead Eye, but it’s still a powerful ability that can turn even the most novice video game player into a force to be reckoned with.
Probably the most important system in RDR2 is the honor system. By doing honorable things (helping folks out when they’re in trouble, mainly), Arthur becomes a more honorable person in the story, and you get a different story experience and ending. By doing dishonorable things (killing people, not helping people out), Arthur becomes a more selfish and cutthroat person, leading to a tragic ending. While it’s up to you on how to play Arthur, I highly recommend going the “High Honor” route for your first playthrough. Besides the obvious gameplay benefit of items being cheaper, you get a more emotional and well-rounded experience overall, at least in my opinion.
To conclude, if you have some spare time (sixty or so hours?) and want to experience one of the best stories a video game has to offer, buy Red Dead Redemption 2. It frequently goes on sale, so you can get it for around $15-$20 most of the time. The graphics are excellent, the mechanics aren’t hard to learn, and as I keep emphasizing, the story is incomparable to other games.