Journal Luke727's Journal: Red Dead Redemption 2

Get this game.

Red Dead Redemption is essentially a Grand Theft Auto-style game set in the wild west. There is a story with missions and a bunch of side quests, but the absolute best part of the game is free-roaming. This game really captures the essence of life in the wild west (or at least what we think it was like). The map is a smattering of small towns (with requisite general stores, saloons, etc) spread out across a vast, wide-open wilderness. It covers a good variety of landscapes from forests to mountains to plains to deserts. The scenery, weather, and wildlife are absolutely beautiful; honestly, you could play this game for hours doing nothing but traveling the trails and hunting. And one of your weapons is a lasso; how cool is that? Riding your horse is somewhat awkward at first, but you get used to the quirks after a while. Combat is identical to GTA IV (including the occasionally frustrating cover system) with the exception that you choose your weapon via a weapon wheel system instead of the next or previous weapon buttons (this makes it much easier to get to your desired weapon). Combat on horse-back is not too bad, but it is extremely difficult to steer and shoot at the same time (i.e. you are aiming to the left but you are traveling to the right and can't see where your horse is going); thankfully I haven't seen a lot of horse-back combat so far. The major difference between RDR and GTA is that here you are not really a criminal; you can still commit crimes (which brings with it wanted levels and bounties) but the story really sets up for you to be a good guy. In terms of game-play there isn't much of an effective difference as you still end up killing a bunch of (bad) people in the missions. In GTA IV, Libery City kind of felt static to me; sure, there was a lot of traffic and pedestrians but it all felt scripted and hollow. Basically it didn't feel "alive". RDR does a much better job at that IMHO; I think it helps that it is easier to do that in a small frontier town than in a huge modern city.