Red Dead Redemption 2 - now available on PC

[cvv]

Watching another episode on Youtube I've just realized the game doesn't actually look THAT good. The winter prologue looked stunning but now that it's spring the textures and lightning are kinda 2014. How long has this game been in development? Compared to the best lookers right now like AssCreed, Far Cry, Kingdom Come, Battlefield or Andromeda it looks a generation behind. The vibe and details are top notch tho.

 

[sullynathan]

Watching another episode on Youtube I've just realized the game doesn't actually look THAT good. The winter prologue looked stunning but now that it's spring the textures and lightning are kinda 2014. How long has this game been in development? Compared to the best lookers right now like AssCreed, Far Cry, Kingdom Come, Battlefield or Andromeda it looks a generation behind. The vibe and details are top notch tho.

it looks far better than all those games with better performance

take those shitty glasses off midget

 

[Bocian]

with generally good AI on any of its harder difficulties

last of us has this

AI in this game blows, dude.

Arthur has no such restriction.

Because it's catering to the fanbase, Arthur like the crowd who plays these games, is an incel.

disappointing.

Incels want to fuck but can't, I suppose the protagonist doesn't have this problem. Also, there are better things to do in a game than scoring virtual chicks.

 

[sullynathan]

AI in this game blows, dude.

AI in the game can be glitched, I pointed it out in my post. The AI doesn't blow, nor does the video say that, it was clearly worse than the E3 demos shown. The best thing about it, the AI in TLOU is still superior to most AAA & non-AAA games released in recent years while still maintaining a good level of challenge across the entire game.

 

[Carrion]

Carrion What's fake news? TLOU had deadly weapons, with generally good AI on any of its harder difficulties, and when it wasn't glitching, smaller scaled encounters and many codexers still shitted on the game.

There's obscene amounts of combat in the game, and the kill count is utterly ridiculous considering what the setting is supposed to be like (granted, I'm basing this on a Let's Play). People shit on it because it's yet another cover shooter where gameplay exists just to give the player something to do between muh precious story moments.

To remove the popamole you need to remove the cover system. If doesn't matter how smart or deadly your enemies are if you can just pop in and out of cover and headshot them without ever truly exposing yourself to danger. It's a cheat mode that needs to be erased from existence. When people mention the slow pacing, realism and attention to detail in RDR2, and in the next sentence talk about firefights where you take out twenty guys from behind cover, it breaks my brain. It reminds me of how in the first Mafia you had these super tense and deadly firefights against half-a-dozen guys or less, but a couple of hours into the sequel you were sitting behind a box slaughtering dozens of police officers without feeling a tinge of excitement — partly because it was awfully boring gameplay, and partly because it was so clearly disconnected from the reality of the game that all suspension of disbelief had long gone out of the window.

Of course cover systems are the industry standard nowadays, but Rockstar could easily set their own standards if they wanted to. This game could've been made without sticky cover, even on consoles (not that I was actually expecting Rockstar to do anything like that). I agree with AwesomeButton that it's a missed opportunity, not just for RDR2 but for games in general, seeing how this is the newest Citizen Kane of gaming that people will be gushing over for the next couple of months.

 

[DeepOcean]

Carrion What's fake news? TLOU had deadly weapons, with generally good AI on any of its harder difficulties, and when it wasn't glitching, smaller scaled encounters and many codexers still shitted on the game.

There's obscene amounts of combat in the game, and the kill count is utterly ridiculous considering what the setting is supposed to be like (granted, I'm basing this on a Let's Play). People shit on it because it's yet another cover shooter where gameplay exists just to give the player something to do between muh precious story moments.

To remove the popamole you need to remove the cover system. If doesn't matter how smart or deadly your enemies are if you can just pop in and out of cover and headshot them without ever truly exposing yourself to danger. It's a cheat mode that needs to be erased from existence. When people mention the slow pacing, realism and attention to detail in RDR2, and in the next sentence talk about firefights where you take out twenty guys from behind cover, it breaks my brain. It reminds me of how in the first Mafia you had these super tense and deadly firefights against half-a-dozen guys or less, but a couple of hours into the sequel you were sitting behind a box slaughtering dozens of police officers without feeling a tinge of excitement — partly because it was awfully boring gameplay, and partly because it was so clearly disconnected from the reality of the game that all suspension of disbelief had long gone out of the window.

Of course cover systems are the industry standard nowadays, but Rockstar could easily set their own standards if they wanted to. This game could've been made without sticky cover, even on consoles (not that I was actually expecting Rockstar to do anything like that). I agree with AwesomeButton that it's a missed opportunity, not just for RDR2 but for games in general, seeing how this is the newest Citizen Kane of gaming that people will be gushing over for the next couple of months.

Take a scene I saw from RDR 2, three guys had guns pointing at you and all of sudden, your character managed to miss them and get behind a barrel that worked as "cover" just a few feet from them during a cutscene, this is so emblematic of the farce that passes for gameplay on those games, it worked that way on all firefights I've seen on streams. On Mafia 1, on the very first serious fight on a roadside dinner, the game baited you to enter through the front door what was a really stupid thing to do as you would be obliterated if you tried, you needed to be clever and find another entrance and still, it only took a couple of shots from a single enemy to ruin your day, the Ai of those popamole games have the aim of stormtrooper and the intelligence of an average zombie.

If Mafia was RDR 2, you would be able to enter on the building through the front door despite they cleary having the advantage, they would still fail to shoot at you and after quickly dispatching everyone, you would still have to kill a 20 cowboys wave that was conveniently waiting to spawn outside to attack you on the right moment and make the scene more "epic".

Mafia 1 sold you the point that being a triggerman for the mob wasn't so glorious as it seemed to be on both gameplay and the story the gameplay was deadly and your life seemed cheap. Modern popamole shooters rob you even of the basic tension.

What is the point? It is so hilarious, the disconnect between the story and the gameplay, the police is chasing us, we are on the run but we are demigods that kill 20 cops on a single shootout without breaking a sweat and only die on cutscnes when all of sudden we lose our wolverine powers? Gaming regressed so much... it is depressive, all the shinny graphix only hide that banality by appealing to shallow graphix whorism.

 

[sullynathan]

There's obscene amounts of combat in the game, and the kill count is utterly ridiculous considering what the setting is supposed to be like (granted, I'm basing this on a Let's Play). People shit on it because it's yet another cover shooter where gameplay exists just to give the player something to do between muh precious story moments.

In the Last of Us? The last of us is a stealth + shooter + survival game. You simply can't play the entire game by shooting everything or by stealthing everything which
There isn't an obscene amount of combat in the game if you had played it. Disappointingly you're going to make me defend a game I didn't like much just because I recently played it and see that the game very much has merits.

The last of us doesn't have sticky cover, there is no cover button. If you walk near cover, your character will touch it and stay close to it but can very much be shot while behind cover because it isn't Gears of War. You are not stuck in cover, your movement isn't anymore slowed than before.

I'm not going to act like story isn't a big part of the game, it is, but there is genuine gameplay and far more of it in the game than there was story. There are a many places where the gameplay is hindered for story reasons, but that isn't most of the game.

In terms of gameplay being deadly or whatever that is, it's not a game that is easy. Both you and your opponents die quickly, weapons have kick to them, etc. It certainly has superior AI to all those shitty Mafia games without combat mechanics being as bad.

To remove the popamole you need to remove the cover system. If doesn't matter how smart or deadly your enemies are if you can just pop in and out of cover and headshot them without ever truly exposing yourself to danger. It's a cheat mode that needs to be erased from existence. When people mention the slow pacing, realism and attention to detail in RDR2, and in the next sentence talk about firefights where you take out twenty guys from behind cover, it breaks my brain. It reminds me of how in the first Mafia you had these super tense and deadly firefights against half-a-dozen guys or less, but a couple of hours into the sequel you were sitting behind a box slaughtering dozens of police officers without feeling a tinge of excitement — partly because it was awfully boring gameplay, and partly because it was so clearly disconnected from the reality of the game that all suspension of disbelief had long gone out of the window.

you should play Max Payne 3 and the last of us. Both games have cover system and their gameplay mechanics allow the combat to remain challenging even with cover mechanics. The former was made by R* and has been played by many codexers here, they and I would very much agree that it is a very solid cover shooter yet R* have used it as a base for GTA V & RDR2 and yet have failed to make the shooting in either game as good as Max Payne 3.

Mafia is a terrible example because the combat is never good in these games, and falls under your crticism of gameplay only serving to push the story forward.

 

[Alienman]

Why can't you hire prostitutes in 2? So far as I know, John wouldn't hire prostitutes because he was loyal to his wife. Arthur has no such restriction.

He has a love interest.

And like I said in a earlier post, the scripted sequences are pretty much pop-a-mole, but when you fight dudes randomly in a forest or what not, enemies will rush you, flank and such, it can actually be pretty terrifying if you don't cheat with the lock on. Cover is not 100% protection either. If they get just a little angle on you, they will hit you, and some covers break under fire. My current style is a lot of running and flanking, getting in close with one cattle revolver in each hand. Makes it easier to hit when you can pop out 12 shots in short succession in close range.

Actually enjoying the game a hell of a lot now, switching from gaming to larper mode.

 

[Ezekiel]

Played it for a few hours now and, no matter what I do with the settings, the aiming feels horrible. Don't know how anyone could say this feels good, unless they're playing with Soft Lock, which is lame anyway. I know I'm at a big disadvantage with a controller and that aiming with a thumb makes no sense, but it still feels like I'm pulling the character instead of controlling them. I like the world. I want to like the action, but I can't.

 

[Beastro]

Those games were cheap as fuck, but they always had an odd charm to them.

 

[rusty_shackleford]

Played it for a few hours now and, no matter what I do with the settings, the aiming feels horrible. Don't know how anyone could say this feels good, unless they're playing with Soft Lock, which is lame anyway. I know I'm at a big disadvantage with a controller and that aiming with a thumb makes no sense, but it still feels like I'm pulling the character instead of controlling them. I like the world. I want to like the action, but I can't.

playing a shooter on a console is basically just moving the joystick in the general direction and having aim assist put it directly where you want to shoot

 

[Doktor Best]

I wonder why there are not more games on consoles implementing gyro aim (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yYCzglJcVfc). It actually works quite okay (not as precise as mouse, but way better than thumbstick aiming). I thought PS4 and Xbox controllers had the same technology built in?

 

[Carrion]

you should play Max Payne 3

Max Payne 1 & 2 exist, so how about no.

Mafia is a terrible example because the combat is never good in these games, and falls under your crticism of gameplay only serving to push the story forward.

You absolutely have no taste in games. The shootouts are the highlights of the first Mafia. It's the sequels where things go horribly wrong.

 

[Taxnomore]

I still have RDR 1 to play on my old PS3. Is it still worth it in $CURRENT_YEAR ?

 

[Makabb]

I still have RDR 1 to play on my old PS3. Is it still worth it in $CURRENT_YEAR ?

If you played one gta, you played them all, Rockstar games at this point just have a different story

 

[Taxnomore]

I still have RDR 1 to play on my old PS3. Is it still worth it in $CURRENT_YEAR ?

If you played one gta, you played them all, Rockstar games at this point just have a different story

So it's worth it !

 

[TheHeroOfTime]

I’ve been playing this for a while. Gameplay wise it’s fine, not too surprising or impactful. There’s some new cool aditions like the new interaction and looting system (Which is also slow, maybe too slow), the dialog system with people and stuff, and not much else. Some cool ideas here and there. Where the game truly shines is in the presentation, visuals, music and the insane attention for details. It’s probably a new standart in that regard, everything feels very polished. Things like Fallout 76 will be a joke in comparison with this.

 

[Zep Zepo]

I like that the music is subdued. A little guitar riff here and there while out exploring, instead of constant sound track just being annoying. First game in a long time where I haven't turned the music off straight away.

I think I am about to enter Chapter 3 (they are tearing down the Chap. 2 camp). So, now that I know most(?) of the mechanics, I'm going to restart a new game. I think I missed a lot of stuff because I didn't understand the game mechanics very well in the beginning.

Zep--

 

[Clockwork Knight]

 

[AwesomeButton]

last of us has this and codexers shitted on it anyway, not like most codexers know good action games anyway.

AI in the game can be glitched, I pointed it out in my post. The AI doesn't blow, nor does the video say that, it was clearly worse than the E3 demos shown. The best thing about it, the AI in TLOU is still superior to most AAA & non-AAA games released in recent years while still maintaining a good level of challenge across the entire game.

I see other people have already pointed this out, but 1) A major disappointment with Last of Us was that its AI was way off from the quality that was advertised in trailers and pre-release PR, and 2) which is a more subjective view, I watched an LP of Last of Us and ended up leaving it exactly because I was bored with the frequency and pointlessness of combat encounters which brought nothing new but only served as padding.

Of course cover systems are the industry standard nowadays, but Rockstar could easily set their own standards if they wanted to. This game could've been made without sticky cover, even on consoles (not that I was actually expecting Rockstar to do anything like that). I agree with AwesomeButton that it's a missed opportunity, not just for RDR2 but for games in general, seeing how this is the newest Citizen Kane of gaming that people will be gushing over for the next couple of months.

For me it's not so much the sticky cover that makes combat oversimplified, as the AI's behavior which is stupid, unrealistic, and predictable.

It's perfectly normal and realistic to use cover if we are talking from a realism perspective. What isn't realistic is the way enemies don't punish the player for things like, for example emerging from cover from the same side. If you poke your head twice from the same side of your cover, the third time I'll be waiting. Also, showing yourself over the top of cover (like a low wall, a tree trunk etc) is a sure way to get shot in the head, because there will always be a couple of inches of your head above the cover before your eyes emerge and before you are able to see. So anyone competent enough will kill you if you poke your head out as a mole - just like you kill the enemies because they use cover in the same ineffective way (or not at all), and the only situations where you are in danger are when you advance too far and get overwhelmed with numbers.

CoD2 was the first game where I saw the AI attempt to pin you down with fire while other enemies try to encircle you. The tactic really worked well against me camping, at least in my experience. Of course CoD has the advantage that it's railroaded, not open world, and the AI's actions can be programmed with much greater accuracy and complexity.

Anyway, my point is that it's the AI not the cover system that makes gunfights boring. Because the AI is dumb, the only way to provide challenge is to rush the player with waves of enemies, which is immersion-breaking for me. No single guy or a group of two-three guys can survive an attack by 20 similarly-skilled enemies.

What's the really sad thing is that the AI is deliberately kept at this level and has been kept at this level for decades. My only explanation is that this is done because the current system "works" - people are playing and seem to enjoy whacking moles. So the developers and designers reason "why fix something which isn't broken". People have been taught to expect popamole, and we give them popamole.

Final edit: of course, talking about cover and use of cover in a 3rd person game has to take into account the added advantage for the player to see behind corners and around obstacles. This effectively makes you safe at any point when behind solid cover.

 

[unfairlight]

playing a shooter on a console is basically just moving the joystick in the general direction and having aim assist put it directly where you want to shoot

Rockstar games have full autoaim on console. You look somewhere near the target and then the game locks onto it.

 

[TheHeroOfTime]

The problem with popamolism is not the cover mechanic itself, it's indeed the enemy behavior against a player using a cover. I know it's a unpopular franchise here but Uncharted for example evolved thorugh all the games giving to the enemies more options to engage the player. Like throwing explosives more frequently, trying to surround the player (Usually with enemies using armor and equipped with shoutguns), breakable covers, etc.

Not related with the genre since it is a tactical FPS, but I really love how Rainbow six siege applies the covers. Walls protects you maonly about not being seen, but they're "made of paper" and an enemy can even oneshot you in the head through one. Only reinforced things can protect you, and even those things can get blown up too. Which brings my to the idea that covers should never be 100% indestructible, and usually they should work as a damage reduction than anything.

Returning to RDR2, I've experienced various types of encounters in just a couple of hours. Pure popamolism in an abandoned place. Free shooting in a forest, and a mix between them in a train. I played them straight facing the enemies, which is viable if you're fast and also looks cool (The animation of Arthur, full cowboy and stuff) Being the fastest was the law in the spagetti universe, right?

 

[unfairlight]

tactical FPS

Rainbow six siege

Pick one.
Call of Duty: It's in a Small House Now is not a tactical FPS. Tactical FPS is inherently single player and PvE focused.

 

[AwesomeButton]

Walls protects you mainly about not being seen, but they're "made of paper" and an enemy can even oneshot you in the head through one.

This has been implemented in games at least as far back as Counter-strike beta versions when it was still a Half-life mod.

I didn't take the time to mention that, bu when AI in games uses "cover" it rarely (if ever?) seems to differentiate between cover and concealment. After the player knows the AI's position, the AI is perfectly happy to hide behind a bush instead of running behind a rock or a tree.

How to reduce the player's advantage of seeing around corners in a 3rd person game? There are two things I can think of. One would be to make enemies' animations of popping from cover, aiming and shooting all much faster. Even unrealistically faster, if this can offset the player's equally unrealistic advantage. I've read statistics data, although by now heavily outdated, that for a trained shooter with weapon in hand, to acquire a target and shoot instinctively (without using aiming), it takes around 0.36-0.45 seconds. If the emerging from cover animation is sped up, this could make the player's life more interesting, as by the time it takes the player himself to show from cover, the enemy might have also just emerged from cover.

The second thing is to increase weapons' lethality - from watching RDR2 gameplay, it seems the player can take a huge number of shots which chip away his health at the same pace as fist hits when he is fighting hand to hand in a bar. Given melee fights' counters and blocks, this makes firefights feel less dangerous than fistfights, which is funny when you think about it.

 

[Carrion]

Final edit: of course, talking about cover and use of cover in a 3rd person game has to take into account the added advantage for the player to see behind corners and around obstacles. This effectively makes you safe at any point when behind solid cover.

Along with regenerating health and the AI being unable to flush you out of cover, this is the major dealbreaker for me. Trying to figure out where your enemies are at any given moment can be one of the most exciting aspects of a firefight, but if you can crouch behind a chest-high wall and see everything that happens on the other side, it takes away the tension and gives you an insane edge against your enemies. While a third-person camera always allows you to "cheat" to some extent, games with cover systems are built around it and usually go much further with it, giving you a larger field of view of what's on the other side and allowing you to take shots from behind cover much quicker and with less effort, leading to mind-numbing two-button gameplay. Sure, you can use the camera to invisibly peek around a corner in the pre-Absolution Hitman games, but entering a firefight that way is generally a bad idea unless you're willing to take a couple of non-regenerating hits.