Red Dead Redemption 2 Needs to Avoid Hollywood Tropes

As for the main story, it’s entertaining but far from revolutionary. It has its highs and lows, the lows being the lack of development outside anyone who’s within the Van der Linde gang. You get to meet a plethora of characters through Arthur’s journey and yet most of them only appear in one or two missions, outside of a couple of exceptions. Red Dead Redemptions 2 moves at an incredible pace to the point that most people in the world are disposable and sometimes unnecessary, making me wish there was more of a focus on specific story beats as it’s spread too thin in spots. With that said, outside of the phenomenal core cast, what Rockstar does right is create exciting scenarios. This is something the company is known for, crafting well-designed and often comical heists that are sure to go awry. Whether it’s robbing a train or a stagecoach, or simply walking through town, each chapter has a handful of standout missions that will keep you on the edge of your seat. Granted, the other missions are mostly broken up into your standard affairs, but at least they’re kept lively thanks to Arthur generally being assisted by another member of the gang.

After a few days John is good enough to start helping around on the ranch like any gunslinger who recently received a near fatal wound would. Before too long John is working with the US Marshalls and some other interesting characters. In the same vein as Grand Theft Auto, John ends up doing odd jobs for these varied characters to help form an alliance for another go at Fort Mercer. This second attempt goes better, except in victory it turns out Williamson is a cowardly bastard who fled to Mexico. This seems bad, but this also means that Mexico is unlocked and border crossing was much easier a little over a century ago.

Back in 2007 we were all tired of World War II, and the jump to Modern Warfare was fresh and exciting. The opposite is true today. We’re tired of Modern Warfare and semi-Future Warfare. It’s time for FPS games to try something new, by going into the past. Rumors have been floating around for a while now that Treyarch’s next Call of Duty game would return to Open World game vehicles War II, something I very much hope for. We need a change, and sometimes that change can be found by returning to your roots.


Is the truth really out there? At least in the Red Dead Redemption universe, that seems to be the case. If you have no idea what I'm talking about, just head between the "N" and "O" of New Hanover on the map, and you'll come across an old building. Inside, you'll be met with a pretty weird scene. There are beds lining the sides of the building, with a desk at the end. On the desk lies a note, which rather cryptically hints for you to come back to the building, or stay there, until about 2

Red Dead Redemption 2 is a long game and there’s a lot to do in it. The main campaign alone, along with a good number of Stranger missions, took us just under fifty hours to complete, which is exponentially longer than its predecessor. That’s barely even participating in the various other activities, such as hunting, gambling, bounty hunting and more. The Stranger missions are one of the bigger draws as they are once again whacky, over-the-top scenarios that fill out the world. Arthur may not have the sarcastic, comical timing of John Marston, but he still lends to each situation with his confusion. Sadly, I never saw a damsel tied up on a railroad track that needed saving. Speaking of Stranger missions, you're also able to make choices that may affect scenes in the main story. For example, I met one woman earlier in the campaign and she appeared as a prostitute later on, which lead to a bounty immediately put on my head. Another was a surprisingly lengthy scene with a nun who I randomly bumped into once, and Arthur opened up to her. Your choices through the campaign do hold some weight as they can affect where specific people end up in the future and might even expand upon Arthur’s character more.

December 2014 was a terrible time to be a gamer.