Red Dead 3/Red Dead Redemption 2 - IT'S HAPPENING.gif

[The Last Stand]

I think the worst example of this "on rails" shit is the mission where you're tasked with breaking in to the Cornwall Oil field depot/offices and if you don't specifically go to a specific door immediately, you fail the mission. At pretty much no point can you approach a given mission your own way, you have to do it exactly as the developers intended, because otherwise scripts and cutscenes won't trigger appropriately, so rather than working around that they just fail the mission for you.

Nothing says lawlessness like following exact instructions before falling to black in a sting.

 

[Snekposter]

Hilariously, her dead horse is also one of the best, and most expensive breeds in the game. Although, that might just be because there's a similar event that you can find which uses the same horse, so it might just be a case of reused assets.

Bold of you to assume she bought it, same with the other horses that were lost in Lagras.

In 2077 you can approach most missions in any way you want - be as aggressive or stealthy as you desire, use whatever weapons and powers you have accumulated, locations have multiple ingress/egress points, NPCs (sometimes) acknowledge what you did in the mission, and there's at least an illusion of choices having consequences.

Its genuinely impressive. I remember a guy in the CP2077 thread talking about how he couldn't get into Fingers' office during that main quest because the punks out front kept beating him up. I told him to just find a different way in, and never heard back, so I'm assuming he did. From my own experience in that quest section you can either A. use standard dialogue choices to convince them you're an escort/joytoy looking for something special from Fingers, and they let you in, B. use a lifepath choice in dialogue as a Streetkid to get them to clear off, C. use a legware with jump assist to just leap up to the hanging cover and then climb in through the open window, or finally D. go around through a side entrance on the ground floor.

And then of course once you're inside the waiting room you can just barge in, hack the schedule on the computer to make him think you're next, use dialogue to con the people already waiting into thinking Judy's desperately ill and let you go in ahead of them, or (never actually tested this), probably just wait if you're willing to put up with a pissed-off Judy.

Outside of the Johnny flashbacks actual railroaded sections are rare. There's the lower floor of Clouds, but once you need to get to the VIP area I think you can do that part however you want, even violently assuming you can get your hands on your preferred weapon of choice. Hell, you can even just fight your way through All Foods to get the Flathead from Maelstrom once you get past the front door if you want.

 

[Overwritten Tapes]

Im holding off on the last few missions as Arthur. I have autosave off and manually save after each small side mission. I'm hindsight, had I known, I would have saved at each beginning of a chapter.

Also, bought a physical copy of rdr1 a few weeks ago, and downloaded rd revolver as well. Haven't started either of those yet.

 

[The Last Stand]

I made the mistake of wanting to 100% RDR2. So, I need a guide because there are missable elements if you progress further. I saw that guide and was overwhelmed and moved on to other games.

 

[Swine Schwein]

In 2077 you can approach most missions

...and the ones you can't, suck so much more. When it comes to just gameplay, gigs - the somewhat weak filler missions - are always great but many of the main missions do have shitty railroading for no damn reason. The slightest thing pisses me off a lot more than normal people, so naturally YMMV.

At worst there's a cutscene thinly veiled as gameplay (some vehicle parts of missions come to mind immediately), at best you can't run or crouch because FORCED IMMERSION or some shit.

If I don't want to get pissed, I'll just play gigs. Luckily, there's a lot of them. Also, granted, you don't usually fail story missions for taking the scenic route, and when your playstyle isn't clashing with the artificial limits, the story missions can be good. When the game doesn't keep you in a stranglehold, the gameplay beats RDR2 easily. It's just so frustrating when I constantly run into those limits.

 

[Outer Space Traveller]

I've seen some people testing a Micah Bell mod, everyone ever saw about it?

 

[Average Russian Spy]

Mafia 3 had NPC's from specific districts literally call the main character a nigger as you free roamed and would call the police on you in the event that you stumbled into a segregated store or area and this was back in 2016, Rockstar would just beat around the bush regarding the topic, Which is fucking retarded, it's been only 30 years since the end of the Civil War, and yet despite this, the worst you'd see is Micah saying a few mean words to Lenny or Charles.

I completely forgot that game existed, but that's a very good point! Yeah, knowing that now, Rockstar really didn't have an excuse, so it probably all falls down to "We as huWhite writers don't feel comfortable writing a script like that since we'd be viewing it from a le Euro-centric point of view" or however the Redditor says it.

Also, I did forgot there is ONE character that says nigger in the game. The black dentist side quest character in Rhodes. He describes how "us niggers" are forced to live away from the White folk, blah blah blah.

 

[Outer Space Traveller]

I completely forgot that game existed, but that's a very good point! Yeah, knowing that now, Rockstar really didn't have an excuse, so it probably all falls down to "We as huWhite writers don't feel comfortable writing a script like that since we'd be viewing it from a le Euro-centric point of view" or however the Redditor says it.

Also, I did forgot there is ONE character that says nigger in the game. The black dentist side quest character in Rhodes. He describes how "us niggers" are forced to live away from the White folk, blah blah blah.

Well, I won't touch the essay American Kroger - I'm sure it was linked here many times over. Yet I thought it was interesting what he brought up. Basically Dan Houser wanted to some of the politics of the 21st Century to the late 19th Century. If you think about it, Arthur is at best, a late 20th Century man (say, 1980s) in 1899. If you are honest with yourself and you want to tell a story, you got to show what happened in a specific time period, and not beat around the bush.
Now, I think M.A.F.I.A. 3 did that to show "how horrible", and perhaps this came out as a good way to show how things were in fact. The Houser brothers should have shown how the Reconstruction took its toll in the Southeast and how they were going through the Gilded Age.

But alas.

 

[The Last Stand]

Mafia 3 had NPC's from specific districts literally call the main character a nigger as you free roamed and would call the police on you in the event that you stumbled into a segregated store or area and this was back in 2016, Rockstar would just beat around the bush regarding the topic, Which is fucking retarded, it's been only 30 years since the end of the Civil War, and yet despite this, the worst you'd see is Micah saying a few mean words to Lenny or Charles.

Mafia III is a different style of game from RDR2. (It should not had been open world like it is, but that's another story.) I believe in RDR2, there's layers on HOW the player could respond with dynamic reactions from NPCs.

I don't even think people then were as racist around the 1860s compared to the 1960s down South.

 

[Notorious N.I.G]

I don't even think people then were as racist around the 1860s compared to the 1960s down South.

American society as a whole was incredibly Racist in the 1860's and was still like that in 1899, compared to the 1960's at least. Jim Crow was proper law and had no sign of going away by the time RDR2 takes place and there were still racial conflicts such a the New York race riot in 1899. On top of militant groups like the Klan, Redshirts, White league etc.. being out in force. (The first era Klan alone was estimated to be at a minimum responsible for over a thousand murders, i'm surprised they weren't added as more than just a gag the player can find.)

blacks were counted among livestock and hardly even viewed as human; that thought process didn't vanish just because the Confederates lost, it stuck around in the minds of people and would've persisted right up into RDR2's setting.

 

[Green Man]

ts genuinely impressive. I remember a guy in the CP2077 thread talking about how he couldn't get into Fingers' office during that main quest because the punks out front kept beating him up. I told him to just find a different way in, and never heard back, so I'm assuming he did. From my own experience in that quest section you can either A. use standard dialogue choices to convince them you're an escort/joytoy looking for something special from Fingers, and they let you in, B. use a lifepath choice in dialogue as a Streetkid to get them to clear off, C. use a legware with jump assist to just leap up to the hanging cover and then climb in through the open window, or finally D. go around through a side entrance on the ground floor.

And then of course once you're inside the waiting room you can just barge in, hack the schedule on the computer to make him think you're next, use dialogue to con the people already waiting into thinking Judy's desperately ill and let you go in ahead of them, or (never actually tested this), probably just wait if you're willing to put up with a pissed-off Judy.

Outside of the Johnny flashbacks actual railroaded sections are rare. There's the lower floor of Clouds, but once you need to get to the VIP area I think you can do that part however you want, even violently assuming you can get your hands on your preferred weapon of choice. Hell, you can even just fight your way through All Foods to get the Flathead from Maelstrom once you get past the front door if you want.

Damn, I think you might have just sold me on playing CP2077, I'd heard that it's gotten a lot better after a shit-ton of patches and the DLC release, it was such a fucking mess at launch that I figured they would probably never make it playable, but this sounds right up my alley. An open world game with actual fucking choices and alternate routes. It's too bad GTA [and Red Dead] have gotten away from this, even RDR1 isn't too great at letting you address a given problem your own way or approach a mission a certain way, but RDR2 is even worse because in a lot of cases they'll either equip specific weapons for a mission [or give you a weapon in that slot that takes the place of one you've customized/gotten used to] or you'll run afoul of that [either glitch or intended behavior] thing where you have to return to your fucking horse every five seconds to re-equip your weapons because you're stuck with only your one-handed revolver/pistol.

I think San Andreas offered a good amount of freedom in approaches but this "no you have to be standing in the EXACT RIGHT SPOT for the CINEMATIC EXPERIENCE to trigger" shit started there and got way worse with GTA IV. I don't remember GTA III or Vice City ever failing the fucking mission because I shot enemies in the wrong order, didn't have the correct loadout, or approached the mission area from the wrong alleyway or entrance.

Can't add a quote while editing but by far the worst parts of 100% for me in RDR2 were the fucking Taxidermist requests and the Exotics. Both are basically just continuously riding a circuit around 5-6 different possible spawn points for animals, some of which seem to spawn constantly before you actually need them, but once you have the request active they're nowhere to be fucking found. Three star moose was the worst, although I think I only needed that for Trapper outfits and not 100%. The small birds are a big pain in the ass because they're difficult to spot, far more than the egrets. For Exotics you're going to spending a fuckton of time in the swamp. People bitch about the Gambler challenges but I got those done in like a day once I learned how to actually play fucking Dominoes.

 

[Snekposter]

Damn, I think you might have just sold me on playing CP2077, I'd heard that it's gotten a lot better after a shit-ton of patches and the DLC release, it was such a fucking mess at launch that I figured they would probably never make it playable, but this sounds right up my alley. An open world game with actual fucking choices and alternate routes. It's too bad GTA [and Red Dead] have gotten away from this, even RDR1 isn't too great at letting you address a given problem your own way or approach a mission a certain way, but RDR2 is even worse because in a lot of cases they'll either equip specific weapons for a mission [or give you a weapon in that slot that takes the place of one you've customized/gotten used to] or you'll run afoul of that [either glitch or intended behavior] thing where you have to return to your fucking horse every five seconds to re-equip your weapons because you're stuck with only your one-handed revolver/pistol.

A lot of the complaints are from the main story and bugs, the bugs are better, the gameplay is solid shooter gameplay, but really, the world itself and the various side stories is where it shines. You've got options on how you do quests, and you're allowed to fail them and suffer the consequences, especially if you make bad choices. It also doesn't sugarcoat anything. Night City is a festering wound of crime, depravity, and vomit-inducing moral sickness, and sometimes not even you can do anything to fix it.

 

[MrB]

I can't believe I never noticed this after hearing it, but I am 100% certain the piano player in the Rhodes Saloon is playing There's A Nigger In The Moon. Not an exact replica, but most of the notes are so similar that there is no way the two songs aren't related.

For a long while, many popular songs just aped the melodies of other songs everyone knew while changing up the lyrics. A famous example being the Star-Spangled Banner's melody being borrowed from a short-lived 18th-century London musical club, the Anacreontic Society
https://youtube.com/watch?v=MrnBcr_miNM, list: RDMrnBcr_miNM
'This is phenomenon is called contrafactum. Chances are, Nigger on the Moon does share the exact same melody of the song recorded for RDR2, either because they share a common musical ancestor or because Nigger on the Moon directly took its melody. I can't imagine that nigger-worshipping Rockstar would ever expressly record a potentially controversial song like that without making it clear how evil it is that the racist white folks would ever sing such a thing

 

[Average Russian Spy]

Currently sitting at 99.1% of the game completed. It's a grueling slog. These challenges are fucking ridiculous.

 

[The Last Stand]

Currently sitting at 99.1% of the game completed. It's a grueling slog. These challenges are fucking ridiculous.

What's the most time consuming of 100%? Don't tell me it's hunting.

 

[Average Russian Spy]

What's the most time consuming of 100%? Don't tell me it's hunting.

Gambling is the worst set of challenges. There are a few others that are up to complete chance, unless you cheese them appropriately. I am pretty certain a lot of these were supposed to be completed during various story missions.

 

[Agarathium1066]

Gambling is the worst set of challenges. There are a few others that are up to complete chance, unless you cheese them appropriately. I am pretty certain a lot of these were supposed to be completed during various story missions.

Gambling challenges have killed my desire to 100% RDR2 twice. You can brute force it but holy fuck when I was flagging on interest it put the nail in the coffin for me. I actually enjoy playing the gambling without prompting too they're just so hyper specific.

 

[Average Russian Spy]

Gambling challenges have killed my desire to 100% RDR2 twice. You can brute force it but holy fuck when I was flagging on interest it put the nail in the coffin for me. I actually enjoy playing the gambling without prompting too they're just so hyper specific.

I'm so close to achieving greatness. I just need to win 3 rrounds of dominoes in a row, then I can cheese the last challenge through replaying story missions.

 

[Agarathium1066]

I'm so close to achieving greatness. I just need to win 3 rrounds of dominoes in a row, then I can cheese the last challenge through replaying story missions.

Reading the word 'Dominoes' awoke the memory of wanting to slap the teeth out of Lenny and Hosea's skulls because of those goddamned match requirements. It helps to remember that Lenny gets drilled and instantly forgotten. Hosea I can forgive.

 

[The Last Stand]

Gambling challenges have killed my desire to 100% RDR2 twice. You can brute force it but holy fuck when I was flagging on interest it put the nail in the coffin for me. I actually enjoy playing the gambling without prompting too they're just so hyper specific.

It's more bizarre that poker in RDO isn't tied to any progression other than cash you win/lose. I guess that has more to do with the anti-gambling laws elsewhere in the world.