Review: Red Dead Redemption - The Bad

Second part of my Review of RDR will be the bad. Here will be the parts i was not so enamored with as it would appear the media is with this game. In most of the reviews I have read, there seems to be almost nothing negative to say about the game, which boggles the mind in my opinion. As i said in the good section, I did not think the game was bad

RDR Review Part 2 - The Bad.

1. The interface. The on screen HUD was functional and worked most of the time, it left something to be desired that there was no zoom level on the minimap, so you had no idea of how far you needed to go at times, and the minimap only had one zoom out option, I feel this needed to be able to zoomed out much farther for the vastness of the world.

The other glaring problem i had was the menu system you were forced to use that was not streamlined in any way. For some inexplicable reason, your back button pauses the game, and brings up your consumables and random items menu. From here is where you use medicine, access your campsites, etc. To see the mini map though you need to pause the game with the start button, then select the top option to see the map. The problem with this is that if you are tired of riding your horse, (I was after about a half hour) and want to fast travel you must: hit start, then hit a to see your map, find where you want to go and set the way-point on the map, then unpause, then hit the back button, then select your campsite, this then launches a mini cut scene, then hit A in your campsite, to travel, then finally hit A to travel to waypoint. I thought i needed to post the entire process here for you because I used this constantly, and went to the back menu first about a kajillion times.

This was a glaring oversight in my opinion. Why on earth didn't back default to the mini map like every other game, then all you needed was a bumper to switch to the other screens of your consumables. This would allow you to hit one button to see the map quickly, which i needed a lot, place your way-point and drop a campsite, in one screen with one pause. This was just not designed well in any way, it was as if the game assumed you would never need the map.

2. Controls. These were not horrible by any means, but along the streamline complaints some of the button controls seem strange. Not having the ability to map consumables to the d-pad, which almost seems like a standard anymore, was a major oversight. this again causes you to navigate menus to do something you need a lot of, and forces a pause to use a health kit.

I had hoped for a faster way to switch between some weapons as well. there was a switch between guns but not for your other weapons, such as your lasso. this caused you to shoot someone to incapacitate them, then use your LB + L Stick to rotate the menu to your lasso, all while hoping the guy doesn't get up and shoot you while holding your lasso. The cover system left something to be desired as well, with many times i was able to be shot while in cover, and not have any idea who was shooting me as one extreme, with the other not being able to enter cover on something and getting stuck in the open.

I also had a ton of frustration with the spacing needed to activate certain parts of actions. An example of this is putting a hog tied person on your horse. I had this nearly every time where i couldn't find the exact 3 inch space that i was required to be standing in on the flank of the horse to place the person on the horse, and god forbid you press the button before you need, or you set the person down on the ground to start again. Oh did i also mention the horse wont stay still, so i had to walk with a person on my shoulder trying to hit a moving target and holding my finger on the button so when i finally see the correct prompts i can hit the button at the right time. This must have been hilarious to watch a three stooges moment of me walking in circles around my damn horse praying to the gaming gods that it would just let me press X to put the person on my horse.

Overall the controls felt a little sloppy.

3. Pacing of the game. This game felt like a very long game, but was about 22 hours for me to complete. I did very few of the random encounters, played poker a bit, and went mission to mission for the story. I am not new to long games, I played over 60 hours on my first go round with Dragon Age Origins. RDR just seems to drag on, and leaves me not caring about what is happening any longer.

The problem I had was with the forcing me to do 8 side missions for someone, all so they can finally give me the sliver or information or help that will then send me to the next taskmaster to start the dance over again. This of course was only a dance where you think its going to be a slow dance, and as soon as you hit the dance floor, some ridiculous techno song plays, and you now are going to look ridiculous. This is the mission system of RDR, everyone is a scheming fruitcake, who needs you go on a mission to find the One Ring, so they can tell you that your princess is not in this castle, try another. You even know its coming, and just wish it wasn't going to be the case. For all the people you shoot in the face, Marston sure is a pushover to be at the beck and call of every whim, of each Tom, Dick, and Jane he meets. By the end you are a famous killer, and still everyone jerks you around.

In an RPG, these are called side quests, that are not mandatory. You get to choose if you want to be the guy who helps everyone, or tells them all to screw off. For this being a sandbox game, you are not given choices, more on that next.

4. characters. I put this in the good, but there is a bad to this as well. One of the main problems I had was that for all the dialog thrown about, you never get to know anyone, and almost no one you meet early on ever comes back up, so what you know about them becomes quickly irrelevant, and has no lasting appeal. The characters are at times interesting, but honestly if I was given an option upon meeting them of either, a. shooting them in the face to get my information, or b. listen to a wall of dialog and do 14 tasks to get that information, face shooting would prevail.

5. Things to do. I had a problem with the amount of extra things to do, but none really mattering except to do them. Money is largely irrelevant because you are given guns for free as you go through the story, and I only had to buy ammo a few times, and bought one gun before i realized this. I only wish that more time had been spent crafting a story than had been spent creating more mini games to play.

It feels as if the RDR is a mini game, hunting, herb gathering collection of mini games, with a story thrown in as something else to do, instead of the opposite.

I don't want to sound overly harsh in my criticisms but i feel that all of these combine to really bring down a fairly strong game from Rockstar. The last section of the review i will write tomorrow night, with an overall score as well.