Every time you jump into a new game, you have to learn how to play it, not just the controls, but the rules of the world in which you are playing — and that has been especially true for me with Red Dead Redemption (Rockstar Games).
Because it’s an older game, the controls are a bit less smooth than I’ve become accustomed to, and that was mildly annoying at first, but I figured out the flow fairly quickly. And now I really love my horsie, who is a good boy and always there for me — and I enjoy most of the gun battles and can wade my way through a number of dudes without getting totally obliterated.
There were a couple of other gameplay things that were a little more frustrating. First, is the Dead Eye mechanic, which is actually fantastic and incredibly helpful for getting through certain quests. But the game doesn’t tell you how to use it early on. I mean, it makes reference to the Dead Eye meter being full or how to refill it, but I had to google how to actually use it — and once I figured it out, everything changed for the better and gunfights became even easier.
Another issue is partly just a me thing. In other games, I have a habit of aiming the weapon to zoom or focus in on something I want to see — normally not a problem. However, this is a terrible habit in Red Dead Redemption, because the NPCs are very reactive to such things and if you accidentally aim at someone, suddenly you’re making threats and people are running away and sometimes you even fail your quest (with no way to repair the damage). So, I’ve had to unlearn that habit in order to avoid getting myself in trouble throughout the game. On a related note, sometimes the player has a companion with them, and it can be difficult to tell if they’re an enemy or not. I’ve had to restart a quest several times, because I accidentally shot a friend, thinking he was a foe.
Outside of these few minor frustrations, the storyline is pretty great. John Marston is an interesting character, with his checkered past as an outlaw and gunslinger. His desire in the game is to close the door on his violent past, so he can return home to the quiet life with his wife and kids. As he works to hunt down an old “friend,” who almost kills him at the start of the game, he gets some help from a local rancher who nurses him back to health and a Marshall trying to keep peace in the region. Along the way, Marston gathers together a collection of quirky allies, including an old swindler selling fake medicinals, a treasure hunter willing to dig up corpses to find his treasure. and a drunk Irishman with access to heavy artillery.
I think I’m maybe halfway through the game, and it’s a fun time. Now that I’m accustomed to the gameplay, I can enjoy the experience. I’m loving the characters, in particular, and am looking forward to seeing how this story turns out.
I finished off The Outer Worlds (Obsidian Entertainment), first completing the Peril on Gorgon DLC and then the final quest of the game. Peril on Gorgon was fun enough, but is also felt a little samey to the previous DLC, in that the overall mystery involves a corporation conducting questionable experiments to turn people into better workers — only for it to go horribly wrong. But Gorgon also had the benefit of a family drama that added an interesting layer to the narrative.
After finishing the DLC, I jumped into the ending of the game — which felt a bit abrupt. I don’t necessarily think this is an issue with the ending itself, but rather has to do with the fact that I left the DLC as the last quests I completed prior to the ending. While both DLC are fun, they’re disconnected from the main storyline. So, if you leave them for right before the end (as I did), then it messes with the narrative flow. If I had completed the DLC earlier (which was an option), then the ending sequence following the final “The City and the Stars” quest would have felt more cohesive.
Anyway, I had a really fun time with The Outer Worlds — and now I’m looking forward to seeing what they do with the sequel. I’m hoping they explore some different factions and social structures beyond the corporation hierarchy. But I’ll just have to wait and see.
Inside (Playdead) is one of my all-time favorite games and I’ve probably played is half a dozen or more times. Recently, I replayed it yet again in order to study how the game expresses its narrative without any text or dialog — and performing this deep analysis was really enlightening. The way the game uses its gameplay, sound design, and level design to evoke the sense of the world and create an emotional journey for the player is brilliant. The game is also fantastic at using visual and sound cues to create foreshadowing of future threats and gameplay elements, while also making disparate areas feel more connected. I plan on writing more extensively on this in the future. If you haven’t played this game yet, I highly recommend it.
“A Toy Story” is a charming little browser game created by Michelle Kwan. The game is from the POV of a puppy, who is gifted his favorite toy at one years old. As the puppy grows, we also see his owner grow, move on to collage, and start to create a life as an adult. It’s a genuinely sweet tale, and it’s impressive how much it moved me for such a short game.
If you’d also like to know about the books and movies that I enjoyed recently, you can check out my Culture Consumption for July.