Saddle up and grab your cowboy hat and revolver, as Red Dead Redemption 2, Rockstar Studios’ prequel to one of the most highly praised video games ever is finally here!
After eight years of waiting, fans of ‘Red Dead Redemption’ can step back into the shoes of an outlaw in the old west and follow his travels, and best of all, make your own choices of how you go about completing his story.
It would have been easy for Rockstar Games to make a carbon copy of the formula that worked for the previous ‘Red Dead.’ Gunslinging, robbing, and horse riding, with a mix of minigames and sidequests to churn out another ‘Grand Theft Auto’ in the old west release. What makes this prequel different from any old addition to the franchise is its solid gameplay. Everybody wants to be a cowboy in the lawless frontier, and while Red Dead Redemption delivered on that, ‘2’ takes the enjoyment to another level.
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Graphics
Graphically, it’s an absolute masterpiece. Fields of grass, forests of trees, plains of wheat and mountains of snow are all rendered with ridiculous realism. It’s all an organic feeling, lived in environment with wild animals roaming everywhere, and locations visible from enormous distances that you can actually go to.
Atmosphere
The enormity of the map is incredible, that even in a month of playing one probably wouldn’t be able to explore its entirety. This atmosphere is punctuated by the pitch perfect musical score, which while subtle, gives just the right underscoring of western instruments like acoustic guitars, harmonicas, and violins.
Story
The story isn’t just a rehash of the other game either. Like John Marston from the previous game, the controlled protagonist Arthur Morgan is also a member of the Dutch van der Linde outlaw gang. However, here we get to know everybody in the gang, and all their personalities reflect interesting separate characters to interact with.
Gameplay
The game follows the same template established in ‘Red Dead’ and the GTA series, where story based missions are presented to be completed by the player in any order they choose. This level of choice is reflected in the large amount of side missions, which even though they’re not necessary to complete, are still extraordinarily fun, and are a suitable diversion from the main narrative.
The sandbox genre of gaming is at its best here. Riding horses through the plains, gunning down rival gangs with your revolver, or even sauntering down a lonely town’s dusty main street and slipping through the local saloon’s swinging doors to have a beer are all possible. Every single character in the game’s world can be interacted with in either a positive or negative manner. It’s possible be a do gooder, a devilish outlaw, or something in between. The choice is yours!
Conclusion
Everything good about ‘Red Dead Redemption’ has been repeated and improved upon, so much so that the list gets excessively long. The map is bigger, the locations are more diverse, the wildlife expanded, the graphics even more amazing, the story interesting, the gameplay fun, the honor system tracking your good and bad deeds more developed, and the amount of random strangers you meet on your travels is larger and more varied. ‘Red Dead Redemption 2’ is not only an easy choice for game of the year, it may very well be the game of the decade.
Get your copy now at https://www.rockstargames.com
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