Returning to Red Dead Redemption 2

yeah whatever New York City is one of the most popular populated places on planet Earth Time Square Central Park or Zaza City oh sorry you can immediately clock it and say boom okay that's New York we are in New York right now this is such a random New York moment oh my God it's impossible to count how many pieces of media take place in the biggest apple let alone just video games but one game one very special game that I still think about a lot a game that had a big city impact on my delicate small town frame is Grand Theft Auto 4 I'm one of the many insane people that actively choose to live in this giant rat hole of a city and GTA 4 is a big reason for that get the I am obsessed with the scope and detail of the architecture the super dramatic lighting the blea compact The Psychotic physics engine and the craziest part actual New York feels a lot like that well not the physics engine part but how did Rockstar do that how did they condense the atmosphere of this massive City onto a single Xbox 360 DVD while still having it possess that intangible how you say Jenny sequa that's that's not even GTA 4 that's Halo 5 that singular question defines what I love the most about Rockstar Games games and I think it's why I keep making like a billion videos about them Rockstar's game design is outdated might forever be the most viewed thing on my channel and I am very okay with that I'm really proud of that video and I stand by just about everything I brought up including but not limited to the busted ass wanted system and a series of incredibly linear missions that treat you like a child with no brain or functioning thumbs but at the same time Red Dead 2 has been squatting in my abandoned mind cottage for the better part of the past 6 years and I think it's because I also stand by other things I said like how this game has some of the best writing of any piece of fiction I've ever consumed and that it looks and sounds like God much like how GTA 4 captures the distinct feeling of being in New York Dead 2 captures Jenny Bayan qua for the American wilderness that I personally know while also capturing something so beyond what I could ever know that push and pull of loving something so much yet being so frustrated by it this game had to be more than just a busted wanted system or thumbless child simulator right Blu-ray discs are big as hell and this game came on two of them so you bet your ass they could fit a lot of real estate on these Hogs after revisiting this Titanic game this time powered by my Titanic computer which is in turn powered by six Titanic Sega Dreamcast in a human centipede type formation I'd love to share with you what I discovered while returning to Red Dead Redemption [Music] 2 okay Red Dead Redemption 2 Remains the most beautiful game I have ever seen and that surprised no one everything about the art design is straight up surgical the insane level of detail that grazes every millimeter of this colossal map the precise historical authenticity that touches even the dinki of objects the romanticized dream realism that somehow drenches everything in the most beautiful lighting at all times it has and will continue to blow my back out watching a long ass GDC talk about how much work went into just the horses the horse animations alone had me like two more videos about horses from becoming a horse girl but oh my God playing on PC made me never want to look at a PS4 again get out of my room Sony Pony this game doesn't only somehow look even better but it feels feels way better too there's still a considerable amount of input delay when doing anything just cuz that's how Rockstar intended like you're puppeteering a hefty bag of Flesh and Bones versus flicking around a super responsive super soldier but a high frame rate helps a lot to make just about every interaction feel smoother side note the fact that they still haven't released any sort of nextg update for PS5 that does like 4K 60 even after they've already re-released GTA 5 and did the same thing is a straight up felony hi I'm Jakey Jakey and Jakey attor atw thanks to oper GX for sponsoring this video the internet will likely lead to the end of all Humanity but that doesn't mean our browsers have to be boring in the meantime oper GX is a web browser built for gamers that is not boring you will be entertained Duncan oper GX has mods cleverly titled GX mods that can make your browser do all sorts of wacky fun stuff in the GX store you can find all sorts of mods including the n jaky one in case you give a [ __ ] about that guy the mod has its own background music its own keyboard sounds its own opening and closing of tab sounds its own theme and color of the browser its own dedicated wallpaper you can also disable and enable individual mods in the mod menu located on the sidebar I love video games I quite frankly I can't get enough of the goddamn the GX Corner helps me stay up to date with all things gaming talking about free games talking about gaming deals talking about new releases talking about hot fresh gaming right off the press oh oh God damn it that burned me bad look at this deal actually no look at this deal actually no look at this one Duncan oper GX also comes with a quick import tool that lets you haul all your crap from your previous browser like browsing history bookmarks and cookies over to Opera GX it's also compatible with every Google Chrome extension thanks to oper GX for sponsoring this video and use my link down below to download Opera GX today every day I Stray further and further from the path of righteousness I haven't seen my family in seven anyways uh I think I think he was I think he was saying something now because this is on PC now and I've already played this game a ton my devious white ass was immediately like okay is there a mod to skip the longest intro screen known to man cuz booting this game up takes forever and then I saw it I saw the massive list of other mods available and much like a very gaslit romantic partner I softly whispered to myself I can fix him I knew I wouldn't ever be able to change how restrictive and boring so many of the game's linear missions were that [ __ ] was set in stone but what if I could address all of the other issues I had outside of the missions and this is when Mommy went off the deep end loot everything fast as [ __ ] buy a house rob a bank spin your gun crazy hair crazy ragd dolls dog companion after installing so many different mods mods to try and fix the inconsistently broken wanted system mods to fix how busted the in-game economy is mods that let me fight the annoying ass kids in Sandy I stopped myself I was doing too much I realized that if the purpose of this experiment was to revisit and reevaluate a piece of art I should probably try to keep it in its originally intended pure vanilla state right totally totally yes totally yes um but also maybe I keep a few of [Music] them okay so Arthur has three speeds right walking running by holding a and full mashing a sprinting there's no middle ground between crawling and blasting off so navigating tight SPAC is always annoyed the piss out of me but let me also just say this per chance there is already an in between speed that exists in the game but only when you're fast walking around Camp fast walking outside of camp lets you use that brisk walk anywhere you want I know this may not sound like that big of a deal but oh my God if you have played the game as much as I have you know that this is actually kind of a huge deal Arthur felt so much easier to Puppeteer once I had the option to move just a bit more urgently moving around combat Arenas and not having to either slowly walk or sloppily Sprint in between cover even leading your horse around feels so much better and I did it way more now that I didn't have to Tiptoe Through The Window shout out to corvo for making this mod it caused like zero issues with my playthrough and it's actually incredible on controller you could still do the slow walk you just half press the mouse and keyboard you can use the push to talk button and toggle between the two walks you guys are Gamers you'll figure it out okay so in general this game heavily leans into a more grounded Vibe with all of its realistic animations right cooking a steak one by one opening a cabinet drawer by drawer slowly skinning an animal with an unskippable animation and then slow walking its massive Pelt to your horse it's very clear that Rockstar really wants you to slow down and truly feel like you're living in Arthur's custom crafted immersive moccasin 350s but a big thing I complained about before is that when it comes to other things like the weather or your portable Camp the game just goes realism Frost my ass I hate her I don't I don't don't [ __ ] know her 90% of the time it doesn't really matter what clothes you're wearing unless you go up into the snowy mountain section part of the map you can essentially go the majority of the game wearing the same outfit whether it's 90° in the swampy south or 45° in the Dakota comma South I remember this felt like such a missed opportunity because the outfit crafting in this game is actually Immaculate and you can pair layers with other layers to achieve in theory varying layers of warmth but again the vanilla game doesn't really do much with any of this humidity and temperature overhaul by Bowman 70 fixes all of that the middle symbol on this new core changes color when you're not optimally dressed for the current weather and if you're not optimally dressed it will slowly start to drain your health and stamina cords this could mean needing more layers of warmth in the chilly Woods versus wearing less layers in the soupy swamp the outside ring is your current resistance to any harsh weather so putting on a hat to Shield yourself from beaming sunlight or hard rain strengthens the ring regardless of what you're wearing though if you get caught in the storm your clothes are going to get wet and that ring is going to drain no matter what but going into a warm interior to find shelter or standing near any sort of heat Source actively changes your temperature and heats your ring back up this mod automatically turns off during missions so that it doesn't cause any problems too which is great but in the open world it feels like such a natural immersive addition to the existing realism formula that Rockstar was already going with that I seriously can't imagine playing the game without it now watching a storm from inside your tent feels way more cozy and grounded and immersive when the Rin actually has an effect on the player and speaking of camp I hated how the vanilla Camp system worked back in 2018 and it still Frost my ass I hated how it automatically teleported you to a predestined location I hated how the rain did not affect your ability to make a fire I hated how sensitive the perimeters were of when and where you could spawn your magic teleporting camp the camp anywhere mod does not fix all of these issues but it certainly validates a lot of my complaints and desires it's exactly what it sounds like a custom menu that lets you spawn either your whole camp or individual elements of a camp wherever you want want oh you found the most gorgeous view and you want to put your tent in that exact spot talk your [ __ ] arur oh you want to build a fire right by a frozen lake while you're fishing so that you can immediately cook any giant fishies that you catch without having to teleport away to an entire Camp just to cook them and also standing next to the fire is in perfect Synergy with the weather mod I was just talking about what the hell this is the best day of my life I think you get why I love this mod so much camp anywhere makes exploring this [ __ ] beautiful Majestic world just a tad more engaging because it's one more choice that the player gets to make make for themselves a choice capable of creating magical emergent moments that feel so much more personal pitching your horse to any tree is a feature that is already in the game so picking a specific spot to settle down with your precious boy or girl feels Supernatural but again this mod is not perfect dude camp anywhere really said camp anywhere for better or worse hey this is my genuine reaction I didn't I didn't know that guys would actually get into your tent that's that's incredible I can see how Rockstar landed on the solution they did of having pre-selected places for the player to set up their Camp to avoid Shenanigans like this but I still think a middle ground definitely could have been achieved at least like letting you manually place down a fire or a bed roll in way more places I'm not saying you even got to chop wood or anything to make a fire even though that's already kind of in the game too jk LOL LOL I'm sorry I'm sorry but am I sorry sadly the campfires built using this mod can't ever have the grill attachment that you can get that lets you cook like the oregano special meat and it doesn't let you fast travel like the vanilla portable Camp does now if you upgrade to have fast travel at the main gangs Camp which that was not in the game originally and is an amazing addition and also it makes upgrading the gang's Camp actually matter a bit more now because before if you upgraded it and you got fast travel it's like cool I can fast travel from the camp but you're still having to go back there all the time if you played the game you know what I'm talking about but shout out to cross 99 for making this mod if you see this and you could pretty please somehow add the grill and the Fast Travel function to this mod I'll name my firstborn cross 99 and it'll pick and roll my ass and cross me up and break my cankles you may have noticed that I'm wearing a lot of stuff that says ball creative or ball or has you know some [ __ ] on the back or something that's because it's my new company that I started it's basically the creative umbrella for all future creative projects whether that's music or videos or merch or uh eventually and not anytime soon don't get your hopes up but video games if you're [Music] interested okay real quick one more mod is selling guns by Bullman 70 Jesus Christ this guy is really crushing the mod game Rockstar updated the game to have a weapon Locker at the main Camp which is amazing because now you can finally organize the billions of guns but Arthur can sometimes still pick up guns that you can't then put into the weapon Locker so they just get stuck in your inventory and it's annoying as [ __ ] with the mod you can go up to this guy and sell whatever guns you want and just get them out of your inventory and it's amazing okay mod mods mods we get it bro you're a Discord kitten manager get on with it clearly these mods were a very important part of my return trip and improved my experience by base boosting mechanics that were already in the game but really they were the Catalyst to truly enjoy and Savor all of the things that the game has already possessed since 2018 what it started as I can fix him eventually turned into he can fix me [Music] I played the everliving [ __ ] out of this game back when it dropped in 2018 just like everyone else did and even with all of the complaints that I had that you know I ended up making that video about I still had a pretty good time but admittedly I think my frustration with the extremely linear missions and inconsistent open world overshadowed a lot of that joy to be found because good God the second time around Arthur's tail hit hit me harder than a fully loaded F250 extended cab I think the simplest way to distill my change in perspective is that this game doesn't really want you to think but it really wants you to feel 95% of the mission objectives could not be more Mindless and handh holdy even if they tried and honestly I get it this $400 million-ish dollar game was not made just specifically for me and that's fine this game was made to be as accessible as possible to the largest audience as possible so that it could sell a billion trillion copies as possible this isn't Hitman or Dark Souls bro Joe Rogan knows what this game is you think he gives a [ __ ] about nonlinearity and Ludo narrative dissonance like unless Arthur Morgan suddenly knows jiujitsu I highly fuing doubt it when I stopped looking at this game as a series of flawed systems and more as just an opportunity to truly play pretend as Arthur Morgan something magical happened I camped behind a water fall while sipping coffee I studied every animal and hunted for perfect pelts I tailored and crafted outfits for every kind of temperature I obsessed over Arthur's beautiful handwriting and sketches by the light of my campfire because good God the journal is so [ __ ] cool it's one of the coolest things Rockstar has ever done the way Arthur Recaps certain events using his unique perspective is a genius addition and a heartbreaking portal into this man's troubled soul I led my horse through town greeting everyone I saw but also sometimes doing greet greet and then antagonize because it is so goddamn funny honestly I was pretty off Bas with my comparison to New Vegas or other RPGs with the Greet antagonized system because that fully undersold just how entertaining and immersive it can be howdy howdy that's a fine horse you got there appreciate it how long you've been married now you best shut your big bazoo I made deliberate choices in combat to create the most cinematic moments I could and man I did not give the combat it's due respect the first time around because with just the little work this [ __ ] can actually be so goddamn fun turn off the lock on and aim assist to make managing your Dead Eye actually matter and the combat is more akin to max pain 3 than anything else a game that I have never played and don't even like at all so take that then rewind it back power to the players got the power Mak your booty go crack also last mod I'm going to talk about I promise this time P damage overhal is great if you're an expert gamer looking for an actual challenge enemies are no longer bullet sponges and die faster in more varied ways depending on the type of ammo that you use but also you die way faster and it makes combat way more tense in resources like food and healing tonics actually matter now but also story NPCs die way faster now too so that kept happening and I had to like crank their health up in the inii File Expert [ __ ] Geek Squad [ __ ] but it definitely made combat more engaging if that sounds like your cup of tea knowing the exact fate of the Dutch vanderlin gang made me want to play this game with so much more intention I engaged in as many Camp conversations as I could wanting to fully explore the depths of these layered characters and all of their intricate relationships there are so many thoughtfully scripted interactions that I had just completely missed the first time around with the departure of Rockstar co-founder and Lead writer Dan Hower I am definitely rooting for GTA 6 to still have the most interesting well-written story that it possibly can but if I was a betting man I think Red Dead 2 will likely go down as Rockstar's Opus when it comes to narrative because it's not even just the writing and performances of the main cast who all knock it out of the park but even random NPCs and strangers will have conversations with Arthur that will just completely rip your heart out I started treating the missions in this game as more of a great TV show that I want to binge versus some super stimulating gameplay experience I'm never going to stop wishing that the outdated and severely restrictive Mission design was way more interesting but that also doesn't mean that they're all necessarily bad to experience largely because of the goddamn soundtrack this goddamn soundtrack I wish I could use it in this video without getting copyright claimed I know I mentioned how good it is back in 2018 at least a little bit but dude it is not just good it is like consistently perfect the way the game starts incorporating themes from the first game during the epilogue with John will make a grown man spit up like a baby in the Nashville Tennessee rain and that's one of the most impressive things about the this game is how it not only makes the story of the first Red Dead hit that much harder like a fully loaded extended cab F250 but simultaneously kind of blows it out of the water I remember when the second trailer for Red Dead 2 dropped and so many people myself included were like uh who's this square jaw Gruff [ __ ] eating soup I want to play as John where's John we want John we want John we want joh dude like in a trolley problem type beat John is so dead before the train I'll shoot him before the train even comes like there's not even a conversation to be had and I love JN I love his story in Red Dead 1 I love his performance I love his character growth in Red Dead 2 but Arthur is just simply that compelling I know I had said before that he's my favorite protagonist in any Rockstar game but dude no he's my favorite protagonist in any video game period just ever other than the [ __ ] uh bird an Angry Bird not to say that everything is perfectly consistent as far as video game narratives go the Ludo narrative dissonance can sometimes be a little strong with this game not as bad as something like The Last of Us Part Two because come on you're a gang of Outlaws of course you do awful [ __ ] like kill people but you spend so much of your final moments just absolutely mowing down with a G like literally one of the missions with a Gatling gun largely innocent armymen and policemen and then the heartfelt music montage is like you're a good man Arthur and it's like what if this guy had tuberculosis what if this guy had a wife and kids obviously I'm mostly kidding but they could they could have a little touch of the TB I bring that up only because for so much of the story Arthur's Redemption Arc especially when playing with high honor is beautifully done and does not shy away from the fact that he is a killer the amount of things that changed depending on your honor level was however really surprising to uncover I still think how the honor system works is kind of dumb and gy as hell like you can murder entire towns but then just grind greeting every single person for a while to get your honor back up which makes total sense that saying hi to someone will redeem your sin of train tracking his neighbor the broad Strokes of the story remain the same regardless of your honor level but it's the little dialogue changes and special encounters and subtle differences and things like the dead eyee sound effect that actually really surprised me nothing you do as the player is ever going to Al the fate of our doomed protagonist but having your actions as the player give a different context to important moments for example during the epilog when John sad and Charles choose to go after Micah if you had high honor with Arthur Charles says this we owe this to Arthur you think Arthur cared about revenge I'm not so sure especially not at the end he cared about stopping Mah and that's what we're doing and if you had low honor with Arthur Charles says this we owe this to Arthur Revenge that might be something he could have understood this ain't just Revenge it's about stopping the man noting that hey my Arthur truly thought that Revenge was a Fool's game and died honorably with a renewed perspective on life and my Arthur might not agree with Jon's somewhat Reckless choice to pursue Revenge while endangering his family just do one thing or the other don't try to be two people at once Jack sepai said that to me in an email you could argue that if John didn't go with sad and Charles then those two would probably die and that going with them was actually The Honorable choice but it is strongly implied in the credits that the events on the mountain with Dutch and Micah began a chain reaction that caused the events of Red Dead Redemption one the Pinkerton would probably find and use Jon regardless because come on he used his real name to buy a house like 5T from Blackwater but again I think the implication that Jon's inability to truly shed his past and change his stubborn reluctance to fully let go of that side of himself it makes the stories of both games that much more accomplished and devastatingly tragic John and Arthur are both extremely flawed anti-heroes that are honestly quite frankly pieces of [ __ ] but like any well-written story you can't help but care for them and the company they keep revisiting the gang's old camps years later and hearing the whispering memories that not only haunt JN but the player as well is Rockstar at at their Peak is he where is he where's my son they took him di they took my son but just do one thing or another not be too people that watch that's all I'm say it ain't that simple you know that as well as anyone in the end both Arthur and John make a sacrifice for someone or something bigger than themselves in this world a world created by thousands of dedicated employees that also gave it everything they had sacrificing unfortunately by crunching a [ __ ] ton of hours a world that painstakingly recreates half of the first game's entire map only to be used for like two story missions and it's just this insane bonus after you've already had 60 hours worth of content much like how Rockstar's vision of New York absolutely enraptured my gamer body this Dreamworld impressionist Cowboy painting of America is one of my absolute favorite places to inhabit Red Dead 2 is an imperfect album made by my favorite band The Chain Smokers not every track is a top 10 Britney Spears Banger like I definitely want to skip through a lot of them uh especially the wanted system track but look at my Spotify wrapped in what's my most listened album oh look at that it's Red Dead 2 the metaphor Works in a couple different ways because Red Dead 2 original score actually is in my Spotify wrapped per chance thank you thank you so much for watching my video I really do appreciate it and I hope you liked it now I'm going to now I'm going to try to not fall down this [Music] hill

Channel: NakeyJakey

Views: 1,964,880

Keywords: red dead, red dead redemption, rockstar games, rockstar, gta, gta vi, gta 6

Id: gcRleWwWpsY

Length: 25min 46sec (1546 seconds)

Published: Mon Mar 25 2024