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[Andir]

Is it just me or is anyone else seriously disappointed in this "sandbox"?

I actually loved the scale, story (even though it was pretty shallow), and adventure that was in GTA IV and decided that Rockstar could probably provide a fun game with RDR, but I was sorrily disappointed.  The only real fun I had was hunting down the treasures which is just a side aspect of the game.

I know it sounds juvenile, but you can't hire prostitutes.  There is a story rail that has no branches as far as I can see.  It doesn't matter if you decide to shoot all the villagers in a town, more will magically appear around the corner and you can just duck into one of the mission dots and help the sheriff as if nothing happened and you're treated as the hero in the mission even though you just killed 50 odd villagers including the merchants.  The missions only give you fame, no infamy, so you are pretty much forced to play the game as the hero type unless you're bored out of your mind... and that will happen.

There's one mission you get right away (at nightfall in the ranch) to patrol at night.  You follow a dog around and he leads you to a horse thief that you "deal with" then morning rises.  Cool, I can do this again the next night!  Wait, dog... why are you taking me over... oh hell, the horse thief I killed last night is back... in the same exact location?  Lame.

I got bored of the hero missions and decided to pop open the cheats and see what happens if you go pure evil (and that's where I found disappointment... not from cheating, but from the pure lack of realism and choice.)  Let's say you take the "evil" route and defy the law, get your bar maxed out to the "dark side" and a hooker walks up to you.  "Sorry Ma'am.  I'm married." WTF!

Let's try robbing a train.  You'd see old western movies... this was profitable.  Ride up along the train, jump aboard, pull out your gun, the people just sit there.  Fine, I'll kill them all and take their money, from all five of them.  Wow.  I got $10.  Let's check out the luggage cars... nothin'.  Maybe I can steal the train and drive it.  Nope.  Hop back on the horse and ride off.  Disappointed.

Now, about skinning animals.  There's actually some good money to be made doing this.  Unfortunately, you have to sit through a cut scene EVERY time you skin an animal.  That is, unless you find the bug that if you put your horse on top of the creature you can skin it without the cut scene, but good luck getting the horse to stay there.

Now, the treasure maps were pretty cool, I'll give them that.  You get a map with some pictures of terrain and an "X" where you'll find the treasure.  You pop open the map, try to figure out where this terrain feature is and head that way... but it's pretty sad when that's the only really fun aspect of the game.

[fenrif]

Use the search next time.

The game definatly pushes you to be good, I'll give you that, but it's still immensely fun. And all the problems you have with it are the same with any of rockstar's games, and most other sandbox games.

[Andir]

The game definatly pushes you to be good, I'll give you that, but it's still immensely fun.

We'll have to agree to disagree then.... because I'm not having fun at all.

[hemmingjay]

I find it to be a great pick-up-and-play game. I will do a mission or two and maybe play some poker then turn it off for a day or two. I guess my expectations were a little lower.

[Apple Master]

everything you say is wrong and I'm too lazy to point out why.

[Andir]

everything you say is wrong and I'm too lazy to point out why.

I didn't put anything in the post that's wrong and if you're too lazy to refute it, then your whole argument falls to the side, does it not?

[Apple Master]

Not really. It would if I wasn't me.
But yeah. Everything you've said is wrong. Opinion wise, I mean. Sure you can't hire prostitutes but who cares you're a cowboy.

[fenrif]

I think the main problem you're having is that you went into this game expecting some free form, be anything you want sort of thing, with far reaching moral choices that will impact the storyline in a myriad of ways. Procedurally generated missions, dynamic NPC behaviour, actions with real consequences, etc.

Which is odd, because no other rockstar games are like that. I can't really think of any game at all that is like that. The game does have its problems, sure. The characterization of John Marsten is all over the place, the game is riddled with bugs (including more than a few gamebreakers/savekillers) and the riding controls could've done with some work, but the problems you seem to have with it amount to "my character is essentially a good guy now instead of a bad guy in GTA games."

GTA games you cant turn snitch and work for the cops, because your character is a criminal. In red dead you can't get prostitues because your character is married. The GTA games aren't about having the freedom to do whatever you can imagine, they're about exploring a world within the confines of the character they create for you.

You complain that the nightwatch missions are the same every time, and that you can't rob trains? Well in GTA 4 every time you went bowling it was the same minigame, and you couldn't go inside the vast majority of the buildings.

Though I think me and you might just have extremely different tastes, as I found GTA4 to be mundane, boring, and devoid of any fun whatsoever. Everything in that game seemed designed to be as unfun as possible.

[LeoLeonardoIII]

It sounds a lot like they tried to make a game that was a sandbox but as opposite GTA's character as possible.

If you're roped into playing a "white hat" then it's just like GTA playing a "black hat". No choice.

Then again, although it often seems like a sandbox where you can do anything, it's really not. Missions are structured to be completed in certain ways, and it only feels like you have freedom because you did what they predicted you would do.

Let's say the mission is to chase a certain guy down and kill him. He gets into his car and drives away. Well next time you try to block his garage with your car before starting the mission. Well he just grinds through them or slips away or his car is invulnerable and his doors are locked, etc. And you suddenly realize that you have to play the game exactly as they intended. If there are two ways to do something, it's because they coded two ways to do it.

That, plus the horrible camera angles and aiming system when you're out of your car, and the general linear nature of the game (do all the quests when they come up on your map!), and the visual bugs, and the slowdowns when you drive fast, and the ridiculous NPC behavior (I killed a hundred Diablos and there are still more who try to attack me, or the police ignore it when I'm driving like a lunatic on the wrong side of the road but if I graze someone's car it's all lights and sirens).

I just got kind of tired of it. Played all the way through GTA3 and Vice City, and played to the part where you leave the first section of San Andreas (oh god you mean I have to reclaim all those territories again no you MF shitstain game I refuse, I absolutely refuse). But I'm done.

[Andir]

For one point, GTA's world was a good 2 times bigger than this one, and you can't go into every building in RDR either.  Bowling/Darts/etc. in GTA = Poker/Blackjack/etc. in RDR.  I never said that they were more dynamic.  The repeatable mission must be new for Rockstar here because I don't remember one repeatable missions in GTA... There were far more missions in GTA as well.

GTA had the advantage of having Helicopters (which I loved!) and I understand it's a reach to have those in RDR.  That may be a large impact on why I liked GTA as much as I did.  As far as the "evil" side... if they didn't plan on your playing the game on two ends of the scale, why did they provide a negative honor bar?  Why not stop it at 0?  GTA you knew you were bad.  There wasn't even a hint that you "could" be good with a favor bar.  The only thing you could do was get in a police car and I don't consider that evidence that there could be a "bad" aspect to the game.  In RDR, you actually have an honor bar that goes negative and if you max it out, you get a black horse.  There's aspects that denote that there's a "bad" game, but it's not complete... I'd have preferred if it was totally missing.

[Zangi]

Can't really beat trading lightly veiled insults with the lady that saved your life.

Sucks that you auto-fail the first moments of the game when you 'commit a crime'.  Cause that is just what I done.
Sucks that you auto-fail missions when you 'commit a crime'.  Cause that is just what I done too.

Sucks that when you beat someone down in hand-to-hand, they come back up and fight me again, despite the ass-whooping they received moments earlier.  Basically an infinite loop...
Ever heard of staying down?  Or you know, staying unconscious?

Note that I've only played about an hour...

[LeoLeonardoIII]

Or you know, actually being able to kill a guy by punching and kicking him enough? Like that's totally impossible :/

[fenrif]

For one point, GTA's world was a good 2 times bigger than this one, and you can't go into every building in RDR either.  Bowling/Darts/etc. in GTA = Poker/Blackjack/etc. in RDR.  I never said that they were more dynamic.  The repeatable mission must be new for Rockstar here because I don't remember one repeatable missions in GTA... There were far more missions in GTA as well.

GTA had the advantage of having Helicopters (which I loved!) and I understand it's a reach to have those in RDR.  That may be a large impact on why I liked GTA as much as I did.  As far as the "evil" side... if they didn't plan on your playing the game on two ends of the scale, why did they provide a negative honor bar?  Why not stop it at 0?  GTA you knew you were bad.  There wasn't even a hint that you "could" be good with a favor bar.  The only thing you could do was get in a police car and I don't consider that evidence that there could be a "bad" aspect to the game.  In RDR, you actually have an honor bar that goes negative and if you max it out, you get a black horse.  There's aspects that denote that there's a "bad" game, but it's not complete... I'd have preferred if it was totally missing.

GTAs world was bigger in terms of size, but about the same in terms of content. Not to mention the fact that GTA transport is much faster than horses and stagecoaches. If you had the gameworld be the size of GTAbore (four, teehee) then you'd spend hours just riding to missions.

I'm pretty sure at least one of the previous GTAs had repeatable missions, but even if they didn't you dont have to redo them if you don't want to in RDR, you can just do them once and never again. Problem solved.

The honour bar is there because people react differently to you if you behave extremely good or bad. Max out the plus side of it and you can get away with crimes easier because people respect you more. Sure it's not a perfect system, but it isn't meant to be. Its a mechanic to reward people for one of two specific playstyles.

So basically you're complaining because your character is good as opposed to bad, doesn't have helicopters, has repeatable missions, can't goto whores, and there's a moral slider bar mechanic.

Hey guess what... You don't get AK47s either, and you can't stop by the fast food chicken place to eat. You also can't watch TV, and theres no pain in the ass mechanic for the NPCs to constantly whine and moan at you for not spending every minute of in-game time bowling with them or taking them dancing.

You're basically complaining because the game isn't GTA.

[LeoLeonardoIII]

There are whores. His character is an evil cowboy. Yet he cannot make his evil cowboy hire the whores.

It's expecting something that is in the game, and in the milieu, and is totally within reason.

Your example of AK47s and TV is pointless regarding the whores because nobody would expect those things in the game.

I'll agree too that nobody should expect helicopters.

And yes, if there is a moral slider bar, I expect to be able to actually play a character ranging anywhere from good to evil. That's the point of the slider bar! And I agree that it would have been better to just leave it out than to include a half-finished mechanic. Of course, the ideal outcome would be that they actually finished the game. But business decisions often force undesirable design decisions.

Repeatable missions don't make sense. It's like if you destroy a building and you turn around and it's there again. It's a continuity issue, and possibly an issue with padding out game length using repeatable content.

It's legitimate to compare the game to GTA if it's made by the same people and they market it as a wild west sandbox like GTA is a modern gangster sandbox.

[Andir]

^ What he said.  It's pretty spot on. ^