Does it allows the quest/mission to be done however you want, like on botwy? Be it exploiting the terrain or the physics, etc?
Red Dead Redemption 2
- Thread starter Arnold Beckenbauer
- Start date
Maybe the more photorealism focused lighting and color scheme are lending the game to appear more impressive than HZD? I often wonder what would HZD look like if it's not as stylized and super vibrant.
RDR2 does have some super impressive lighting and shading regardless, volumetric cloud, lighting, fog and dense foliage is probably the safeguard equation for many devs to follow
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RDR2 does have some super impressive lighting and shading regardless, volumetric cloud, lighting, fog and dense foliage is probably the safeguard equation for many devs to follow
.
Maybe the more photorealism focused lighting and color scheme are lending the game to appear more impressive than HZD? I often wonder what would HZD look like if it's not as stylized and super vibrant.
RDR2 does have some super impressive lighting and shading regardless, volumetric cloud, lighting, fog and dense foliage is probably the safeguard equation for many devs to follow
Shadows are a key part of RDR2, which is what differentiates it from pretty much every other game. There are so many shadow casting objects in scenes you don't expect to see shadows(conditioned by pretty much every other game):
And shadow LOD(and LOD in general) is great as well:
It just looks different.
Edit: Also, POM, POM everywhere. The only area where you can say it's not amazing is textures, they look pretty average in some cases, good in most.
textures are not so high res, and foliage density not as good as say FC5 or HZD, but they found a great balance between all aspects, draw distance is pretty massive even for grass, details are still resolved far away when you are standing on a cliff, and that's what is really impressive and gives beautiful vistas.
Their cloud tech is also very refined. The world feels so alive, lots of wild life everywhere, and NPCs going around, plus water, rocks, euphoria etc...They packed so much stuff given the limitations of the CPUs and ram.
LOD management is really good too, you barely notice pop in.
Framerate has been flawless for me on Pro for now, i have not reached Saint Denis yet though.
I f***ing walked, not ran or rode my horse, i walked for maybe 30min in the wild starring at this gorgeous game last night !
Their cloud tech is also very refined. The world feels so alive, lots of wild life everywhere, and NPCs going around, plus water, rocks, euphoria etc...They packed so much stuff given the limitations of the CPUs and ram.
LOD management is really good too, you barely notice pop in.
Framerate has been flawless for me on Pro for now, i have not reached Saint Denis yet though.
I f***ing walked, not ran or rode my horse, i walked for maybe 30min in the wild starring at this gorgeous game last night !
Based on the footage i've seen, i would say the foliage doesn't look the best too. Also, the way the foliage is animated is pretty limited compared to other games.
On the other hand, the pop in is the most discrete i've ever seen in an open world game. Spiderman was already quite impressive in this field, but RD2 is better.
Overall, they made the right compromises. I would say the only real issue on X are the unresponsive controls. Other versions have more problems (framerate + IQ).
One limitation i've seen is that the foliage doesn't seem to cast shadows from your own light source.
Billy Idol
Legend
For me, this is the most impressive technology aspect in the game...no idea how they manage to do this, where most other games struggle so hard. Yes, I noticed that Spidey was also great, however here it impresses me even more, because of the vast vistas (e.g. no buildings blocking view) you can have while standing on a mountain, then just riding across the valley...no noticeable pop in. Amazing job 10/10
Then you go to the camp, and some dev thought it is a great idea to take away the freedom of running in the camp, what the actual heck...why??...most flawed game design choices in this game I have ever seen 0/10
Shadows are a key part of RDR2, which is what differentiates it from pretty much every other game. There are so many shadow casting objects in scenes you don't expect to see shadows(conditioned by pretty much every other game):
And shadow LOD(and LOD in general) is great as well:
It just looks different.
Edit: Also, POM, POM everywhere. The only area where you can say it's not amazing is textures, they look pretty average in some cases, good in most.
Who needs ray traced shadows, huh?
Sigfried1977
Legend
And they they thought "hey, all people care about is graphics and story anyway, so let's implement the laggiest and most cumbersome controls we can muster".
I hope I'll get used to it sooner rather than later, but coming straight from a slew of gameplay-is-king kinda games like Dark Souls, God of War and Hollow Knight, I'm having a really hard time getting used to the way RDR2 handles. Seems like they dialed the Euphoria stuff back up since GTA5. Played it for 2 hours (And I use the term played loosely. Mostly I was just holding down the X button) and went back to Dark Sous.
RDR2 just needs some gameplay rebalancing in certain areas, which Rockstar is very capable of doing as they have done with prior games. I think the console versions are best served by adding keyboard and mouse support for hotkeys and the RPG-ish health/crafting/collecting/support systems that are currently in place. Being in the heat of battle and getting popped with bullets while accessing multiple menus within "L1" or holding down the left game pad button on accessing your satchel can be trying at times and unwanted. And the last issue is more so of earning money, or "more of it." Towards supporting yourself, horses, camp and everything else inbetween. In more ways than one, the game pushes you into the "bad guy choices" towards survival, more so than good (and it's usually dealing with earning money). And having witnesses all around (even when their oddly off screen at times) just makes the wrong behavior get even worst (when threatening doesn't work... well you know what's next). And sometimes being a good samaritan leads to you getting robbed or being accosted by multiple enemies. Thus, putting you into the situation of being the bad guy (on protecting yourself or recovering your goods/money), leading to wanted/bounty prices on your head (which you can barely afford on paying off at the post office).
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You are the bad guy, it's a character driven game it's not Skyrim where you are a blank slate. If Arthur was a good guy he wouldn't be in dutches gang he wouldn't be in the story. Yes you can do good things but he is a bad guy.
D
Deleted member 11852
Guest
Arthur is definitely not a good guy but journal entries, newspaper articles and some gang conversations suggest that prior to the Blackwater job, the gang were more akin to Robin Hood's merry men - only stealing from the rich, never victimising and poor and weak, and so on. Look how the gang treat Sadie, rescuing her from certain death, showing no intention of exploiting her, which is interesting.
I'm playing an honourable playthrough for my first run and killing only when necessary.
I don't have any real issues with the movement in RDR2, because the game seems to have typical input response for aiming at 30Hz. If there was worse input lag for aiming, it'd be a deal breaker since I play with free aim. 30Hz is just bad for control, period, but they're not worse than the typical case. The movement takes some getting used to, but having played all of the GTA games and RDR1, there's really nothing unexpected here. From a standstill the player has a lot of inertia to overcome and start moving. Once you're moving, it's pretty responsive in terms of turning. It's really not a game with start/stop movement, so for me it hasn't really gotten in the way of anything.
Rockstar has found a very interesting formula for their games. It's a casual game for hardcore players, if that makes sense. It is broadly appealing. You can play with snap aim, so even if you're not particularly good at games, you can easily play this one. It has a mission structure where most missions are in the casual range of 15-20 minutes, A perfect bite-size for mass consumption. With all of that, the game has huge production values, massive amounts of content, customization and activity/sandbox options that appeal to hardcore gamers. And if you want a more hardcore experience, you can just switch to free aim to increase the difficulty. I can't think of many games that really succeed at appealing to so many people. They also have a perfect balance of introducing colour to the world with random events at just the right time. You're not bombarded with them, they just come at the right times. Yesterday I was riding along and some ptsd soldier was sitting by a campfire drinking. He invites you to sit with him, and you can give him whiskey and listen to him tell you his troubles. It takes maybe fives minutes, and there's no action, but it's an interesting break in the gameplay. Rockstar was totally fearless in terms of adding content, and they mostly succeed.
So far I've found it to be the most enjoyable single-player title I've played in a long time. My gaming days are numbered, and not many games appeal to be anymore. I was a little apprehensive about picking this one up, because I didn't want another full-price game sitting in my game library without being played, but no issues there. The game took hold of me pretty fast. I'm a gameplay over graphics player, and will typically turn all graphics to low on pc so I can play at 100+ fps, but in this one the graphics actually add a lot so I can grit my teeth and bear the horrible 30fps. A lot of the time when I'm traveling, I'll just go at a moderate speed so I can enjoy the visuals. No rush to get anywhere.
The game has an interesting look. It almost succeeds in looking like it's colour graded, like a film. The contrast almost always seems to look correct. Not too extreme to be fatiguing, which is a problem for most games. Everything just seems to balance and come together the right way, so the visuals are always pleasing. It also has very realistic colour tones, even though the game is still more stylized than photorealistic in a lot of ways.
The animations are really top class. I can't think of any other game with this variety of animation for the players, the npcs and wildlife, and all done to such a high level. I have encountered some spots where I've gone to pick something up and my character won't quite align and he ends up shifting around on his feet in a weird way until he eventually is able to pick up the item.
As for bugs, there is one that keeps coming up for me, which is kind of annoying. When you hold LT to interact with people or objects, sometimes interaction options will be greyed out. I met an old man by the road begging for money. There was an option to give him a dollar, and I had the money, but it was greyed out anyway. He'd stopped talking, so I knew he should be able to accept the money. I walked back and forth and around him, far away and then close trying to get the option to become available. Eventually it did, and I continued, but this wasn't the only time I encountered it. I've seen it with picking things up, greetings etc. I know the options are greyed out intentionally at times, but there are definitely times when they should be available but aren't.
Rockstar has found a very interesting formula for their games. It's a casual game for hardcore players, if that makes sense. It is broadly appealing. You can play with snap aim, so even if you're not particularly good at games, you can easily play this one. It has a mission structure where most missions are in the casual range of 15-20 minutes, A perfect bite-size for mass consumption. With all of that, the game has huge production values, massive amounts of content, customization and activity/sandbox options that appeal to hardcore gamers. And if you want a more hardcore experience, you can just switch to free aim to increase the difficulty. I can't think of many games that really succeed at appealing to so many people. They also have a perfect balance of introducing colour to the world with random events at just the right time. You're not bombarded with them, they just come at the right times. Yesterday I was riding along and some ptsd soldier was sitting by a campfire drinking. He invites you to sit with him, and you can give him whiskey and listen to him tell you his troubles. It takes maybe fives minutes, and there's no action, but it's an interesting break in the gameplay. Rockstar was totally fearless in terms of adding content, and they mostly succeed.
So far I've found it to be the most enjoyable single-player title I've played in a long time. My gaming days are numbered, and not many games appeal to be anymore. I was a little apprehensive about picking this one up, because I didn't want another full-price game sitting in my game library without being played, but no issues there. The game took hold of me pretty fast. I'm a gameplay over graphics player, and will typically turn all graphics to low on pc so I can play at 100+ fps, but in this one the graphics actually add a lot so I can grit my teeth and bear the horrible 30fps. A lot of the time when I'm traveling, I'll just go at a moderate speed so I can enjoy the visuals. No rush to get anywhere.
The game has an interesting look. It almost succeeds in looking like it's colour graded, like a film. The contrast almost always seems to look correct. Not too extreme to be fatiguing, which is a problem for most games. Everything just seems to balance and come together the right way, so the visuals are always pleasing. It also has very realistic colour tones, even though the game is still more stylized than photorealistic in a lot of ways.
The animations are really top class. I can't think of any other game with this variety of animation for the players, the npcs and wildlife, and all done to such a high level. I have encountered some spots where I've gone to pick something up and my character won't quite align and he ends up shifting around on his feet in a weird way until he eventually is able to pick up the item.
As for bugs, there is one that keeps coming up for me, which is kind of annoying. When you hold LT to interact with people or objects, sometimes interaction options will be greyed out. I met an old man by the road begging for money. There was an option to give him a dollar, and I had the money, but it was greyed out anyway. He'd stopped talking, so I knew he should be able to accept the money. I walked back and forth and around him, far away and then close trying to get the option to become available. Eventually it did, and I continued, but this wasn't the only time I encountered it. I've seen it with picking things up, greetings etc. I know the options are greyed out intentionally at times, but there are definitely times when they should be available but aren't.
I get all this. It's the moral system (you know the bar that pops up at the bottom occasionally - sliding backwards and forward between good or bad) that's the issue. If your simple task was being good at being a bad guy, then the morality system shouldn't be in place. My perspective as I see it, Rockstar is giving the option on changing Arthur's ways (thinking), however their system is somewhat broken on doing so.
Yeah that happened to me last night. I was doing a dept collector mission, had to beat up and threaten a poor ill farmer. I had the option to leave at the beginning of the confrontation. On the way back i felt remorse so decided to abort the mission and restart it, but when starting again the confrontation i the ''leave" option was always greyed out. Restarted 2 time and still grey.
So no choice but to threaten the man sadly.
Sigfried1977
Legend
True, it's not exactly unexpected. That said, time didn't stand still and we have plenty of 30fps titles which animate beautifully while still offering snappy controls. I'm not asking for Mario levels of responsiveness (for some odd reason I think the plumber was mentioned in this thread to make some absurd point about realism), but for something that's touted as best of the best, is something akin to Uncharted controls really so much to ask?
And yeah, aiming isn't that sluggish. It's mostly just movement that feels very outdated.
D
Deleted member 11852
Guest
This is the choice I feel Rockstar are giving you. I was well on the way to honourable when I did the first debt collection missions for Herr Strauss, and I left everybody alive but there was necessarily some beating. Both the dialogue and the music that played as I rode away, gave me the distinct impression that Arthur didn't like such work. Now I get why Rockstar put a dynamic score in, a score that reacts to your choices and behaviour.
I am looking forward to my second playthrough as a full-on-bastard.
The movement is not outdated. It's just prioritizing quality over responsiveness. That's always the trade off in animation. This was a conscious choice on their part. Some companies are working on things like motion-matching to improve quality without sacrificing responsiveness. RDR2 has the best animations I've seen in a game, but it comes at a cost
