After the first Red Dead Redemption , many were unsure if Rockstar could outdo themselves with its new protagonist. To our delight, we were proven wrong. Arthur Morgan is a great protagonist due to the journey we experience with him. As Dutch’s right-hand man, Arthur becomes more and more unsure of the path they are tak
We’re not laughing at his fright—anyone would scream if they fell from a similar distance—but it’s more the abrupt cutoff between when he lands and his nonchalance towards just taking such a big drop. It may not be super realistic, but it is better than breaking a bone or cutting a leg open and having to crawl to the nearest doctor, and we all know what doctors used to do with injured limbs back in those d
Rockstar seems to relish injecting strange experiences into their games. Things that don’t fit. They scattered amusing detours in GTA V that have players chasing down leads for wacky stories. And they’ve done the same in Red Dead Redemption 2 . Not everything has to fit perfectly into the narrative of an open-world. Humanity has weird conspiracies, and the world is full of strange, bewildering things. Red Dead Redemption 2 reflects those oddities. And it makes exploring all the more rewarding when you stumble across something that doesn’t make any se
Dutch is most remembered for his infamous quote, “I have a plan.” Since the second game is a prequel, we know going in that Dutch will eventually become villainous. While the story revolves around Arthur’s redemption, it also puts so much focus on Dutch’s downfall. For much of the story, Dutch’s decisions start to show his greed and disloya
While he is the leader of the entire gang, Dutch tends to make decisions that will benefit him in the future. Many factors go into the break up the Van Der Linde gang, but many of them rest solely in the hands of its selfish leader. It gets exhausting from the player’s point of view to always hear that Dutch has a plan, yet they keep getting into worse and worse situati
The dialogue in this Game Expansions is top notch, even when juxtaposed with prior Rockstar Games projects. The characters feel like real people and less like larger-than-life cartoons from titles like GTA V . With that being said, several phrases are repeated several times too many, to the point where they start sticking out. Arthur and Dutch like saying “bad business” in reference to deals or any meeting they find fishy. It’s almost like the catchphrase for the entire g
John Marston may have been the protagonist of the first title, but from a writing perspective, Arthur Morgan’s journey blows his out of the water. The second game does a lot for John though in terms of character depth and charisma.
Ion Fury is a blast from the past: a retro-styled FPS with fast action and extreme violence. However, it also brings back another element from those old school shooters, which is the return of the foul-mouthed, rather mean-spirited protagonist. Shelly “Bombshell” Harrison is cut from the same cloth as heroes like Duke Nukem, and while they definitely can be pretty awesome, they’re not necessarily the type of people you’d actually want to hang out with after they saved your lives. Hanging out with these kinds of heroes seems like a chore, as all they’ll want to talk about is how cool they were then they blew up that alien spaceship, and their idea of humor is repeating the same Bruce Campbell quotes over and over.
What sets Charles Smith apart is how principled of a character he is. Life isn’t the easiest for Charles since he’s both African-American and Native-American. Despite these hardships, he tends to always stick to his morals. That being said, he also isn’t afraid to get messy when the situation calls for
Sometimes open-world games sag under the weight of their content. There is simply too much to do. What’s worst is when the same amount of time applied to develop content for the world is not equally applied to create a compelling narrative. That is not the case in Red Dead Redemption 2 . The writing is superb. The characters are fully realized. The emotions are nuanced. The story is believable. Every piece in that puzzle fits nicely, and the result is an elegant tale set in a wild wo
Judging by B.J.’s chosen vocation of violent Nazi killer, you’d be forgiven for thinking that Mr. Blazkowicz isn’t the most personable individual. After all, if you spent most of your time stabbing and shooting enemy soldiers, and being covered in blood and viscera, you might come across as a bit of an uncouth fellow.
This one would be impressive if it wasn’t done by accident. Not only can players shoot the hats off enemies, exposing their foreheads to the sun or revealing a bald spot, but enemies can return the favor and shoot Arthur’s hat to the wind. You can do a lot of things to people, but tampering with their headwear is a whole other level of insult. Fortunately, Arthur has magic hat regenerating powers, but the NPCs he shoots down don’t have the same abil