GTA 5 Ought To Influence Red Dead Redemption 2
Rockstar Games seemingly has the launch of Red Dead Redemption 2 bagged already. All they had to do, really, was tease the thing for three days before releasing a trailer comprised of just pre-rendered cinematics, and ever since they did that the gaming media just can’t shut up about the title – not that it’s a bad thing. Rockstar has a mighty fine track record with games, so at this point players can be confident that the game will be a bonafide masterpiece. It’s even in our own list of top games for 2017.
In fact it’s the company’s track record, and the success of 2010’s Red Dead Redemption which caused such a magnitude of hype to spawn from nought but a teaser. It’s not like fans need to worry about the game releasing in a poorly-optimized, half-baked buggy state. However, for all their fame and reputation, the people working at Rockstar are still just human (even though the whopping sales figures of GTA 5 indicate some kind of arcane intervention), and they can make mistakes.
For all the glowing reviews and praise thrown at GTA 5, the game is not without its flaws. Of course, all that praise is absolutely deserved, however we can’t just gloss over the, granted few, issues the title has. Hopefully, Rockstar remembered these issues when working on RDR2, and made sure to fix them up for the upcoming title. After all, Red Dead Redemption back in the day was basically just Grand Theft Horse, so chances are RDR2 will have more than just the developer in common with GTA 5.
However, let’s kick things off on the positive side first, shall we? GTA 5 and Online are games packed to the brim with content, which is most apparently seen in the living, vibrant world of the single player mode. Unfortunately, this living world was dumbed down a tad for Online due to optimization issues, but the feat is still amazing. We’re hoping they will infuse the setting in Red Dead Redemption 2 with the same measure of life. We want to see NPCs going about their daily lives regardless of our actions, we want to see roaming bands of outlaws rob trains without us having to interfere in any way, we want to see dogs chasing cats and disgruntled customers arguing with shopkeepers dynamically.
“GTA 5 and Online are games packed to the brim with content…”
Another thing GTA 5 nailed was character customization. We don’t mean the character creator itself – that was pretty rudimentary, especially compared to what most RPGs can provide – but rather the way you can outfit and accessorize your character in the game world. With heaps of clothes, tattoos, accessories and full outfits available, no two character needs to be the same. Now, if you’re like me and prefer retro fashion compared to what passes as “normal” attire today, then you’ll be just as excited for the range of clothing options available in RDR2.
On the things that should be avoided – GTA Online is a mighty fun multiplayer experience, when you can actually play it. One of the most common criticisms leveled against the title is stability, and the reason for this isn’t that Rockstar is maintaining cheap servers, but the fact that they’re not maintaining any at all. That is to say, the game works on a peer-to-peer basis, meaning when the game is loading, you’re not downloading data from a stable, central server, but from some other bloke in the lobby whose internet connection may or may not be incredibly bad.
As such, the game suffers from a lowest-common-denominator syndrome, wherein the stability of everyone in the lobby will only be as good as the stability of the person with the worst connection. Sometimes if they’re tossed out, you stay in the lobby and things get better because no-one was on the receiving end at the time. At other times, one person getting booted results in the whole thing falling apart and kicking everyone out of the game. Considering the kind of profit the company has made on GTA 5, they can easily afford high performing servers, so they better make the investment before they launch Red Dead Online.
Then there’s the cheat codes in GTA 5. The selection of cheats has been widely panned by gamers far and wide (for example, see the PS4 cheats) and were significantly limited from Grand Theft Auto IV and also GTA: Andreas. There’s also things like the 5 minute limit on invincibility… why!? Rockstar needs to re-expand the list of available single player cheat codes in Red Dead Redemption 2, back to levels last seen in GTA 4 or GTA: San Andreas. Used properly (or just when you need to let off some steam) they can be a heck of a lot of fun, and make for some incredibly funny videos.
