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Red Dead Redemption Day#9: Border Trouble

This day is pure pain. I basically try to accomplish two things and both take forever because of save problems. In one, the game does not save at a critical point which means I lose thirty minutes of progress; in the other, a bug causes me to lose my progress in the middle of a long scene. On top of that, I’m constantly dying in incidental scenes. The session ends with a dopey narrative segment in a new chapter of the game. Overall, suck suck suck today. Spoilers within.

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Red Dead Redemption Day#8: Can’t Help Being Bad

Today was a major plot point with a multi-part scene that tied up some loose ends and pushed me to a new chapter in a new location. That was kind of fun. However, it’s also the worst session so far at not letting me be the character I want to be. Sometimes the plot forced me to be bad, and sometimes it was just an accidental button push or a command I didn’t know that got me a bounty. It’s just so frustrating that I have a vision of my character that I can’t make real in the game. Spoilers (and frequent cursing) within.

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Red Dead Redemption Day#7: Putting A Few Things to Rest

Slightly shorter session today as the plot is narrowing and there aren’t as many missions to do. The plot missions are okay, and I do a few side quests as well, but the plot is actually kind of predictable so it’s not as fun as it should be. Also, some of these side quests are straightforward fed-ex quests, so in all, not the most interesting part of Red Dead, but still gorgeous backgrounds and potential for the later game carry me through. Spoilers within.

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Red Dead Redemption Day#6: Luck o’ the Irish

Today was a weird day of focus. I pursue one line of plot basically the whole session, which reveals a couple of weird bugs along the way. The plot has an interesting twist and a couple of nice fight scenes, although again I’m forced to do unethical things that don’t match my character.  I’m also profoundly unlucky in this session. Overall, it’s a mixed bag of fun balanced fights and challenges against random deaths and classic bad Rockstar save points. Spoilers within.

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Red Dead Redemption Day#5: The Wide Open Western Skies

Day 5 is a lot of side quests mixed in with main plot. The main plot this time is building up nicely, and the side quests are a mix of mundane, stupid, and really interestingly mysterious. The characters are pretty good overall. But the real winner this is the landscape art. It is just pure beauty. Nothing better represents the old west spirit than the night sky and the twilight colors, and riding through the plains is maybe the most emotionally effective open-world experience I have ever had.  Spoilers within.

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Red Dead Redemption Day#4: The Creepy, Creepy West

Day 4 of Red Dead is just heaps of disturbing. The content is disturbing, the models are disturbing, and the gameplay in places is disturbing too. The plot is generally good but again the game is forcing me to do things that I don’t want to in order to progress.  The game is generally fun in the stuff I get to do, but I am getting more and more annoyed at how not open the plot of this open world game is. Spoilers within.

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Red Dead Redemption Day#3: Morals of the Frontier

This day is a bunch of different plots in a variety of places. The game frustrates me in a few ways. Don’t get me wrong — there’s a lot good here, particularly in the characters who are not strikingly original but nicely fleshed out. But the game leaves me completely in the dark about what I’m supposed to do and some of the failure conditions on the quest are ridiculously cheap. But most troubling of all, the game forces me to do something that runs against the kind of main character I’m playing. If you’re going to let me determine my character in the open world, don’t take that away from me in the plot. Spoilers within.

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Red Dead Redemption Day#2: No Trail to Follow

Day 2 in Red Dead is basically confusing. The open world is impressive, but it’s not really telling me what I’m supposed to do. It’s disorienting. More importantly, there are all of these symbols and controls and techniques the game has not taught me. I am constantly being surprised with failure or at least unexpected results simply because the game has not told me what to expect or how to do things.  GTA has fixed some things (most notably save points) and the game is still pretty fun, but I really wish I had more of a sense of what I was doing. Spoilers within.

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Red Dead Redemption Day#1: I Want a Range Life

Red Dead Redemption will be familiar to people who have followed GTA. In my first day with it, I saw a return to some of the core themes and features in the corrupt world, the sandbox, and the central not-so-great “vehicle” control. But this is also by far the most pretty game Rockstar has ever made, the gunplay is very much improved, and the character has an interesting if cryptic start. I’m still waiting to see if my standard GTA issues arise, but so far it’s at least worth checking out. Spoilers within.

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Alan Wake: Final Smack

Alan Wake isn’t a terrible game. It’s mostly mediocre.  There are a few good elements and a number of passable ones. But it just isn’t scary. And for a story about writers, the writing is just sad. As you’ll see in an upcoming Stochastic Thought, it’s an interesting example of how not to make a horror game, but even as a normal gameplay experience, I think you’re better off playing something that doesn’t have such glaring flaws. Details within.

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