Red Dead Redemption 2 review | Polygon

Red Dead Redemption 2 is one of the weirdest, most ambitious and confounding big-budget games of this decade.

[ArchangelMike]

Typical of Polygon. Pretensious to the bone.

[nyu1]

Oh please, if any site doesn't give it a perfect score, you'll call it pretentious.

They recommend the game and have generally high praise for it.

[FPS_D3TH]

Oh please, as if polygon doesn’t have a history of bs like this

[UltraNova]

Oh please!

What? I just wanted to say oh please...

[Orionsangel]

Yes! I'm spending a lot of money on this game. I need the reviews to be good so I know I'm not wasting my money. Don't spoil my excitement for the game you darn critics!

[DaReapa]

Is it so hard to write a review without it being ripe with spoilers?? Props to VG24/7 for being one of the few keeping it spoiler free.

[fiveby9]

I have already bought the game so I am avoiding reviews and streams at this point. Just going to play for days without the influence of outside sources.

[UltraNova]

So log off from n4g and go dark.

[Edito]

I really don't know if all those sites had the time to play the game to give those scores.. i mean the game is super huge... but if it's real that amazing.

[badz149]

Read reviews from IGN. it runs like an advertisement for the game. doesn't sound like a review at all

[UltraNova]

Read kotaku's then, the best review around.
https://n4g.com/news/221358...

[Skankinruby]

IGN is a damn cancer to the gaming industry

[rainslacker]

@Ultra

do you work for Kotaku? Saw you talking that review up a lot. I read it, and while it's quite eloquent in its wording, the review aspect of it itself sounds more hyperbolic, abstract, and mostly just a bunch of generalities. It even mentions some rather deep flaws to the game play, yet glosses over them as no big deal because of how amazing the rest of the game is, despite the author saying the game just isn't fun. But that's OK, because it's different than other games they consider more visceral fun.

Not much was backed up with all those generalities, with almost no examples outside the world details, but still, nothing to say how it came together. Then a good part of the review went on a tirade about the working conditions over at R*, which made a lot of assumptions and seemed more agenda driven than relevant to the quality of the game itself.

@Badz

I read the IGN review, and I agree. I see some major sites mentioning some major game play criticisms, and then waving them off as not a big deal because of how awe inspiring the game is. While I understand that some thing can be overlooked when the overall experience is great, it's still a reviewers responsibility to mention how those things come together and can bring something down. Maybe not nitpick small things, but certainly not dismiss potentially major flaws. All that awe-inspiring grandeur is cool and all, but if you're spending 50-100 hours on a game, much of that becomes less important after a while.

Christopher mentioned in another review about how you couldn't auto loot, and how that was considered cool by the review. That was mirrored in something else in the Kotaku review, where they said the game constantly forces you to slow down and appreciate the world. While I understand a game wanting to pace things differently than other games do, or what the player may expect, it is still an important aspect to consider how that affects the player, or how they may potentially feel about such a thing after the 100th, or 1000th time they may do the same repetitive thing over and over again.

I'm not going to say this game is bad. I understand many people may love this game, and I'm not one to say they're wrong. But it's not a reviewers job to gush endlessly over things, but rather inform the reader in a meaningful way about what they're getting for their money.

[UltraNova]

Rain,

Do I work for Kotaku? Hell no, I actually think they are a bunch of morons over there, but I can appreciate good writting when I see it. Is it perfect in its description to what the game actually offers? No, no review can be perfect. But this level of eloquent writing is super rare in our industry's critical side so that's that.

[rainslacker]

I hate to get too off topic, but the Kotaku review was just a bunch of flowery words. The review didn't do much good at describing the game at all. He gave spoilers for other games. Spent 1/4 of the review talking about something unrelated to the game. Barely talked about the technical issues he himself cited, and even claimed the game wasn't fun, but barely even made that worth consideration.

Sorry, but the Kotaku review was not the best review around. It was just well written prose on the authors feelings of the game, instead of an analytical review of the game itself. It was akin to a book report, not an analysis.

[King_Noctis]

Reviewer gets the game before the public, usually 1 week beforehand as far as I know.

[ShockUltraslash]

Yea dat white suppramecay hea! Im so mad now gurr. . . .

[BenRC01]

"The gunplay and combat isn’t dramatically improved from Grand Theft Auto 5, which is to say, in 2018, it’s serviceable"

That's all I needed to hear, I'm out.

[doggo84]

O whatever, the gameplay looks light years better than gta v

[BenRC01]

The graphics do, the gun play looks identical

[yeahokwhatever]

...what problem is there with the "gunplay" in GTA5? It works great...

[SierraGuy]

Clunky controls suck.

[Mulletino]

Are these goofy reviews the result of the 1 day review time of a 60 hour game? Seems like the time I wrote a 5 page book report on For Whom the Bell Tolls and only read the first chapter and internet summaries.

[yeahokwhatever]

reviewers get games early, so they can review them, so that game publishers can get sales off good reviews. If a game doesnt get to reviewers early, that in itself is cause for alarm.