Yesterday saw the release of Red Dead Redemption 2, and so far I’ve heard nothing but good things about it. The other good news is that the clocks change this weekend, and it’s the ‘good one’, so we’ll get an extra hour in bed (or an extra hour of gaming!).
In the News This Week
- Red Dead Redemption 2’s Mobile App Is There So You Can Turn Off The HUD
- Bethesda Share 19 New Fallout 76 Screenshots Ahead Of The B.E.T.A.
- Fortnite: Save The World Won’t Be Going Free To Play This Year
- Modus Games Announce Trine 4: The Nightmare Prince
- Sony Release A Blooper Reel Of God Of War’s Funniest Pre-Release Bugs
- DICE Talk Server Tick Rates For Battlefield V, After Black Ops 4 Controversy
- DICE Outline The Battlefield V Roadmap, Firestorm Battle Royale Coming In March
- Jump Force Lines Up A Release Next February
- Xbox Game Pass Gets Four Extra Games For Halloween
- Microsoft’s CEO Says Xbox Game Pass Is Coming To Windows 10
- Stellaris Will Get Mega-Corporate In Its Next Expansion
Sunday Streaming Hour
This weekend’s Sunday Streaming Hour will feature Red Dead Redemption 2, so if you’re not pretending to be a cowboy yourself this weekend and want to see what it’s all about, make sure to tune in tomorrow at 5PM.
Tef’s already been streaming some of the game, wading through the snow-filled opening on Thursday, which you can catch here:
Games in Review
Adrian had the pleasure of reviewing RDR2, calling it “the video game experience of this generation.”
- Red Dead Redemption 2 – PS4, XBO – 10/10 (Video review chat)
- Velocity 2X – Switch – 10/10
- Windjammers – Switch, PS4, Vita – 9/10
- My Hero One’s Justice – PS4, XBO, Switch – 8/10
- Luigi’s Mansion – 3DS – 8/10
- The Midnight Sanctuary – PS4, PC, Switch – 5/10
- Cities: Skylines – Industries DLC – PC – No Score
Reviewed platform in bold.
This Week’s Features
Looking at this week’s previews, Stefan started off with a look at Diablo III: Eternal Collection, which he describes as basically being “Diablo 3 on Nintendo Switch and you get to dress up as Ganondorf”, and he also went hands of with World War Z, a game that looks to put aside the mediocre film and work on implementing an enjoyable 4-player co-op experience similar to Left 4 Dead.
The other preview came from Miguel, who shared his thoughts from the Generation Zero Closed Beta – it’s from the makers of the Just Cause series – and it’s looking promising, as you can see from the video below where he and Tef streamed it last weekend:
Elsewhere, if you’ve got a spare £4999 lying around and are looking for a new TV – then take a look at Samsung’s 8K TV!
Lastly, What We Played featured Lego: DC Super-Villains, Black Ops 4, and of course, Red Dead Redemption 2.
Trailer Park
Spyro Reignited Trilogy Gets A Gorgeous Launch Trailer
Call Of Cthulhu Goes Gold, Watch The New Trailer
Check Out Super Smash Bros. Ultimate’s New Trailer
Just Cause 4’s Panoramic Trailer Is Really Very Wide
Your Achievements
Time to see how many of you picked up RDR2 this week!
- Ron was the first to mention Red Dead, however he’s playing the minigame called ‘downlading and installing patches’.
- Before yesterday, MrYd spent a bit of time with Firewall and the rest of his backlog, but is now focused on the Wild West.
- GeneralJeeb finished AC Odyssey’s storyline, and managed to squeeze in some Mario Odyssey before Red Dead arrived.
- gernboes gallantly attempted to finish AC Origins before Red Dead’s midnight release, but didn’t quite make it.
- And unfortunately, tactical20 has to wait until Sunday to open his copy of Red Dead!
If you want to be included in this section, make sure to comment on What We Played of a Friday evening.
The Week Ahead
Time to check out the releases as we head into Novemeber:
- Call of Cthulhu – PS4, XBO, PC – 30/10
- LEGO Harry Potter Collection – Switch, XBO – 30/10
- Diablo 3: Eternal Collection – Switch – 02/11
- Football Manager 2019 – PC – 02/11
Enjoy the weekend and I’ll be back again soon!
ron_mcphatty
I’m happy to report that the version on the discs works perfectly, on my way to Chapter 1 the only bug I came across was being able to pat my horsey and continually increase the bond to max in a few minutes.
Is anyone else finding the controls and interface a bit confusing? There’s so much going on and the landscapes are so distracting that reading absorbing the tutorials is hard work.
MrYd
There are a few odd things it doesn’t tell you (or I missed).
Took a while to realise you can hold the options button to get straight to the map instead of pressing it and then selecting map.
And you can hold circle to back right out of menus.
And for some reason, save/load is under “story” in the menu.
Things can fall off your horse too. Animal skins you’ve stowed on the back. Not bits of your horse falling off. That’d be horrible. So if you crash your horse into something, pick your stuff up.
And remember to keep shouting “Hey mister!” at everyone.
I just got a letter delivered to the camp which gave me a fun little story. I was impressed it wasn’t just a wall of text to read, but was read to me in the traditional letter reading voice over way.
Oh, and hold down on the d-pad to get various options for the mini map. I’m sure it didn’t tell me about that, or if it did I was distracted by something else at the time.
ico
Agree too about the interface. It’d be nice if you were told how to do things in gamelan few more times but it’s all in the pause menus if you need to check back. Liking the cinematic option when on lengthy horse treks so you can just hold A and focus on the scenery and banter. Only couple of hours in but enjoying it thus far. I completed story on RDR 1 and expect to do likewise here.
MrYd
Yeah, there are a few things that could be done better in the interface, or at least made more obvious. But compared to how good everything else is, they’re trivial little things. Difference between giving the game 10/10 and 9.9999/10. And for every weird little thing, there’s something that makes up for it.
The cinematic view for lengthy horse rides is a genius solution to the problem of it taking a bit long to get to places. But it needs to take that long to get places for some important stuff, like talking to people and admiring the scenery. But they managed to make the time you need to hold the touch pad to activate it about 10% longer than it should be.
And it’s been commented on lots in other places, but the mini-map options are great. Every game should have the option to make the mini-map small or large, or just a compass, or hide it completely. And not have that option hidden in a settings menu.
And if you’re enjoying it after a couple of hours, just wait until it really gets going. Chapter 1 is obviously a very linear tutorial. Chapter 2 is still throwing tutorials at you and pointing you in the right direction, but starts to hint at lots of fun distractions. 8 to 10 hours in and you start to struggle to not get distracted. But in a good way, not like some other big open world games.
You also get quite attached to your horse very quickly, knowing that he could permanently die. The words “your horse is dirty” make me feel guilty. Constantly brushing him and feeding him and calming him down. And then get in a panic when he falls over. I called him Bob. That doesn’t help. I feel it was a bad idea to let you name your horse.
Hopefully they’ll delay the online stuff a month or two. I won’t be finished with the single player game if it appears next month.
ico
Good points. When I’m able to, i’ll be naming him Agro from SotC.