CHENNAI : The atmosphere of Halloween stands for spook. Not necessarily just the horrific spine-chilling spook that makes you jump out of your bed at 2 am at the shadow of the car that’s trying to find a parking spot. It could also be the noisy gory spook — the empowering kind that makes you want to dress up and scare other people. Red Dead Redemption 2 (which released this week) stands for the fun, gory kind of spook —the kind that makes you laugh, shrink a little in disgust (but in a good way), and want more of its strange grandeur at the same time. Sort of like a Quentin Tarantino movie. More specifically, the Hateful Eight. Wait, scratch that — RDR2 is way more than just that.
It covers the entire atmosphere and story of Tarantino’s last movie just 20 minutes into the game. I’ve discussed major reasons to play RDR2 in a previous article, but the game is so huge that one doesn’t cut it. The essence of the game is accumulation of smaller, almost unnoticed moments. Like the option to switch to a cinematic mode with multiple camera angles while you and your horse strut across the wild countryside — it’s inexplicable.
Arthur Morgan is so real, you feel what he’s feeling (I mean, you literally have to feed him at regular intervals or you can’t really progress in the game), and yet — the cinematic mode makes you realise, much like awakening from a dream — that it’s the story of a whole other person. For lack of a better word, the game “ain’t nothin like anything’’.
The thoughtful physics of the open world is unlike any other game that incorporates the realistic art-style — most games I’ve played with this amount of detailing have a linear, bounded storyline. A game that remembers your movements? Snow tracks that stay in the snow? The possibility of a protagonist saddling a zebra and wrestling a lion?
Guns that give the legitimate satisfying reloading click? RDR2 is spooky in its magnitude and possibilities — in a way that it has managed to create a wild west simulator. It is the best answer to a decade wait for a sequel. Buy it to count the hair on Morgan’s face if not for the wild train heists.