Let's start with the graphics. If I had to use just one word to describe them, it'd be: Stunning. The game takes place in 1899 and is made to feel like a western. Everything from the mountains and trees, to the characters, to the buildings, to the weather patterns are extremely detailed and lifelike. You mostly travel through this game on horseback, and it's easy to just wander around the various landscapes and explore forgetting where you're supposed to be going and why.
Next, there is the voice acting. It's so much better than GTA 5. The dialogue is deep, and the characters are relatable and believable for the time period. The main character, Arthur Morgan, is pretty badass, and even humorous at times. I'm only about 25% of the way through the story so far, and I can't wait to see how everything plays out. My favorite character in the game is Dutch van der Linde, the head of Arthur's gang. He's quite a charismatic criminal who considers his band of rebels a family, leading their camp from hiding place to hiding place as the law aggressively pursues.
Finally, the gameplay. Even though this game was made by Rockstar, don't think it's just a western version of Grand Theft Auto. It's a much different game with a much different pace. It's a lot harder to reek havoc in RDR2 without getting quickly gunned down by either lawmen or rival gang members. It's also a lot harder to kill people in this game without using the Dead Eye feature which slows time and allows Arthur to fire critical shots on multiple targets. During gunfights, Arthur constantly has to stop and reload his weapons which hold a limited amount of ammunition, unlike GTA where you can unload a 50 or 60 round magazine from a semiautomatic weapon taking down almost anyone who gets in your way. Arthur's guns are mostly pistols, revolvers and rifles which take time to load during heated gun battles. You also want to be cognizant of the crimes you commit as there is an Honor bar that goes up and down as you either help people or commit crimes, and you get different perks depending on your level. And it's not just gunfights that you can do. You can hunt, fish, play poker, blackjack, dominoes, and five finger fillet, craft food, tonics, and trinkets, rob stores, trains, banks, and horse carriages, and even shave and modify your hairstyle. Your hair and beard actually grow as the game progresses allowing you to style them many different ways at barber shops. As far as animals go, there are more than 200 different species, and 30 different types of fish. The map is massive. I haven't even scratched the surface of places to go, and I actually have no idea how big it really is. I just know it's big. Fast travelling is an option later in the game, and believe me, you'll need to use it. You can even pay to ride to and from different cities and towns. To put it in perspective, GTA 5 was somewhere around 50GB in size with patches and updates, and RDR2 downloaded at around 92GB.
I'm confident this game will go down in history as one of the best ever made. If I had to give it a critique, I'd only say that sometimes it's hard to stay focused on what I'm supposed to be doing. Many times I've found myself riding my horse to a location to start a mission, and I end up getting sidetracked because some fool fell off his horse and hurt his leg and needs my help, or some poor soul got bit by a poisonous snake and I have to suck the poison out of his wound. I even got attacked by a bear on my way to find a treasure once, and let me tell you, I felt like Leo DiCaprio's character in The Revenant. It was terrifying! I hope all of you reading this eventually have a chance to experience this inevitable classic. It's worth every penny!
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