Red Dead Redemption 2

i'm going to be working from home 3 days a week pretty soon and i'm thinking about buying a console (with a game) for the first time in 10 years just to make sure i don't go crazy. is this game good enough to justify buying an xbox?

 

Don't get an Xbox would be my first bit of advice.
PlayStation has way better exclusive games. I used to be an XBOX fan boy but will never go back.

Red Dead 2 is amazing. it has set the bench mark for immersive gaming. Every detail you can imagine has been thought of. I am little over 5 hours in and so far it has been incredible.
An example.
I was stalking a deer out in the middle of nowhere and stumbled upon two chaps hiding in some bushes arguing about how to break into a safe they had stolen. I decided to listen to them as they argued remaining out of site.
They decided the best way was to attack it with a sledge hammer.
Eventually I decided to reveal myself which startled both of them, once they recovered themselves they threatened me. I managed to defuse the situation and said I would be on my way.
A few minutes later I decided I was having none of it and would go back and take the contents of the safe for myself. Once I had successfully removed them from the situation I had to blow the safe open with dynamite.
Annoyingly there was only $40 dollars in to (a lot back then)
As I made my way back across the grasslands I saw a large group approaching who turned out to be the local law enforcement tracking these men down and asked if I had seen them. I told them I had seen them not far from there and told them where I has seen them and they charged off..... I went on my way.
Keeping in mind this wasn't a mission, it was just a random AI encounter that played out perfectly. Had I rode off in a different direction would I have bumped into the same group? Keeping in mind I wasn't on a road.

The Last of Us was the only game I have given a 10. I play a lot of games.
This so far from just 4 hours play is looking like the next 10/10

 

Never to late to learn to Play.

Granted there is ALOT to do in this game.

YouTube has been a godsend as you can find a how to guide on anything for any game.

I work for a VR and tech company. I wouldn't waste the money unless you specifically want to play the VR games which are in the main very linear.

If you have the money I would advise getting the PS4 pro and and 4K UHD TV which is HDR compatible.

if you want any advice (I work in the consumer tech industry) PM me.

 

I have the TV already so all good there and money for the console wouldn't be an issue.

I may dip my toes in. Would rather just plug and play though rather than watching videos first.

 

What I meant by the Youtube comment is that games have moved on so much in the last 10 years.

There can be an overwhelming amount of things to remember, button combinations to press, people to buy this and sell that, crafting etc.
Sometimes it is useful to use YouTube to look for a reminder or some tips.
For example I couldn't figure out where to store my animal pelts as you cant carry that many and need them for upgrading you gear.
The Red Dead tutorial is more of a basics guide. You are left to figure out a lot of stuff for yourself.

 

I'm not on the hype train for RDR2, yet. Waiting for pc version in six months.

Do you have a decent laptop? If so I'd recommend Total War Arena for some light evening relaxation. Kind of like chess with two teams of ten players each with three units (archer, javelin men, spear, sword, cavalry and catapults) of their choice. Time limited to 15 min and games can be won by anhialating the oposition or capturing their base. Strategy, team play and with a little luck you could achieve the stats to join the feared South Ayrshire Total War clan.

Veni,Vedi, Vici.

 

ps4 with red dead is 350 euros, while the xbox with red dead and another game is 250. i'm not a rich man, but if it is absolutely recommended to pay the extra 100 then i would

my computer is just about good enough to play civ5 and counterstrike go. that used to be enough for me before all these young people with their gadgets and red deads started giving me doubts

 

Sounds like your having a blast...

I can't quite immerse myself fully when playing against AI. Imagine the exact same encounter, but with real people, imagine the possibilities of interactions in an open world environment where anything can happen. I present to you DayZ. A post apocalyptic 300km^2 Cherno-Russian environment filled with death and decay. No story line, no save points, no compassion and only certain death awaits everyone. You awake, washed up on the shore, disorientated, hungry, thirsty and only the clothes you are wearing. All there is to do is survive... by any means necessary.

Caveat: been in development for almost five years now and I would recommend waiting for beta to land (end of the year) before giving it a shot.

Caveat 2: very slow game play, but when **** goes down, you will remember it for the rest of your dayz. For example, I'm still friends with a Latvian after we held the northwest airfield, repaired a chopper and amalgamated our squads in the mod version in 2012!

I almost forgot, the only rule in DayZ is, don't trust anyone (up to 120 pyscho's/freindlies per server).

 

I have played DayZ before. I have a half decent gaming rig.
Mainly like RTS games. Total War have always been one of my favorite games.

I think for me the problem with these games is the lack of narrative. It doesn't immerse me when I get blasted by a group of spotty teens.
I am very much looking forward to World War Z which looks a lot like Left4Dead. Amazing game!

 

It depends what you want to do!
For example if you want to play more than just Red Dead PlayStation has way more exclusive games which are amazing.
It doesn't look like Xbox will be releasing anything in future to convince me they will challenge this.
Seems pointless to me buying a console for 1 game....
Games which are worth playing that you cant get on Xbox
Last of Us - Best game I've ever played
Witcher
Detroit Become Human
Spiderman (amazing)
Horizon Zero Dawn (amazing)
The Last Guardian
God of War (amazing)
Until Dawn
Uncharted 1,2,3,4

Yet to come
Days gone (look amazing)
Last of Us 2 - Naught dog dont do bad games. very excite for this.
Metro Exodus

 

I will almost certainly be buying games in the future so this is good info. i saw a deal in a shop for a ps4, uncharted and the last of us for 350 with another discount on top for red dead, so maybe that will be the smart move

 

The Last of Us story is superb, topped of with the game being perfect. Couldn't find a fault. Have played it several times through and enjoy it the same every time! If you were going to buy a console for one game that would be it.

 

Total war arena is a free to play game. Let me know if you need any back up to help you get started. Nothing worse than getting blasted by squeakers!

Used to play four man split screen team for L4D, agree it's a great game.

 

I have played multiple games on both the xbox and playstation consoles. When it comes down to it there is a clear winner, and I'm afraid I disagree with Bedford Hornet. Although the playstation does have some good exclusives, the performance of the xbox one x is definitely superior to the ps4 pro. The online service with xbox live is also far better than the experience of the playstation network. I would highly recommend the game pass on xbox live, £7.99 a month but a whole heap of games to download and play.

As for red dead, I absolutely love it. For all the reasons mentioned by others above, I just cant put it down. Simply brilliant.

 

I watched that video for much longer than I'm willing to admit! Looks addictive but a lot of just wandering around with the odd bit of action.

 

I currently have an Xbox 360 and a PS3 that due to time haven't really been used much for gaming over the past few years. I may get RDR1 as a trial to see how much I like it before splashing out loads. Only £12 from Argos.

 

What good is a decent console with next to no games to play? I cant think on one exclusive that Xbox has that would tempt me into looking at the console... Sea of thieves is about it and even that looks rubbish. Or perhaps Halo 11 or GOW 12?

PlayStation has a similar setup for paying monthly for old games which is also £7.99.
I have never had a single problem with online service so not sure where that has come from?
Having a 4k Blue-ray player is a big bonus for Xbox it has to be said. However the player itself isn't that good.
I agree, the Xbox One X is a fantastic machine but Microsoft made a huge error laying their cards on the table too early with its release. The next PlayStation at this moment in time is going to be way higher spec upon initial release.
If a concole is about gaming I struggle to see how anyone could choose the Xbox over a console with multiple award winning games....

 

RD1 still stands up to many current open world games. Still costing £12 says it all.

 

Nicknamed affectionately as the "hiking simulator" for a good reason. I find it thrilling, wandering, expecting the unexpected, the whizz and crack of a high calibre rifle passing your head on surround sound. Even the unexplained black screen with "you are dead"! Perma death and losing it all gives real meaning to every step, cautious, watching and most importantly the waiting to pounce on your prey." Grrrrrh.... get on the effing ground and don't move."

Four more episodes at the moment, gives the game a sense of action when editing down hours if not days to a 30 min vid.

 

R2D2 or C3PO?

 

Are you on commission? You make out all games are exclusives, and therefore if you don't have the exclusives there are no games to play. The truth is the vast majority of games are on both consoles and the standard user really isn't going to notice a difference in gameplay. If you don't have brand loyalty, or old games that as backwards compatible, then just buy the one you can get the best deal on.

That said, Forza Horizon 4 is an excellent exclusive if you're into racing games.

Sent from my Pixel using Tapatalk

 

Lets not turn this into another fanboy debate over playstation and xbox, but its not exactly like the xbox does not have award winning exclusives either? Btw Metro exodus is not a playstation exclusive, and dev tests actually showed it runs better on the one x than the ps4.

 

Forza Horizon 4 might be the most beautiful racing game I've ever played.

 

i think i'm leaning this way. given that i haven't had a console in about a decade (and so could be described as an aspiring casual gamer at best) and have no frames of reference (or particular passion) for frame rates and what not, i think the cheapest is the best

 

Not at all and as Optimistic Hornet has said lets not turn it into a fanboy session. Sorry I gave off the impression I wanted an argument. I do however like a healthy debate.
As I listed above there are far more exclusives on PS4 and as a gamer the bigger selection of games on a console the better. Seeing as Sony own multiple studios and are buying more all the time the gulf in unique exclusives will get bigger. Spider Man is the latest example of a fantastic game that Xbox wont have. Its a shame.
Out of interest what Xbox exclusives are there? I would genuinely like to know. A quick search on google reveals very few critically acclaimed games.
Titanfall was a great exclusive when the Xbox first game out and this is now available on PS4.

Forza 4 looks amazing and its a shame I cant play it.

 

It very much depends what side of the fence you are on, Microsoft are doing exactly the same thing buying up studios to go under the Microsoft Studios umbrella, for example they recently acquired Turn 10 and a while previously Rare.

Spiderman does look like a lot of fun, and the Uncharted games were brilliant. I thought the Last of Us was only ok and didn't really think it warranted all of its praise. Both systems have some good franchises, for every God of War there is a Gears of War and for every Horizon Zero Dawn there is another game like Halo. Gamers are going to be naturally more defensive about their own system, but really the whole thing is very balanced.

The two consoles are different though, and you can notice the difference between a PS4 Pro and an Xbox One X. The next console generation will also be intriguing and I would expect Playstation to close the gap but the new xbox also sounds intriguing if they can pull of everything they claim.

 

The next generation of consoles will be the last in physical form. To be honest I am surprised they aren't aiming towards the next gen being cloud based gaming already. Saying that, based on what I have seen you will still have some form of hardware but it wont be a console. Similar to the Steam Link setup but way more of the graphical processing will be done by the provider.
Working in the AV manufacturing industry I am lucky enough to do testing with pre-production run products across the whole industry including gaming. From what I have seen both consoles look very interesting. Xbox are still going in the direction of a multi-media device which personally is lost on me. Especially with the tech crammed into TVs these days.
One benefit of the cloud based system is cross play, it is no coincidence that Sony have now confirmed they will be joining the party in this respect.

 

It's also quite dangerous, I find myself playing a 'quick game' on a Friday night and not stopping until I'm late for work on Monday. It's the Fallout 4 of racing games.

 

I'm not sure which games are Xbox exclusives, to be honest I mainly have a console for split-screen/sofa multiplayer games. So instead of the high brow games I mostly play Fifa and COD etc. Fallout 4, GTA V, Forza Horizon, Life is Strange and (some day soon) RDR2 are the only single player games I play really.

I had a PS3, but switched to Xbox as I was disappointed at constantly hearing throughout its life-cycle how much potential the PS3 had without ever seeing it fully utilised. I currently have an Xbox One X, my only gripe with it is that the Xbox Live connectivity drops regularly on both wifi and wired, on the standard edition I didn't have any issues at all.

I'll probably decide which console to get next gen on a whim. I have no loyalty.

 

Cloud based is definitely the way forwards, unfortunately at the moment where I live internet is pretty poor so I would dread having to use an entirely cloud based system at the moment. Prior to the release of this generation of consoles there was that whole thing where Microsoft said the Xbox One was only going to support digital media. They soon backed down after the **** hit the fan, so I think we are possibly still a generation or two from going to that solution entirely. However I agree we will end up there sooner rather than later.

 

Haha don’t even get me started on Fallout 4, I’ve sunk over 50 hours into my latest save and still not finished the main story.

 

https://www.eurogamer.net/articles/digitalfoundry-2018-red-dead-redemption-2-face-off

Red dead runs best on Xbox, sorry BH this literally just popped up on my Facebook feed and I couldn’t resist lol.

 

haha good find!
I think you will find I didn't once say the Xbox one X wasn't the higher spec machine. Its an impressive beast. Having had a quick browse is seems it is also more expensive than the PS4 pro.
Reading that article is painful as the person clearly has no knowledge on resolutions claiming the machine can output at Native 4k which is 4096 x 2160, it cant. People like this are tricking the mainstream into thinking they are getting Native 4k devices. They aren't they are buying UHD products 3840 x 2160. Its the same the when HD ready and Full HD became mainstream and people were tricked into buying the wrong thing. Its plain wrong.
Having said all of that I have seen both units running side by side at a demo day on a UHD projector and the Xbox One X is marginally better when it comes to graphics. Most causal gamer's would never notice especially if they have nothing to compare it to.
Interestingly most mainstream TVs have 120Hz engines but the actual display is only rated to 60Hz. Hence why competitive gamers play on a monitor. If the Xbox One X can output higher than 60Fps most people would even be able to run it that way if connected to their TV.
One of my biggest problems in the gaming industry is the FPS argument. Very few people can see above 60 FPS. In no way does playing at 60fps or 100fps impact gaming performance at a competitive level. This has been proven many times. It has become as **** measuring exercise.

If at an E3 I see a whole host of decent looking games coming out on Xbox I wouldn't hesitate to fire mine back up. Alas, every year I leave very disappointed and if you have been you will see so do a lot of the Xbox fans.
Xbox stopped revealing their sales figures a year or so ago. Last published figures were Xbox were selling less than 8 million a year, PS4 is still selling 18 million a year and recently passed the 85 million sold world wide!

 

This is a myth, unfortunately. It has been repeated so many times over the years that it has stuck, but it simply isn't true. It's easy to simulate for yourself: play on a 144 hz monitor for 2 weeks with 144+ FPS, and then go back to a 60 hz monitor. You'll immediately notice the difference, and it isn't subtle.

Pro gamers do everything they can do maximise their FPS, even to the point of playing on lower graphics settings in some cases.

Keeping a high FPS during fast paced head-to-head twitch-based games like first person shooters is known to offer a competitive advantage, because the last thing you want to experience during frenetic action is a dramatic variation in frame rates. It throws off your aim and makes it harder to react to things as your brain has to process the variance on top of what's unfolding. There are loads of videos by pros where they talk about this; many Overwatch League competitors and coaches, for example, have discussed this (see Jayne, Seagull for example).

 

Have to agree with you. Supposedly with years of training a fighter pilot can see an enemy plane in 0.005 of a second. This is supposedly due to our eyes being analogue (unlimited capture rate), but our brain (digital) selecting roughly 24 frames a second. Your brain has the potential to select, for example, 10 frames in the first tenth of a second and the other 14 from the last nine tenths. Depending on how you brain has been trained to look out for specific information.

I recently tested my new PC and it can achieve almost 250 fps at 1080! Only problem is I need a better monitor now. Bragging complete.