Red Dead Redemption

While visiting my cousin, I managed to sneak a peak at him playing Far Cry 4. I proceeded to tell him about Far Cry 4's secret ending. He was actually surprised and thanked me for my input. We went into a further discussion about all the recent open world games that came out. I might have played Skyrim but ever-so-tried Fallout 3. I then made mention Red Dead Redemption where he proceeds to tell me "Oh someone gave me that. You want it?" To that effect, I said yes.

My nephew played it and told me how interesting the game was. I remember people giving praise for the graphics and story. Then they would poke fun at everything else. I remember Zero Punctuation Review of Red Dead Redemption. As usual, his reviews are spot-on. Every time I turn around I am failing. I see people reset and the controls are pretty horrible. Well, let me just tell you every single thing that has gone wrong in the first six hours of playing it.

1. I run by a group of people, stop to say hi, and then die when all of them decided to fire at me.
2. Before learning how to use dead eye slow-mo, I tried to shoot down a man about to die from hanging from a noose 5 times. He then dies. When I switch over to my pistol, the first shot breaks the rope.
3. I went to talk to a man about a deed to a house when I forgot which button was the break. My horse proceeds to strut into the man and interrupt whatever important mission/discussion I was meant to have.
4. A woman rides her horse next to mine, makes a sharp turn into me, and then proceeds to blame me for it.
5. A man stole from a caravan and ran out of the open. I shot his leg and noticed him limping away at a very good pace. The mission was to kill or capture. I had no idea how to capture him. I figured there was a tackle button and began running behind him. With no prompt, I took out my gun and shot his other leg. I guess a man with two legs shot is considered dead. 
6. I stumbled across a roped woman by what seemed to be a cannibal. Instead of giving me an option to talk to her, the game offered me to break her free or carry her. With no mission statement or goal in sight, I put her on my horse and went to town. Another mission cut with me on a stagecoach. After completing that mission, I called my horse but the woman was nowhere to be found. I only assume she fell off somewhere in the desert. 
7. I talked to a woman by a burning building about her loved one. When the conversation ended, I called my horse and accidentally pressed the button to cover by a rock. The moment I pulled out my gun, the mission failed with the lady still moaning about being alone. 
8. The sheriff wanted me to investigate a campsite. The game then took the time to explain about how to equip and use the other gun found on the ground. I fiddled around with the instructions as they came up. When they completed, the mission failed because I 'abandoned the sheriff'. I guess I was supposed to stick next to him as I was toying with my new gun.

I feel like Dan when saying "I hate everybody." At every given moment, I wanted to see how bad I could mess things up. It got to the point where I found myself wanting to shoot everybody I came in contact with. 

1. The deputies managed to kill everything before I could fire a shot into someone. They would run into my line of sight. 
2. A guy enlists me to sell his cure after he moans about dying from a gunshot. 
3. A woman freaks out and says it is all our fault when we shot down ten guys in a house where they were held hostage. 
4. A man told me that I couldn't shoot his hat. I was ready to prove him wrong that second.

These were all the things that I could remember. I started hating the game before I decided to make a game... within a game type of thing.

As a side note, I chose 4 new anime shows to watch: Chobits, Trigun, Serial Experiment Lain, and SteinsGate. I finished watching Trigun. My thoughts of if remained the same. I liked the daily mystery of the first half of the series. I found the introduction of the assassins to be fun but confusing approach to the second half. The anime seemed to try and rush things with the background of everything. After checking the wiki of the manga, I realized that a lot of motives and characterization was excluded from the main series. "They are evil. That's why." is the explanation that came to my mind. When a series is all about staying true to your character, you have to explain why the characters are still lingering around. What makes them unique, you know?

 1-31-2015