So, let's see what SPOnGcast's Mat Murray thought about Multiplayer. Surely there must be some argument?
Let's get into this quickly, because I haven't got all day and time is money and all that. I loved
GTA IV, I mean really loved it. I wrote about it every day on forums, I put a little countdown in my forum sig, and I even recorded special little
GTA podcasts about it, which seven people listened to.
Fast forward to today, and I should have felt the same or
Red Dead Redemption, except I don't. I heard it was coming, sure. I even got a bit excited about the online multiplayer stuff, but
Red Dead never quite got me in the way that
GTA IV did, and I don't know why. Here's the score: yes, I love the graphics; yes, the game is dripping in atmosphere like a bag of Haribo is dripping with E-numbers; and yes, the characters are great, but even with all that, it still hasn't quite captured me.
Firstly, the horsing around. I mean literally, the travelling on horses from place to place. It's nice and all, you know, idly trotting along until you see deer then it's “BANG BANG BANG AHAHA I GOT YOU HMM YEAH LET'S SKIN YOU YOU LITTLE DEER OH DEAR SEE WHAT I DID THERE OH LOOK, FLOWERS”.
After that initial rush of bombing to Fort Mercer to get shot in the dick by a tramp with a rifle, the actual horse riding hasn't done much with me. For me, even driving from place to place in
GTA was fun. The rush of weaving in and out of traffic, and flying over ramps; they were all fun, but the travelling from town to town in
Red Dead just isn't doing it for me, unfortunately.
My second gripe is the online gameplay. Oh man, before this game came out I was more excited for the online modes than the single-player campaign. But it has been really disappointing so far. The free-roam mode; the mode touted as a giant open space where you'll roam the lands only to meet another eight player-controlled characters, and you'll duel it out until the sun comes up in order to take over a settlement.
Well, that never happened. Instead you'll come online, one of your friends will invite you to their posse, the game will load, and you'll be somewhere in the same town as your friends. You will eventually find them after they mentioned they were next to the cow flying in the air as if it was a crow. Yeah, the bugs – don't get me started on the bugs.
So, you eventually find them next to the flying cattle, but then you decide to do a mission, a mission against computer-controlled characters. Well, you do that mission, then as you've probably levelled up, you decide you want to upgrade your nag to something a little more, stalliony. Oh, but to do that you've got to leave your posse and exit through another menu, then upgrade, then you get back no the server, ALONE. No friends, no posse, and certainly no flying cows. And it's this fragmented online experience that has turned one of the year's most exciting online prospects to one of disappointment and frustration.
What's your opinion of RDR online? Tell us in the Comments below
