41 - Red Dead Redemption 2

Played this game over 300 hours and still I didn't get to see everything and that is why I love this game so damn much: The Details. The crazy details and missions that hinge on horror and anxiety like the serial killer, Nosferatu, the Night Folk in the swamp trying to kill you, the weird house close to St. Annesburg, where someone has created this half animal-half human monster that is hanging from the ceiling and at least two different encounters with aliens, one in the old dilapitated church/school(?) in which you can see the actual UFO if you go there by night and everything turns greenish. The game is the most gorgeous looking I have ever seen, I feel like I actually get to know the characters and I still kind of like Dutch, I mean he did good things too before he went crazy. My absolute favorite though is Sadie. She has such a horrible trauma and at first she is all quiet when you bring her in the camp. You ask her what is wrong and she doesn't want to talk about it. And slowly she starts to get better, she starts to trust you and she become the meanest bitch ever and I LIVE for her 100%. She is working through that trauma and at times you can see that on the missions. Sadie should have her own game. As a side note, you can visit all the graves of the people you've lost like my two favorite Irish men Kieran and Sean, but also dear drinkin pal LENNY!. And of course in the end, Arthur's grave near the Hill Home. Mary visit the grave. (She wasn't the ex-wife, just the ex, I think one problem between Arthur and Mary was the fact that he didn't marry her..)

i know this ep is old as hell & probably no one will read this but i wanted to chime in with my answer to the "favorite side character" question: for me it's absolutely Albert Mason, the wildlife photographer. i'm kind of surprised he didn't get a mention on the podcast because imo he's such a clear foil for Arthur Morgan -- they have the same initials, and Albert looks almost exactly how Arthur would look if he had spent his life sleeping indoors & getting an education instead of roughing it with bandits from childhood. Albert Mason is who Arthur Morgan could have been, and you can see in Arthur's attitude that he develops a real fondness for Albert & even envies him. Arthur envies Albert's softness, his openness, his lack of shame when he makes a fool of himself, his clean conscience. for me that foil helped define & deepen Arthur Morgan more than any other character.

I completely and whole heartedly disagree with this. The ludo narrative friction really threw the game off for me, mixed with it being such a thoroughly unpleasant gaming experience. The story felt very generic, which made trying to struggle through the clunky gaming controls unrewarding

Love this game, came to follow and support this podcast via Lions Led By Donkeys and have become a huge fan, would love to see the guys cover Zelda either Breath of the Wild or Tears of the Kingdom

The whole discussion near the end about how RDR2 was an artistic video game didn't quite sit right with me. If the main thing making your game artistic is basically writing and story, that's great, but why make it a video game? You all brought up games that tell their story more through their gameplay mechanics, which to me is the best way to make video games their own unique category of art, but you all didn't seem to like the concept generally.

I love AJ's horse corner

I’ve never seriously played a video game before in my life, but the story on this game sounds interesting enough for someone like me. Wow!

lmao - josh remind me to dump in your DMs about some absolutely UNHINGED crunch grindset from the web/software development side of the entertainment industry. some real clangers

prior to listening this was my only knowledge of this game https://www.reddit.com/r/reddeadredemption/comments/afni4a/deluxe_bath_machine_roke_again/

Why can't you name horses swares in rdr2? I tried to name a horse Sam Bone in the game which was a nickname I would call my late dog. Apparently SAM BONE was too spicy language for the Puritans at Rockstar Games. Murder is cool but not PG level cursing

When y’all said there are two different deliveries of all the Arthur lines I literally did a spit-take. What a WASTE OF MONEY

This was really great! Love the video game episodes. Regrettably though I did laugh at the "Dutch angle" joke.

Listening right now and in terms of telling story in game design, when you get to the final camp, you can’t even donate money to the till or upgrade the camp outside what you can do through Pierson because Dutch has smashed the box.