I’ve been a huge fan of Rockstar Games since– Well, it feels like since I was conceived if i’m honest. I’ve played almost all the Grand Theft Auto titles, I adore L,A Noire, I thought Midnight Club was ok but didn’t match Burnout 3, Max Payne is strange neo-noir thing, and cherish Bully more as a school memory than actual school memories. Some would call this a fanboy-ism and dismiss anything I say about Rockstar; that and probably the fact they started in Scotland and being Scottish I want them to succeed. I don’t have to hype them up though: They made a billion dollars in three days with their last installment of Grand Theft Auto. They could still be sniffing the cocaine off of a hookers nipple to this day with all that cash.

However, one of their worst games, Red Dead Revolver, has received two sequels that have nothing to do with the former. The first of which I had bought twice and the second time was the first Game of The Year editions I’d bought, I love Red Dead Redemption, it is fun and light. Then there is the sequel, eight years removed and it is strange. It’s strange because I’ve had several conversations where I’d be told, “This is how games used to be!” It’s not.

In the build-up and hype of it all, you saw ‘fanboys‘ yell on the internet about realism: how the horse testicles will shrink in the cold, the hair will grow in real (in-game) time, and weather affects your health. I have two words for the hyperbolic nature of games media surrounding Red Dead Redemption 2. One of which is an expletive and the other is “off,” because it isn’t, as The Guardian put it, “The most realistic video game ever made.” There are parts that are more realistic than The Crew 2‘s damage model, but there are also brothels out there without a venereal disease and we don’t advertise that. We should be advertising games for what they are, games.

Instantly, someone will try to tell me I’m wrong and I should like the game for reasons they do; I’m not saying the game is bad, the focus is more directed this way. I’m enjoying walking about being a rooting, tooting, cowboy shooting outlaw in 1899, but that doesn’t stop the issues I’ve come across. The first moment, of which I find hilarious, is when one screams “REALISM!!” on Twitter, and the next thing is Arthur Morgan (The protagonist) ripping the skin from a rabbit in one swoop like a wet glove off of a hand. Not a two-second glove job for sure, but not a twelve-minute act either.

The sun and the moon don’t go up like a Space X rocket and come back down with the same succession. It isn’t the Truman Show; having the sun plunge faster than the pound after June 23, 2016, as you are skinning a dear isn’t realistic. The so-called, “realism” isn’t the selling point. Red Dead Redemption 2 is a cowboy/outlaw simulator, and more so than Red Dead Redemption was when it did the skinning, the vast world, and several other things. My best analogy for the two is the poker has improved slightly but is much much slower. After all the drugs this was a self-indulgent project to create a simulator, not a fun game.

Phenixx Gaming is everywhere you are. Follow us on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.