Red Dead Redemption II

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Alex79
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Re: Red Dead Redemption II

Post by Alex79 »

Interesting (very long) article about Red Dead on Polygon, if anyone is interested: https://www.polygon.com/2019/4/22/18298 ... -criticism
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Red Dead Redemption II

Post by JaySevenZero »

Here's where you can contribute your thoughts and opinions of Red Dead Redemption II for potential inclusion in the forthcoming podcast.

A friendly reminder to all that where feedback for the podcast is concerned, we love it - but self-editing (brevity) is appreciated. We do want to include a breadth of opinions where appropriate, but no-one wants a discussion podcast that’s mainly reading. Better to save yourself time and cut to the chase if you can.
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Alex79
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Re: 401: Red Dead Redemption 2

Post by Alex79 »

Red Dead Redemption 2 is my favorite game of all time. I was donated a copy by a very generous forum member, and it came at a time where I was personally in a pretty low place and needed something big to escape in to. I couldn't have found a more perfect andidote to life.

The game is just utterly magnificent. The world felt as real as any place I've ever visited, and the characters like real people I knew. The writing is fantastic throughout, and the story really struck me with its twists and turns, highs and lows, and has stuck with me ever since. It was just a perfect character arc, and the epilogue felt both nostalgic and optimistic - despite us knowing full well of the eventual outcome.

The game itself was a joy to play. I could go on for hours, but I'll mention one story here. I awoke early one morning down in the swamps, and took two horses up north for a hunting expedition. We rode up throughout the morning and arrived around lunch time. I set up camp and went fishing for some dinner. After snacking on some fresh fish and coffee I took my rifle along with one the horses and headed up to the mountains. After an afternoon of stalking my prey I bagged myself a bear and an elk. I loaded up the horses and rode on back down to camp as the sun set. I lay the skins down next to the frozen lake and indulged in a spot of night fishing to catch myself some tea. Fish and whiskey saw the night off and I lay down to sleep. The next morning I rode back down in to town to sell my wares. As I made my way back to the main camp my friends all greeted me, and I them.

It was one of the most satisfying couple of hours I've ever had with a game. Nothing scripted, nothing mission based making me do it. I just planned a day's activity and went about my business. It just highlights the freedom of the game. Go anywhere, do anything. I was Arthur Morgan. I was a cowboy.

I didn't just enjoy this game, I absolutely adored it. Sometimes, something comes along, and you can't imagine how anything will ever top it. One day I'll look back on the games I've played over the years, and if there has been anything between then and now which made me feel so passionately about a game, I shall be very surprised. I wouldn't change a thing about Red Dead Redemption 2. For me, personally, it was just about as perfect as a game can get.

THREE WORD REVIEW: Epic, beautiful, incredible.
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Miner Willy
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Re: 401: Red Dead Redemption II

Post by Miner Willy »

Red Dead Redemption 2 probably isn’t my absolute favourite game of the many hundreds I’ve played in the last few decades but its definitely in the conversation. On a purely technical level though its almost certainly the most impressive.

My personal experience with the game mirrors the one I had with the first game. In both games whilst I was extremely impressed with the look and feel I had real challenges with the pacing and
in both cases I stopped to play other games after a week or so and had to come back several months later and start a new save. Both times I fell in love with it that second time around.

It is so difficult to strike the right balance between the freedom of a vast sandbox and the narrative impetus necessary to drive a story over several dozen hours but time and time again Rockstar show themselves capable of the task. What I love about this studio more than any other is that they don’t cut corners, they don’t scrimp on voice acting, they don’t duplicate assets and this combined with the incredible attention to detail that they have for everything from individual bird sounds to the way empty cases erratically eject themselves from guns as you’re firing gives their open world games a level of polish that I think everyone else can only aspire to.

I think what sold the game to me at the second time of asking was the van der Linde gang themselves. At first I’d written the camp off as a ‘mission select & resupply’ area. Once I stopped to talk to the NPCs there the quality of the casting, the acting, the animation and the conversation logic meant that I started to care about my companions on missions and developed real feelings, both positive and negative, about my fellow gang members. Sadie Adler in particular I found to be a wonderfully well-written character with genuine depth and, much as I’ll always love John Marston, I do kinda wish that it had been Sadie who we’d got to play as during the Epilogue and Post-Game.

The performances are delightfully understated. Even Micah isn’t a moustache-twirling trope.

Then there’s Arthur. I’m going to miss Arthur.

The game isn’t perfect – there are challenges with pacing especially early on and again in the Epilogue which was probably a couple of hours too long. And I’m not convinced it marries up perfectly with the original which is obviously an issue that prequels often have. But if you stick with it and don’t let that bother you the rewards are fantastic.

I look forward to seeing what really went down in that Blackwater heist in Red Dead 3!

Three word review: YER OKAY GURL
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Re: 401: Red Dead Redemption II

Post by ironedflemming »

Three word review: Amazing, Aggravating, Disappointing
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Chopper
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Re: 401: Red Dead Redemption II

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3WR:

Greet/Shoot NPC
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Alex79
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Re: 401: Red Dead Redemption II

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I'd like to add to the conversation how bitterly disappointed I am that Rockstar have totally abandoned single player story DLC. First with GTA V and now this. Not everyone can or wants to get heavily involved in the online side of things, but I so desperately wanted to return to that world and play around some more as John or Sadie, or any one of the other characters introduced in the game. We could have had the Blackwater Heist, Sadie's Bounty Hunting Adventures, the possibilities were endless. The GTA 4 add ons were some of the best parts of the game, and it's just a damn shame that Rockstar didn't feel like they wanted to tell any more stories after the closing credits.
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Re: Red Dead Redemption II

Post by Stanshall »

Proper thoughts to come in the podcast thread once I've let this sink in but I have to say that I was wrong and that RDR2 is one of the most amazing games I've ever played. I've just seen finished it after going through the main quest. I really don't want this to be over.

Now I know how it all ends, I want to go back and just enjoy my time living there.
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Re: Red Dead Redemption II

Post by Alex79 »

<3

Have you played the epilogue? It is essential.
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Stanshall
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Re: Red Dead Redemption II

Post by Stanshall »

Yeah, the whole thing now. The epilogue somehow ended up being the best bit for me. The music choices and dialogue and direction were absolutely amazing, it honestly made me think of The Wire at times.

To my shame, I never properly finished the first game and what I did do was almost a speed run skipping dialogue to get to the end. I wasted young and dumb. I'm definitely going to go back for another proper playthrough. I heard the One X BC version is pretty damn impressive.

I can understand why I fell off it pretty early on, but having now completed it, I know it's going on the very short shortlist of narrative driven games that I will replay over the years. I think I remember you saying you felt sad that it was over and now I totally get that. Thinking back about everything the characters went through, and I with them, it only solidifies my feeling that this was something really special.
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Stanshall
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Re: 401: Red Dead Redemption II

Post by Stanshall »

As a mechanical creation, as a plaything, it's both convoluted and shallow. Simple tasks like picking up the correct item from a table or hitching your horse can be frustrating and laborious. There are so many mundane interactions with the world which seem needlessly involved, whether this is milking a cow, eating an apple or handing in loot for the camp kitty. And yet, over time, you come to appreciate the deliberate pacing and weight of these everyday actions as you begin to inhabit the world and the characters. These controls have personality.

While this might sound like apologist nonsense, I will go further. After a couple of years of falling off narrative-driven games and finding open worlds a chore, I had concluded that my tastes had simply changed, that I could only be satisfied by a more 'pure' arcade experience and that responsive mechanics and deep scoring challenges were all that pushed my buttons any more. Purely for the podcast, and prompted by the enthusiasm of Alex79uk, I decided to give this another chance and mainlined the story.

Over the space of four days, Rockstar made me completely re-evaluate my 'tastes' and reminded me of the incredible breadth and depth of the medium. This is all down to the richly complex, engaging characters and to the staggering, absorbing world where their bittersweet drama plays out. Narratively, this game is an unparalleled achievement in the medium. There is a humanity to these hopeful strugglers and tormented comrades which made me laugh and cry and reflect on my own paths through life. I already miss them but I know I will join them again often down the road.

TWR: All them years.
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Re: 401: Red Dead Redemption II

Post by drushe1983 »

I loved Red Dead Redemption II from start to (eventual) finish. Despite the culmination of the game feeling like the final entry in the Lord of the Rings saga ending several times over, it was a triumph in character development, storytelling and world building. It set the scene for the events to follow in the original Red Dead Redemption of 2010.

The story of Arthur Morgan, voiced to perfection by Roger Clark, is one of my favourite journeys taken with any videogame protagonist in my 28 years playing games. The tens of hours spent with Arthur hunting, looting, shooting, fighting & bathing were so true and honest, that I felt I had lived a life with a true companion and friend. The character writing in the game is arguably Rockstar's finest since GTA IV with a true arc to Arthur's tale. The richness of writing extends to other members in the world; Dutch 'I have a plan' van der Linde, Abigal, Charles, Uncle, John, Lenny, Javier, Hosea and of course the wonderful Sadie. The gang feels authentic and time spent at camp with your family is time you long for as the story and the gang unravel.

The world of Red Dead Redemption is feather in Rockstar's impressive cap. From the striking beauty of the landscape home to a varied collection of wildlife ripe for hunting, to the variety of architectural styles adding a rich distinctive look and feel to every place I hitch up my horse. The world has been described as alive, but I think that a more apt descriptive for it is that of a character. Like Arthur, the world changes and grows with the times; whether it is Quincy Harris Memorial Hall in Saint-Denis, houses sporadically dotted through the landscape, a railway to knit the world together or once prosperous forests now felled and left desolate.

Despite the games positives it is not without criticism. The game has been criticised for having details that are unnecessary; from the lengthy looting animations of the fallen, the graphic harvesting routine of hunted wildlife, the rummaging through internal environments and lets not forget the shrinking horse testicles, yes, it is cold. In other open world games you hold said button for a short period next to something or someone and immediately inherit their bounty. Testicle physics notwithstanding, I rather enjoyed the in-depth animations as this level of realism added to the authenticity of the world, making my plundered bounties feel all the more deserved. One shortcoming the game does have is the hand-holding in the main missions. Too often I felt constrained by the developers requirement for me to stand on place x at a specified time, and given the freedom you have to roam and explore every corner of the map, you are a prisoner to the restrictions of game design. Surprising that the main design feature of the games narrative is the thing that breaks the experience (at times for me).

To truly capture my feelings of the game I will leave you with my time spent at Watson's Cabin. While exploring the world in those early hours with Arthur I came across a little cabin tucked away on the side of a hill in West Elisabeth. Upon entering it I was greeted by the an elderly lady who after some initial amusing dialogue became increasingly agitated by my presence. Feeling threatened I hogtied her, dumped her bound and screaming in the cellar and helped myself to a shotgun. I returned a little while later to see if she had gotten free, as I entered, I was pushed back from the door and greeted by four very angry men. Entering dead eye mode I dispatched my would-be foes and decided that I should cover my tracks. Believing the cellar too small to take my latest victims, I circled the property in search of a suitable place only to stumble a grave, clearly belonging to the old lady. I placed the bodies of what turned out to be her four sons with their mother and left. This unexpected emergent micro-narrative that had no impact on the main narrative astounded me, as it was completely there for me to find or miss entirely. A touch of brilliance from the masters of open world storytelling.

Even if the van der Linde gain acknowledge that they live 'in a world that don't want us no more' I hope Rockstar have the good sense to let the old west live on for generations to come.

A must play masterpiece.

CRTWR: John Made It
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Re: 401: Red Dead Redemption II

Post by Senorb123 »

The storytelling and characters in this game are absolutely incredible. The environment and attention to detail are just amazing. I have never really gotten into Rockstar games. Whether it be the GTA series, Bully, or the 1st Red Dead game. I still don't. This game is well made. I can feel the love that went into its creation. I just can't stand the actual process of playing it. Everything is a absolute chore to do. Riding from one mission to the next is tedious, and while there is plenty to do along the way to the next mission I didn't find myself interested in any of the extra stuff. The game feels like it's good at everything but great at nothing. Well I mean its great at storytelling. I just wish it didn't feel so sloggy to get to the story points. This is just my opinion. I don't get a lot of time to game so it just feels so slow to make any progress in this game. I hate to criticize this game but I just don't think it's for me.
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Re: 401: Red Dead Redemption II *recording 17th Jan.*

Post by Electric Crocosaurus »

Read Dead Redempton 2 is the Netflix series of the video game world, with a budget that most of its contemporaries can only dream of, moments of undeniable brilliance and peerless levels of art design and execution. Yet it’s also padded to an unnecessarily RPG-like length, without having enough story beats to match its gargantuan runtime.

The narrative is partly hampered by starting with the Van der Linde gang already in decline. Even without its prequel status it’s clear where the story will go from the off, meaning the arguments between Arthur and the less-savoury elements of the gang wear thin long before the end. It’s a shame, because missions are varied and memorable; the night out, the train heist, the plantation assault. If we had seen more of the gang in their heyday then maybe their decline would have hit harder.

Yet if the story fails to have the emotional heft of its predecessor, RDR2s world picks up the slack. The awe of nature is in full evidence as you ride around on horseback and, like San Andreas before it, it’s a pleasure just to explore Rockstar’s detailed world. A flawed masterpiece then, but one that feels unique among an increasing selection of cookie-cutter open worlds.
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Re: 401: Red Dead Redemption II *recording 17th Jan.*

Post by See Mi Yah »

My most cherished aspect of Red Red Redemption 2 is its dark supernatural underbelly. I realise that the Cane and Rinse podcast will contain spoilers however I choose not to go into specifics here. Suffice it to say that if you thoroughly explore the map, at varying times of day and night, you will be richly rewarded with images and stories from beyond our world. This game is, amongst many other things, one of the great supernatural westerns, so long as you know when and where to look. Rockstar have previous form in this department with Undead Nightmare being the most pertinent example. But they have never went all-in quite like this before. This is their Symphony of the Night. Flip its world upside-down and there's another story waiting to be told. I hear and understand the many fans who are calling out for another Undead Nightmare, another alternate universe. Open your eyes, you're already there.
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Re: 401: Red Dead Redemption II *recording 17th Jan.*

Post by MarkHoog »

RDR2 takes immersive gaming to the next level with its attention to detail, its intricate systems and its vivid, breathtakingly gorgeous world (if there’d been a Photo Mode from Day 1 I would have gone full Jay Taylor on this one – never go full Jay Taylor!). However, I somehow never managed to fully internalize the game’s controls, I couldn’t get my head around the inconsistencies in the crime system, and if there even is a way to ditch obsolete guns or set a certain bullet type as default, I sure as heck never found it. So in the end I never really felt ‘in control’ of the game.

I felt even less in control when I’d stop free roamin’ to do a story mission that insta-failed the second I strayed an inch from its objectives. Like with GTA V, playing RDR2’s campaign often feels like a giant tutorial that never lets you ride with the training wheels off. On top of that, an early Bank Heist landed me with enough cash to last me the rest of the game. Not only did this render Dutch’s whining about more money all the more frustrating, it also diminished my incentive to do side stuff, like hunting for luxurious pelts or robbing trains. It just wasn’t worth the hassle anymore.

Now to me, RDR2’s most interesting part was the smaller story involving Edith and Archie Townes, the widow and son of the man Arthur beats up early in the game, adding to his untimely demise. This was a well written, melancholic tale of regret, forgiveness and, well, redemption. So when I met Archie during a free roaming binge that led me to Annesburg, I gladly helped him out and finally saw him and his mother head off towards a better life. I felt a warm sense of accomplishment, like I had made a difference in a rotten world, somewhat redeeming Arthur in the face of death.

However… a few hours later a main story cutscene brought me back to Annesburg, after which another cinematic was immediately triggered: I saw an ashamed, sick looking Edith Townes about to step into a cabin with a stranger! “Back so soon?” I thought, finding this turn of events too jarring to be true. And lo, some online research suggested the game had never actually processed my earlier free roam into Annesburg and showed me the opening cutscene of a side quest I had already finished. In doing so, it inadvertently made it seem like Edith Townes had fallen back into a life of poverty and prostitution. (You’d think playtesters play missions in different orders to avoid such anachronisms…).

No matter how often I told myself this was just a silly glitch, for the remainder of my playthrough I couldn’t shake the feeling that Arthur Morgan had failed to redeem himself after all…
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Re: Our next podcast recording (17.1.20) - 401: Red Dead Redemption II

Post by Pconpi »

Got this day one and loved it. Broke down a few points.

World: Having grown up hiking and fishing in Idaho and Montana, the natural landscapes of the American West have always been a respite from the stress of modern life. Video games have also been an escape, so it was a joy to find the two combined in Red Dead Redemption II. This scratched a gaming itch I didn't know I had, hiking simulator. I still fire this up and wander through the Grizzlies, taking in vistas, making a pot of coffee, and casting a line as I get a small dose of the feeling when doing this in real life. As wild places are always under threat of disappearing I’m all for capturing a digital version in perpetuity while also fighting to maintain what we have left.

Tone: This is the first Rockstar game I’ve played where I wanted to keep order in the world. The sardonic tone of GTA5 lead me to participate in disrupting its world in chaos without feeling remorse. Red Dead Redemption II's world had a sense of fragility and innocence that I wanted to preserve and the pangs of guilt I felt when I fumbled my greeting and shot a citizen dead in the street stuck with me. Did Rockstar intentionally obfuscate those controls to cause my moral crisis?

Gameplay:
I was neutral to the missions and gameplay. I didn’t find it laborious but also didn’t find myself smiling with joy gunning down Pinkertons. I did yearn for more reward for exploration. I was hoping that getting a gunslinger’s revolver would have noticeable impact on my play, but I didn’t really notice any difference besides switching between sidearms and longarms depending on my position.

Narrative: Dutch Van Der Linde is who I will remember from Red Dead Redemption II. I was captivated every time he was on screen and I never doubted why all these people kept following him for "one last score". From that first rallying speech in the snowy cabin I was enthralled by his charisma and desperation. Each subsequent act of ruthlessness against his preached values had me conflicted over whether to give up on this man who had cobbled together a resourceful community out of sheer personality. “This place, ain't no such thing as civilized. It's man so in love with greed, he has forgotten himself and found only appetites.”

Muisc: I must mention the brilliance of the D’Angelo “May I? Stand Unshaken” song and ride combo. The gameplay was a boring ride that I had done a hundred times at that point but the combo of the night lighting, cinematic camera, narrative arc, and that damn song had my arms prickling with the emotional weight. “May I stand unshaken, Amid, amidst a crashing world.”
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Re: Our next podcast recording (17.1.20) - 401: Red Dead Redemption II

Post by Steve Arran »

Not unlike the beautiful flower encased by Arthur Morgan’s bedside, Red Dead Redemption 2 only truly bloomed for me on a second play through. I was amazed with tech on display and enjoyed my play through, but despite a solid two weeks of gaming I still felt I’d rushed it; leaving side missions unfinished and blasting through missions in the final act rather than savouring. So, I resolved that play through two was going to be all about moseying; completing story missions when it felt right, not just when they spawned on the map. And that’s when I found out about the flower and the game completely unfurled into one of the most beautiful experiences I’ve ever had.

I won’t spoil it for those who have yet to learn but that flower had a backstory. It’s revealed in a camp conversation between Arthur and Mary Beth -in which she also unveils her hopes and dreams for the future. It was at that moment where I truly felt that these characters were REAL people-not simulations-with pasts, futures and softer sides to their hard edges. And once that hit me I noticed it in everyone. This is only the second game I’ve ever cried at* due to my attachment to the characters** and their struggles. This made the ending credits especially poignant; all the surviving characters going on to live lives regardless of our interaction, though each tinted with the glaze of ennui in their eyes.

The game goes a long way to make this world live on a human scale (not to mention the impressive bestiary of fauna). Should you dally collecting the debts form Downes his widow will show up to camp and explain that he’s dead. Nearly every single NPC will react to you differently depending on when you visit them in the story eg. The San Denis doctor will enquire about your health if you deliver the injured man to him after you have been diagnosed with TB.

Speaking of that diagnosis, I think it was an almost revolutionary move for Rockstar to make a playable character actually mortal. You die all the time in games as do NPCs, but you can always respawn or reload. But whatever you do in this game, Arthur is doomed, and with each step and story mission, you are heading for the end, not just the close of the story.

Endings saturate this game. The environmental story telling alone features suicide cults, star crossed lovers fatally separated by war, fatal love triangles, the loss of children, the aforementioned injured man being hanged for murder, a famous figure skater cursed to rot in hell; all of which weave into the larger narrative of the ending of eras, that we have a finite amount of time before our bell is tolled, and that we should try and make the best choices throughout that magnificent, beautiful journey. But for all that, we don’t need to rush and the joy in life- as in this game- comes from taking a moment to stop and smell the flowers.

*hello The Last of Us
** And my horse, sniff

Three Word Review: Perfect Ennui Simulator
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Alex79
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Re: Our next podcast recording (17.1.20) - 401: Red Dead Redemption II

Post by Alex79 »

So - did anyone ever find that girl that had been kidnapped? There's a certain store towards the north of the map that definitely appears to house some of her belongings, but I never managed to find the girl, alive or dead. Searching online at the time I was playing the game, nor had anyone else...
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Re: Our next podcast recording (17.1.20) - 401: Red Dead Redemption II

Post by ThirdDrawing »

Alex79uk wrote: January 3rd, 2020, 2:42 pm I'd like to add to the conversation how bitterly disappointed I am that Rockstar have totally abandoned single player story DLC.
I find it quite refreshing to buy a game and get the complete content when I pay for it.

I have mixed feelings about RD2. I enjoyed the experience. It's well crafted, looks beautiful and plays well. While I do appreciate they didn't just remake the same environments as RD1, the island plantation part feels out of place in the story.

I really liked Arthur's ironic fate, and I got the "good" ending. The bit with John at the end was a nice surprise.

Overall, the story feels a little pointless. It's pretty clear that Arthur hadn't been thought of when the original game was written and shoehorning him into the backstory when he's not even mentioned during the original game is a little weird.

I think if they had released the games in opposite order, it would have better served the story. We get to know the gang, get to know John, then see John hunt them all for revenge knowing why he wanted it.

The game wasn't bad, it just felt a little like the Star Wars prequels.
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