Early on John meets Nigel West Dickens, a slimy, snake oil peddling charlatan that asks for John’s help selling some of his wares. Realizing that John is naturally talented with a pistol, he asks John to put on a demonstration of marksmanship and attribute it to his cure-all remedy, promising him a few bucks in ret

It's more than just pointing out that people can't come back for the grave. There are no continues in real life. That much is obvious. What I will say though is that I'm coming at this from a humorous perspective. I'm engaging my fellow fans in a conversation to laugh about all of the ridiculous stuff that goes down in Red Dead Redemption II . Maybe the things that happened to me didn't happen to you and vice versa. Some of these issues may not even be alarming to others. That's fine too. Again, all I'm trying to do is engage in the conversation. I also want to make it clear that I'm having an enormously good time with the game. It's everything I wanted from a sequel and more. Well, mostly. I would have preferred it not to be a prequel, but that's a whole other rant. There are some light mission spoilers ahead, but I keep the exact details to a mini

A few days later, John finds the newly freed man asleep on a bench at a train station. Waking him up, John realizes that he is stoned out of his gourd on opium. John reunited the man and his true love all right, a big ol’ pipe of opium. The man nonsensically waves John off, telling him he’s waiting for the train before dipping out into an opiate laden nap. Good job John; you just threw a man headlong back into a life ending addict

Member the games you used to play? We member. The basement at the Hardcore Gamer office has a section known as the Crust Room, with an old grey couch and a big old CRT TV. All the classic systems are down there collecting dust, so in an effort to improve the cleanliness of our work space, we dust off these old consoles every so often and put an old game through its paces, just to make sure everything stays in working order. We even have a beige computer with a floppy disk drive.

Part of what made Red Dead Redemption great was its characters. John Marshton was one of the better protagonists in a Rockstar game, which is not exactly a small feat given some of the other games they've put out. Giving up his outlaw life to be a family man after a bank robbery went awry, he maintains his tough exterior but seems to be making an honest attempt at being a decent human, even if doing so within the confines of the law is somewhat negotiable. The bar was set high enough with Marshton where the only thing I'm mildly worried about with Red Dead Redemption 2 is whether or not the new protagonist can match him. Aside from the lead there were numerous other characters. Nigel West Dickens was one of Marshton's more entertaining companions. Dickens was a swindler and snake oil salesman if there ever was one, but he did assist John on a few occasions, even if it was painfully obvious John wanted nothing more than to pistol whip him.

That's how the law works, right? You just click Openworldpilot pay some money for it to go away? Well, that's how it works in regards to bounties in Red Dead Redemption II . All except for story bounties like Blackwater. It’s a little more than ridicul

After a few days John is good enough to start helping around on the ranch like any gunslinger who recently received a near fatal wound would. Before too long John is working with the US Marshalls and some other interesting characters. In the same vein as Grand Theft Auto, John ends up doing odd jobs for these varied characters to help form an alliance for another go at Fort Mercer. This second attempt goes better, except in victory it turns out Williamson is a cowardly bastard who fled to Mexico. This seems bad, but this also means that Mexico is unlocked and border crossing was much easier a little over a century ago.

Many of these interactions with the game's NPCs will likely result in finding new missions and quests, such as a late night trip to a nearby saloon, where one character wanted me to go out on a mission and take photographs with an early 1900s-era flash camera. Other interactions can get hostile, such as another instance where I tried to rob an incoming traveler on horseback, only to see him still watching me -- warily, gun drawn -- as I rode on past him. And yet, some of these interactions can be completely unexpected, or even downright hilarious. In what was easily the funniest moment of our demo, I had Arthur greet a fellow traveler, only to see his horse get startled, kick the man in the head, and end up leaving him dead on the road; this left an audible gasp from myself and the Rockstar reps with us during the demo, only to bust out laughing after.

For those unaware, Red Dead Redemption 2 takes place in 1899. I say that to make it clear, as if it wasn't clear enough already, that phones do not exist in this period. That means you can't take selfies like a millennial. Well, Rockstar found a way to work around that. You can get a camera from the first Stranger mission that appears in Valentine. You can then take selfies by putting the camera on the ground. Here's the thing though. Who's operating the camera? Is it the ghost of one of your lost comrades? Spo