Recent reviews by Ronin

The game experiments with some groundbreaking and unproven concepts such as making fun gameplay and an actual ending. It was also finished on release, truly the work of some pioneering mad bastards.

I gave the game a negative review on release because of a myriad of issues and broken promises - it was released in a beta state with missing systems and a whole lot of nothing. The core gameplay loop was excellent though, and the only saving grace the game had. In essence, the "gameplay" part of the "game" was good, everything else was a burning trainwreck.

I've now returned to revise this review after the release of the "Unlocked & Loaded" update, since I can safely say the game is more or less a complete product by now (but still with some issues and predatory monetization of it's premium cosmetic shop). I can gripe till kingdom come, but the fact of the matter is - I got thousands of hours of playtime from a game that costs peanuts by comparison to triple A(ss) titles nowadays, so it would be highly hypocritical of me to keep a negative review. If you're familiar at all with Vermintide series, you know the developers offer almost unmatched melee combat systems (a sobering experience after playing Space Marine 2 - which has bad melee combat), so Darktide is basically just Vermintide with guns...in space.

All in all, it's bound to give you your money's worth, even if you don't play for a million hours.

Probably the best bang-for-my-buck game that I bought in recent memory, even at full price. This is what some 8 years of development and rolling in enough money from GTA to allow for overindulgence looks like, ladies. The story is a typical tear jerker that one would kinda expect from a Red Dead title, the world is sprawling and alive with NPCs and wildlife, the shooting mechanics feel heavy and satisfying and everything in polished in spectacular animations.

Infact, there can be too much of a good thing, and that's the aforementioned overindulgence on the developers part. Your character packs up, aims, reloads, rides, walks, runs, etc. with such level of detail that it often comes at a detriment to gameplay - every corpse is body searched, every animal is skinned in such detail that I can probably open up my own butcher shop right about now, which is excellent except when you're seeing it for the 200th time. Your character's movements have weight and inertia that makes it feel sluggish, so often times you'll do this weird foot shuffle routine trying to pick up items or interact with the environment.

The missions themselves are your standard GTA fare, which means if you played any GTA game since forever, you can probably guess how Grand Theft Horse is gonna go. Follow this, fetch that, ♥♥♥♥ inevitably goes wrong, shoot that. It's very railroaded in an otherwise extremely sandbox game, and while I can understand there is an intriguing story to tell with a focused experience, the approach to some missions doesn't allow for any straying off the beaten path or alternative approaches.

Performance wise, I didn't have any issues starting up or running this game and I got it right at the start during release, when it was mostly bombed for performance issues. Then again I'm not running it on a toaster PC or from parts obtained from an underground Indonesian tattoo parlor - so your results may vary.

Overall, if you're into an epic storyline and a really immersive wild west game, I can definitely recommend RDR2, unless you're ADHD to the point where you need to shoot or set something ablaze every walking moment in a high pitched, snappy action, to get your adrenaline going and keep your pitch black heart still pumping.

Also, the real villain of the story is Abigail. It's a story of a man who goes from having epic adventures with his bromance buddies, to being chained down to a home with a nagging wife who's face you have to wake up to every morning. Truly a tragedy where the sweet release of death only happens at the end of RDR1.