My new thing is Western vidya, inspired by RDR2's recent PC release.
Red Dead Redemption 2
I feel like most people here who would have cared to play this game have probably already done so by now, but I'm still going to share my thoughts on it. RDR2 is largely carried by its two biggest strengths. One is the enormous, beautiful world, packed full of people to meet, animals to hunt, secrets to find, crimes to commit, and all of that other open world shite Rockstar gives us. I really like that the animals behave like actual animals, and that even the predators will usually try to flee rather than attack you. It's a pleasant break from franchises like Far Cry that deliberately make their animals insanely aggressive because they think it's funny. I didn't think I'd like the heavy focus on realism when I first heard about it, but it grew on me, and managing the more realistic needs of your character soon became an interesting new detail to complement my explorations. I can't believe I'm saying this, but I like that you have to eat and sleep, care for your horse, store most of your equipment on your horse, etc.
The other key strength of the game is its writing. It's wonderfully sincere and tragic from start to finish, and it's incredible for me to think that these same writers were just a few years ago churning out shallow, dated, cynical pop culture references with the GTA series when they were capable of this kind of strong dramatic work the whole time. The basic setup is of course that it's a prequel to RDR, focusing on a gang of twenty or so outlaws led by eventual RDR villain Dutch van der Linde. Every one of these characters is distinctive and interesting in their own way, and it's a joy to hang around in the camp to watch them chat, play games, sing songs, party, and plan robberies - and take part in any of these activities yourself. The player character, Arthur Morgan, is the best of them all and the worst of them all. He more than anyone else seems to recognize that no matter what wild promises Dutch makes about their future, the gang's activities just aren't sustainable in the modern world, and yet his life of crime and violence has left him unprepared to do anything other than continue down the same destructive path. If not for a very ill-advised decision to break up the gang in the fifth chapter and put the story on hold for a few action-heavy, plot-light missions, and maybe a couple of nitpicks like the fact that I didn't find Dutch to be even remotely charismatic or compelling, and an unnecessary late-game twist about a traitor in the gang that I felt weakened the thematic clash between Arthur and the game's main antagonist, I'd call RDR2 a narrative masterpiece.
I just wish the rest of the game could have lived up to the strength of the writing and the open world. The biggest flaw for me are the controls. Yes, I know that Rockstar games have never had great controls, but this game feels like a major step backwards from the first RDR and GTA V. The controls aren't just bad, they are buck wild. They feel like they were designed by aliens. Like, the aim button is also the button you have to hold down to non-violently interact with people. That's led to me accidentally threatening innocent people I only wanted to chat with more than a few times. And the fire button can also just be the aim button, depending on the context. How do you do that? Seriously, what is the thought process that leads to such a batshit design scheme? And there's more! What the hell is up with those shitty radial menus for your equipment, where you have to highlight your wanted gear (but don't hit a button), wait as the game does absolutely nothing, and then pull up the menu again to highlight the gear so you can use it? I don't even know if it's just a glitch that the first time you use the menu you can almost never actually activate your equipment. That's how bad it is! Continuing on, why do you have to hold a button for a couple of seconds instead of just tapping it for so many mundane actions? Why do you have to keep tapping a button to sprint or gallop? Why is the reload button the same button you use for melee attacks?
Speaking of the combat, it's not good. It doesn't seem to be any more sophisticated than the first RDR's combat. The cover system still feels very rudimentary and awkward, with your character seemingly confused on a regular basis about what he's supposed to be crouching behind and how to emerge from it, and the aiming is so slow and sluggish that you're pretty much forced to rely on the auto-aim system. "Slow and sluggish" could be applied to the game as a whole, really. Like I mentioned earlier with the inventory, there are a lot of issues with responsiveness, where the game simply does not do what you're telling it do via the controls, and then doesn't bother telling you why either. I'm not the first person to have suggested this, but I honestly think that Rockstar prioritizes its animations remaining smooth and consistent on screen over promptly responding to player input. For example, if you're sprinting past a shopkeeper and you hit the button to interact with them, pretty much any other game made by any other dev would have you stop mid-sprint and begin your transaction, whereas Rockstar will ignore your input and have your character continue their sprint and not let you interact with the shopkeeper until you stop sprinting and stand still in front of him. That sort of design philosophy is frustrating. Yes, there should be a balance between having things make sense on screen and allowing the player a certain level of convenience, but Rockstar leans far too heavily towards the former. The lengthy, elaborate animations for everything, requiring even more precise positioning, don't help on this matter. It's neat the first few times you see your character carefully skinning an animal, looting a corpse, or searching a cupboard. It's not so interesting after you've seen them a hundred times.
Despite its flaws, this is still a terrific game, and one that I would recommend pretty much everyone play. The things it does well, it does arguably better than any other game out there.
Call of Juarez: Gunslinger
I haven't played the other Call of Juarez games yet, although they're coming up. This one's good, though. It's a fun, stylish Western FPS that encourages you to rack up points by killing enemies in quick succession and in unique ways, and maximizing your score is a lot harder than it seems when you first start playing. The main story is essentially a retired gunslinger entertaining a few people at a bar with a series of tall tales in which he claims to have fought alongside and against pretty much every one of the Wild West's most famous outlaws, with the details of every level changing whenever he remembers new facts or his listeners interject with objections or corrections. It's not a very long game, but it's reasonably-priced to compensate, and I had a blast playing it. This is another one I wholeheartedly recommend.