Video Gamers Podcast - Rockin’ Red Dead Redemption 2 - Gaming Podcast

Episode Date: April 4, 2022

Gaming outlaws Paul, Michael and Josh are bringing you into the wild west in this long demanded episode. We dive into the phenomenal gaming world of Red Dead Redemption 2 in a deep dive you absolutely can’t miss. Picked by legendary supporter Nevo we break down what makes Red Dead Redemption 2 great, where it struggles and why you should or shouldn’t play this iconic entry into gaming history. Thanks to our LEGENDARY supporters: Redletter, Nevo, Waynerman, TFolls, AceofShame, Jake, RangerMiller, and Ad Connect with the show: Support us on Patreon: patreon.com/multiplayerpodcast Join our Discord: https://discord.gg/Dsx2rgEEbz Follow us on Instagram: instagram.com/multiplayerpod/ Follow us on Twitter: twitter.com/MultiplayerPod Subscribe to us on YouTube: youtube.com/channel/UCU12YOMnAQwqFZEdfXv9c3Q Visit us on the web: multiplayerpodcast.com/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hey guys, it's Michael. I've taken over the show! That's right, Josh and Paul aren't here right now, so it's just you and me. Or, you know, if you're listening with a friend right now, it's you, me, and your friend. Or, if family's there, hey everybody, I'm family too! Uh, kind of. Anyways, I just wanted to say that we appreciate you guys so much just for listening to the show and you know what if you want to share this show with a friend that'd be awesome because then your friends can like us too and then we can like your friends and they can join our discord and be

awesome and if your friends really like the show then maybe they can head over to multiplayer squad.com and support the show because if if you support the show, you get awesome bonus content like, you know, a couple of extra episodes a week or a little quick takes, which are mostly just mindless banter and ridiculousness, but they're a lot of fun. Oh, shoot, guys. Josh's beard just walked in. I gotta go. hello squad mates welcome to the multiplayer gaming podcast where three dads get together to goof around and talk about video games please make sure to rate our show five stars leave us a written review and check out our patreon page at multiplayer squad.com as an independent podcast our show is funded by our listeners and if you decide to sign up at multiplayer squad.com as an independent podcast our show is funded by our listeners and if you decide to sign

up at multiplayer squad.com you will unlock some amazing perks like two extra episodes every week for only five dollars a month you can also find us on socials everywhere at multiplayer pod today is a deep dive monday which means we are going to be spending our entire time breaking down a singular game, which just so happens to be the 2018 masterpiece Red Dead Redemption 2. We're going to talk about the story and the mechanics, we'll read some community reviews about the game, and we will decide where to place it on our overall leaderboard. Alright, and also, by the way, we will start off talking about the game broadly, and as the show goes on, at some point, we will give you guys a spoiler alert where we will dive into spoilers regarding the story. All right. I am your host, Paul, and I have a plan. Joining me, you just need to keep faith, it's Josh.

I'm glad you didn't call me Micah. I didn't know. Oh, no. I was really expecting the Micah reference or something. Or the Hosea as the old guy. You are old. Your beard is older, though. True story. I would never call any of my friends Micah. Come on.

All right. He's probably the most hated villain of all time. If you took a poll, I think he might come out on top i did have one of our listeners in our discord server the other day convinced that michael was my favorite character oh and i just rolled with it for a really long time until finally i was like come on man wow yeah he's the worst worst human of all time. All right. And then also joining us, we just need one more score before heading west and settling down. It's Michael. Oh, man.

It's never enough. You've always got one more thing you can do before you move on. I feel that's true. And you just never have enough money. You're never ready enough. But whatever. I'm ready for this show. So let's move on.

No more scores. Let's go. Just need one more score and we'll finally be ready. All right. So before we jump into all things Red Dead, we do want to announce that we have a new Patreon supporter. I know how much we all love giving brand new shout outs. And so, JFlynn101, you have joined as a rare supporter. Welcome to the squad. It is good to have you, JFlynn101, you have joined as a Rare supporter. Welcome to the squad.

It is good to have you, JFlynn101? Yes, JFlynn101. JFlynn101, you're my new hero. You're 101 in my heart, buddy. Absolutely. And also, I wanted to give a shout out to Digital Devil, who has been supporting us for a full year. So, happy anniversary. That's awesome a full year. So happy anniversary.

That's awesome. Full year and a great name. Love it. Yep. And also a big thank you to legendary supporter Red Letter and Epic supporters Yoda and Michael the Butler. God bless those men. All right.

Now, we do need to say that the reason that we decided to play Red Dead Redemption 2 for this deep dive, as much as I love this game, I'm not the one who picked it. Do you guys want to tell the people why we're covering Red Dead? We are covering Red Dead Redemption 2 because a fine gentleman by the name of Nevo became a legendary supporter. He's been around for a long time fun fact i actually remember playing war zone with nevo and having him absolutely carry me to like he that dude had like 21 kills in the game of war zone that we played i had like one and he read me about seven different times uh but yes he's he is legit a very good uh first person shooter player but yeah yeah, mad shout-out to Nevo. He became legendary. He said, hey, I'm going to pick

Red Dead Redemption 2 for you guys to play, which we all rejoiced about. We were like, sure! Yeah, we'll play that. But yeah, and thus here we are. Hey, Nevo, if you're listening, does your back hurt? Because you're carrying everybody and you're carrying the show right now.

Hats off to you. This show's about you. And also Red Dead Redemption 2. Holy cow, that rhymed. Two points for me. You know, it's funny. It's 2022, but it's like we're living in 2018. We're just pulling out the greatest hits from the same year we recently covered God of War.

We're doing Red Dead Redemption 2. I'm perfectly fine with it. I feel like we're cherry picking some of these great games, and I'm really excited to talk about it. But before we hop into that, Josh, I think you've got a couple of reviews people have left the show. Got a couple more. We are, as of this recording, we are five, five reviews away from hitting 300. I literally check them every single morning as I'm drinking my coffee. And I get so excited anytime I see that number creep up. So if you have not left us a review yet, please take the time to do so. If you don't use Apple Podcasts, you can rate

us five stars on Spotify. You have a parent or a friend or somebody that has an iPhone. You can eat the podcast app is built into the iPhone. So just pull it up, search for our podcast, leave us a review. Good chance that we're going to leave it on the show. It is an immense help. So telling people about the show, supporting the show and reviewing the show are honestly three ways that everybody that's listening can really help out. It means a lot to us.

And I've got two good ones. And so here we go. This first one comes in from DWS501, and it's titled, Where a Podcast Review of Rust Led Me. I found this pod after searching for a review of Rust. Oh, man, did I find so much more. I'll agree with everyone else by saying the banter and differing preferences help make this show. I listen pretty much daily and I have made a deep dive of my own into all the episodes. I highly recommend this to everyone. I'd simply recommend it slightly less to you pancake people.

Oh, burn. Signed, Schwag. recommend it slightly less to you pancake people oh oh burn signed schwag i wonder if he ran into the original rust episode or if it was the re-rust i don't know because we have done it twice they're both great you know it's funny having not listened to any of the rust episode or having not been a part of the show during the rust episodes but having listened to both of them i'm surprised at how many times people bring up those rust episodes. They really were a staple back in the day. It's a phenomenal game, and people that like Rust really like Rust, and they want more. And fun fact, we actually did record a third Rust episode. It was one of our test runs before we released any episodes. So we actually have in our archive, we've got a couple of practice run episodes

and Rust was one of them. So technically we've recorded three episodes. Maybe at some point we should release that old content. Oh, no, no, no. Look forward to those around Christmas 2022 when we take a couple weeks off and we just play old episodes. It's going to be oldies but goodies

and also the lost episodes. Maybe, who knows? And it'll sound really bad. It's really bad audio quality. Real bad. All right. And then this next review comes in from Dragon Engineer Gaming. It's titled, I Love This Show. It has you feel like a part of a small community and it just feels like your dad is talking to you and it's such a small review but we're all dads and then to have somebody like i dude i just

i started smiling and i was like that's a huge compliment man all right listen so if you're listening to this show after 8 p.m., it's time for bed, son. You don't have time to play anymore Elden Ring. Get to bed. Right. Well, thank you, Dragon Engineer Gaming. What a nice review. All right.

Are we ready, guys? Oh, boy, am I ready. All right. Giddy up, Paul. Giddy up. Let's saddle up and deep dive Red Dead Redemption 2. All right, the description of Red Dead according to Steam is this. Winner of over 175 Game of the Year awards and recipient of over 250 perfect scores, Red Dead Redemption 2 is an epic tale of outlaw Arthur Morgan and the infamous Vanderland

gang on the run across America at the dawn of the modern age. All right, now I think what Red Dead really comes down to, let's be real, it's a cowboy simulator, right? And you get to play as one of the most fascinating protagonists ever in Arthur Morgan. do you guys think that's fair would you really just call this a cowboy simulator i i like to think it's a wild west simulator is there a difference i don't know man yeah i don't know simulators typically uh sound like a boring thing this game is far from boring um and i mean cowboying is far from boring. And I mean, cowboying is far from boring anyways, but yeah, I'd say it's relatively accurate,

just minus the connotation of being boring. So it's an action simulator. How about that? Does that fit better for the six shooter? Heck yeah. All right. So before we jump in, I thought that I would look up a couple of facts about Red Dead's

development and also sales. I think this will give you a little bit of context of what we're working with here. First of all, 2,000 people worked on Red Dead 2. I mean, we are talking about an enormous workforce. And over 2,000 people worked on it over a period of eight years. They immediately started on Red Dead 2 after Red Dead 1, and it ended up taking eight years in development to release. And it is also, by no coincidence, also one of the most expensive games of all time. They estimate that the game

took $170 million to develop, and the marketing was somewhere between $370 to $540 million. Wow. So we are talking about roughly $700 to $800 million in Red Dead Redemption 2. I mean, that's like a blockbuster movie saga. Not just one movie, but like a saga. That's insane. That's like three Avengers movies put together, right? Yeah. That's insane. That's like three Avengers movies put together, right? Yeah, 110 musicians worked on composing the music for Red Dead 2.

And Red Dead 2 has the largest opening weekend in the history of all entertainment. It made $725 million in the first three days of sales. Well, they made that money back, made it back there there are several articles that mention how fast red dead made all their money back which was less than a week so pretty remarkable fun and it oh i'm gonna interrupt because fun fact red dead 2 is the last game that i went to stand in line at a GameStop for a midnight release. I was going to say exactly the same thing. It is the last physical copy of a game that I picked up for PS4. Yeah.

Everything ever since has just been digital download or ordering online. Boy, I was in that really long line. I think I got there super early, too. I got there at like 11 o'clock because I wanted to make sure I got a copy. And it was quite a long line and everybody was so hyped. I was so excited. And then I got home because it was a work night or I had to do something early the next day. And that's when it started to do the installing for two and a half hours. I'm going to bed, man.

Yeah. I actually bought the collector's edition. I have the whole box and the collector's edition. I'm not sure if you saw it. Mine, I played it very differently from Paul and Josh. I played it on the PlayStation 4. And it was an awesome box set that when you open it up, it's actually like a bank safe or a stagecoach, you know, like a hard box with a lock on it. And it came with the

cards in it and a map and all kinds of cool stuff. And it's one of the last ones that I got because it's so easy to buy digital now or just, you know, slap the disc in and load it. But yeah, that loading time was insane. But it was so cool to have that. I still have it. It's right behind me in my office. I love that box. Oh, that's so cool. It's so funny to think about going at midnight to pick up a physical copy. That feels like a lifetime ago, but it's really only been four years. It's not been that long. It's not been that long. All right. And then the last fact that I have here is that Red Dead 2 has sold over 43 million units. I would guess it's actually quite a bit more because that stat was fairly old.

And at the time, it was the 10th highest selling game of all time, placing it only behind Minecraft, GTA 5, Tetris, Wii Sports, PUBG, Super Mario Bros on NES, Mario Kart 8, Pokemon Red, Green, Blue, blue yellow and the Wii Fit wow so it's very hard to overstate just how popular this game was everybody I knew at the time had a ps4 and everybody was playing Red Dead uh we also dove into Red Dead Online a little bit we're not really going to talk about Red Dead Online at all today we are only going to be talking about the single player content but you know what what a ubiquitous game everybody it. And I think at this point now, Josh and I have played through it multiple times. I know for me, this was number four.

And I think for Josh, it was number two. And Michael, you just continued on your old save that you had from before and jumped back into it, right? Correct. Yeah. That being said, typically in open world games, my first save is still like 400 or 500 hours because I'm a completionist. I do all the content as I go. It's something I've always talked about on the show so far. And I just... Well, real fast, it's funny that you mentioned that though, because it was such a big game. Like, I was listening to sports podcasts and watching ESPN, and they were talking about Red Dead Redemption 2. So it goes to say how big of a deal this game was. There's very few tentpole games like this, but I feel like Red Dead, GTA, when the next Witcher game comes out. These are the ones that everybody is playing. And everyone that you talk to, it's all anyone wants to talk about.

And it's always tough if you finish first. I remember finishing Red Dead, and I wanted to talk about it so bad, but I finished it first in our friend group. And I had to slowly wait until I would get that text, Dude, I just finished it! And then I'd be like, call me. Let's talk about it. Come over dude, I just finished it. And then I'd be like, call me. It's like, finally! Let's talk about it.

Yes. Come over, let's talk about it. You're trying not to even spoil the spoiler. Like, you want to be like, hey, what part are you at? Hey, has Arthur done this yet? And you're like, I can't say that. Like, oh man, it's so frustrating. I get you.

So, you know, with Red Dead 2, I think that this game has just so much to offer. There's so much to talk about. When you guys hear the with Red Dead 2, I think that this game has just so much to offer. There's so much to talk about. When you guys hear the name Red Dead 2, you know, what are some things that immediately come to mind? Like, what are you guys thinking of? I'm a cowboy, baby. You start singing some Kid Rock. See, I just matched that up.

Yes, that was great. No, I mean, honestly, it's the best cowboy Wild West game that I can possibly imagine. Every time I play Red Dead Redemption 2, I get this huge urge to want to just go camping, to find nature and wilderness wilderness and just sleep outside. How many times in the game do you just sleep under the stars? And every single time I just go like, that looks so nice. I want to do that. And then I know it's terrible. You're getting bitten by bugs.

There's rattlesnakes. I don't actually want to do that. But the game makes it look so incredible that I just... I long for that, man. The world is that immersive that I actually want to be in that world. No, 100% correct on the immersiveness. The immersion on this game is so incredible that you can load it up when you play on a TV or a monitor. It almost looks real. It feels real. I remember when I think of it it and when I think of immersion, especially the lighting, the way that the landscape feels, sprawling landscapes all over

the place. I also think of my mom, which is strange because she came over one time and I was playing the game and she was like, hey, keep playing the game. I'm like, no, I can hop off the game. We'll hang out for a minute. And she's like, no, I want you to keep playing the game. It's exciting. She's a Western fan. And it was like a movie to her. And that's a big testament to the development of this game. Did you lasso someone and feed them to an alligator for your mom? No, but I think I hunted a bear. Yeah, I definitely think about the immersion. I think that this game has been programmed so incredibly well in the little details that it just feels authentic and real. And I think about the fact that there's just so fishing there are puzzles in the open world that you can find the random encounters are super fun where you'll like walk into a bar and two guys start fighting over a woman and they'll get into a fist fight and then you can choose like whether or not you're gonna

step in i mean even just watching things in the open world is super fun. There's also dueling. You can play poker. You can hunt legendary animals. I mean, there's just so much you can do in this game. I'll have to say this. The other thing besides the world and the immersion that comes to mind, initial thoughts, is the characters. I could literally be walking... I could be in a public place and literally just go, I've got a plan. And there would be 50 people around me that would instantly know what that reference was to. You know, Brussels sprouts at the grocery store, and you're just looking at your phone, looking at the list, like, I've got a plan. I'm telling you, there would be somebody that would start chuckling and know that, you know, just trust me, Arthur.

It's like, so the characters in this game are absolutely memorable. The dialogue that they have is honestly, at this point, it's pretty iconic because I think that there are people that aren't necessarily avid gamers that would absolutely understand what you're talking about. Oh, man. And on the dialogue, isn't the voice acting just over the top incredible? It might be the best. Yeah, you can feel the characters, just the voices.

There is the guy that voiced Arthur started doing a lot of funny videos where he started playing mods and other games, but he would use the Arthur voice. That's right. It is absolutely hilarious, man, because it's not Arthur Morgan's character, but it's Arthur Morgan's voice in other hilarious situations, and it's really funny. Yeah, I think I mentioned this on an earlier show that actually at Comic-Con in Emerald City last year,

I actually, or I think it was Dallas, but regardless, I actually met the actor that plays Arthur Morgan right next to the actor that plays John Marston. And I was just enthralled by just listening to him talk to fans. I think one of them at one point was talking about his Apple Watch. And I was just like, just please just keep talking about your Apple Watch. I want to hear your voice. Yeah, the characters are also just so memorable. And they're all so distinct. Like in this game in Dutch's crew, you're running with a team of, I don't know,

like 14 people. It's a good, and right now I could probably name 11 or 12 of them. And I feel like there's a lot of games. You can't really do that, but they all have distinct personalities, excellent voice acting, highly memorable characters.

So despite being called red Dead Redemption 2, it is actually the third Red Dead game. For some reason, this keeps popping up when we do these deep dives. We have game series that don't seem to know how to name their games. So Red Dead Redemption 2 is the third entry. Did either of you guys ever play Red Dead Redemption 1

or Red Dead Revolver? Nope. I did play. No, put it on you, Michael.ael i played the first one i played almost all the way through so um you know which was the tale of john marsden i never played red dead revolver and i always wanted to go back to it um i didn't play it unfortunately but red dead redemption one was like the first time that i really got into a western game and took it seriously as an open world and it was just fantastic but um it makes me want to go back to red dead revolver but that game is is pretty old isn't it yeah probably like 2004 or something i played it on the og xbox so it's it's very old one of the things that's kind of funny is that in Red Dead Revolver, you do not play as John, but the main guy, his name is Red, he still has the same facial scars that they ended up keeping

for John. So it's funny that you see some seeds of things that they end up bringing back in Red Dead Redemption. Okay, so one of the interesting things about Red Dead 2 is that it is actually a prequel to Red Dead Redemption 1. And usually that's a very hard thing to do, whether it's movies or games. Because if you have played Red Dead 1, you know certain characters are there and certain characters aren't. And you find out a lot of information. So there's already some built-in spoilers, if you will, when you play Red Dead 2. But I would argue that it does not spoil the story whatsoever. So if there's anyone out there who has not played Red Dead 1, and if you don't want to know anything about it, then you

can go ahead and skip ahead like 90 seconds. But the story in Red Dead 1 that's really fascinating is that John Marston is the main character, and the FBI kidnaps your wife and your son, and they tell you, you have to go hunt down your old gang. You gotta go hunt down Bill Williamson, Javier Escuela, and Dutch Vanderland, the old gang leader, and over the course of the game, you do end up killing or capturing those people. And then the FBI ends up giving you your family back. But it's a very short-lived victory because they go back on that promise and attack your camp. And John ends up dying while he's creating a distraction so his wife and his son Jack can escape. And so John ends up dying. And Arthur Morgan's not in Red Dead 1. So you know either he up. And so they say, we want you to get your old gang members. And now we are rewinding several years where we get to see the gang,

not at their high point. I would not say that. I would say it's the beginning of the end. So we get to see how they really did operate as a family. And the game actually has a rather somber tone to it because we know by nature this is a game that is going to fall apart there's going to be broken relationships there's going to be betrayal and backstabbing because we know things go bad because of what we already know in red dead one and i was kind of curious did you guys know any of that history or you just went into red dead 2 for at least for you josh did you go into it just kind of blind no I knew I'd never actually played Red Dead 1 but a lot of my friends did and so I was very this was one of those games where I don't know why I missed it but you know a lot of my

friends were playing it and they were kind of telling me what was going on and and they were summarizing things so and then I think before Red Dead 2 I did the whole like let me watch like a you know a review to catch up on the plot and all that stuff. So I knew very, very much going into Red Dead 2 what the timeline was and the characters and stuff like that. I love that they did it like this, to be honest, because it's like you said. The game has this undertone to where because you know ultimately where everything is going to end up, it's not a spoiler. But what it does is it sets you not on edge, but it gives you this heightened sense of awareness. So it's like everything that you encounter, every little disagreement,

every little nuance you're paying attention to because you know where the story goes. And to me, it really helped to heighten that sense of like, ooh, ooh, did you hear that? I just got in an argument with Dutch. I wonder if this is the beginning of the end and that kind of stuff. Or I got thrown in the county jail. Is this going to be... Does this have ramifications for that story later on kind of thing? So I actually like that I had some knowledge of where things were going before actually playing the game, because I feel like it just helped to enhance the story and the interactions with the characters and how much you're actually paying attention. This is not a game where you're hitting skip, skip, skip. No. A lot of games you do that

but in red dead you don't want to yeah the story is so compelling and since you do know in general where it's going it allows you to just kind of lay back and focus on little interactions like the fact that you know bill williamson is literally going to have John shot the first three minutes in Red Dead 1. And so anytime you see them interact, it's really interesting because you know these two are going to hate each other so much that he's going to try to have John murdered. And you kind of like read into the conversations they have before these relationships get broken. In some ways, it's almost like watching The Empire Strikes Back for Star Wars. It's a little bit darker, and it kind of goes into some of the darker side of cowboy gangs, if you will. Yeah, so it's funny because for me, having played Red Dead 1 a couple of years, a second time, kind of starting it out

and picking it up before I played Red Dead 2, I didn't realize John Marston was going to be in this game. And I didn't realize that Bill Williamson and Dutch Vanderlin were who they were from Red Dead 1. And so for me, a couple hours into Red Dead 2, when you start going very early on and all of a sudden they bring up John. You don't know it's John Marsden yet, I don't think. It's just John. John's over here doing something with the wolves or whatever it is. And then you go get him and you're like, oh, oh. I think it was, yeah, 2018, there was a small earthquake in Phoenix, Arizona.

That was my jaw hitting the floor, actually, because I was so shocked by it. I was like, oh my goodness, John Marsden. And that's when it really started to go. And that captured me instantly. And then realizing, hold on, I've got Bill Williamson here, I've got Dutch Vanderlyn, and it really tied together. And like you said, I think for me, it's not even so much Empire Strikes Back. It's more of Revenge of the Sith. You know some things are going to happen. There's going to be Anakin versus Obi-Wan. There's going to be Arthur, wherever he goes, and John Marston and whatever happens with Dutch Vanderlyn and Bill Williamson and these guys.

This is going to get real. And I think it's going to be sad. And oh man, was it fulfilling. Yeah, absolutely. It's really interesting because even though you play as Arthur, it's almost like the whole point of the game is to teach you what happens to John and how did we end up getting the John Marston at the beginning of Red Dead 1. So the story is more about John, even though you play as Arthur. And I think that really just adds like a level of depth you don't normally get in gaming. All right, now let's talk a little bit about the very beginning of Red Dead 2. I think that for most people, this is what they would say is the weakest part of the game. In the beginning of Red Dead 2, you are still getting credits rolling.

It serves as the tutorial. You are traveling with your gang, fighting through a blizzard in the mountains. And you're not entirely sure what's going on. But as the people keep talking, you're kind of piecing together the context and what's going on. In this way, it's ironically kind of similar to the beginning of God of War, where they drop you in the middle of this funeral and they just start talking about details. And Red Dead 2 does the same thing. They are talking about how this deal went bad in Blackwater. We did not see it. We did not help plan it. We don't know what happened. We hear things like Dutch saying, I cannot let Colm O'Driscoll live for what he did to Annabelle. And it's like, well, I don't know what he did to Annabelle. Did

he kill her? Did he kidnap her? What happened? They are mentioning people in the gang that are missing or got shot. We have no clue who they are. And Hosea, at one point, even says things to Arthur like, look, you and I had a really good lead, but Dutch didn't listen to us, and he went ahead with the fairy job. And maybe Dutch is starting to lose it because he's not listening to us. And so it's really cool that you get dropped in the middle. It's a little confusing, but they don't waste time with all these little details. They just drop you right in the middle of the story, and immediately you're just kind of progressing the story from the get-go. I loved it.

To me, a good Western does that. And I think that having the opening credits roll in the middle of this mystery and this allure of what's happening, what are these characters, where are they going, who are they, I think it really captured the Western. this allure of what's happening, what are these characters, where are they going, who are they? I think it really captured the Western. And I know it's kind of a downer for some people to have the credits rolling in the slower part and still this intro of the question marks. But to me, that was truly a Western. And that's what I think. I think I liked that almost the most about the game opening up. Ooh, this is going to be my first dissenting

opinion here because I found the beginning of the game to be really, really slow. Now I'll say this, I take developers that are listening to the show, take a page out of the book of God of War and Red Dead Redemption 2 because gamers are smart. You don't have to spell everything out for us. I love the, give me a glimpse into something that's already occurring and then give me pieces of that story as it goes along. Paul, you mentioned God of War did that very, very well in the beginning. You're just thrown into this funeral and you instantly feel for these people. Red Dead Redemption 2 is doing the exact same thing where it's like, why are we in the mountains and it's snowy and something bad happened, man? Something really went down and people are not happy. And you start to piece it together through dialogue, which allows you to

understand characters and stuff like that and all the nuance and everything. I really love that style of storytelling. So I think Red Dead absolutely mastered that by starting the game that way. The credits in the beginning don't bother me a bit because it's like, hey, this is the beginning of the game. The problem for me is that it's the slowest beginning of a game almost ever. Like even like you can't sprint, like you can't sprint in like the beginning of the game. You're just shuffling slowly through snow and you're trotting on your horse. And it's like,

you know, this is my second time playing it. So I know that I get to run and Gallop later on in the game, but you can't really do that in the beginning. And it's like, I get it. And it does serve a purpose so that when you do get out of the mountains and into the actual game itself and out

of this kind of prologue almost, that it feels even better. But it's just, to me, it's such a slog to get through that intro when you know what's coming. If you don't know what's coming the first time you do it, it's great. But it's just like, maybe it's only something that you suffer through on like an additional playthrough. But I felt like the beginning was very, very slow in its pacing. Yeah. See, to me, though, I feel like that is almost a Western movie at its core. I think of a lot of movies that... Westerns are all about Act 3 or Act 5 if it's a 5-act act it's all about getting to the payoff and the reveal you know i think of like kevin costner and open range it's a slow roll to start out

and i and that's what i really think i appreciate as a big western movie fan aside from like tombstone which might be the best hollywood western of all time which starts out with a bang and goes off real quick that's an action movie that's not really a western movie right exactly but but i feel like a lot of those Western films, there's still enough of a question mark there, and I think it gets up pretty quick. But I don't know. I think I kind of disagree with Joshua

a little bit on this one, only because of the fact that I think it kind of got me a little bit as a Western. Like, hey, we're going to get somewhere. We're going to take our time starting out. And it's not really, I know, a staple for a video game to do that, but I don't know. I think it married film, westerns, and video game fun, to me, reasonably well. Yeah. I think on top of that, Michael, and I would agree with you there,

I would also say that when you start Red Dead 2, you feel confused and you don't know what's going on. You kind of expect as a rockstar game, it's going to start out with action. And instead, they literally hit you with the exact opposite in the middle of this huge blizzard. And I feel like it kind of puts you in the same mindset as the gang. There's confusion. This is not how I thought this was going to start out. this is very different you know the gang they don't want to be up in the mountains like you don't start a cowboy game assuming you're gonna be in a blizzard uh hunting deer with a bow and arrow but they intentionally subvert all of that i think it's it's rather fun but there's no denying there's

not a lot of action and so if you jump into this wanting action right off the bat, you're certainly not going to get it. It has a little bit of that slow build like you generally get in a lot of those Western movies. By the way, mentioning Open Range, Michael, I don't think I've had a conversation about Open Range in the last 12 years, but that's a really underrated western i love that movie annette benning kevin costner it's fantastic oh yeah absolutely and also uh to my first point on the slow roll at the beginning it's also just really fun to disagree with josh lately so it hasn't happened much no no but it's funny because the first reviewer uh the first

reviewer that we read today was like the different perspectives and so i just really wanted to i really wanted to explain that i love the part that josh didn't like because i think it's so much fun to me to to look at that as a film you know i don't know except i want to play a video game right i wouldn't want to and play a video game i got both so let's talk a little bit about the character arthur morgan now arthur goes on a very long moral even spiritual journey in this game the arthur you start out as is very different than the arthur at the end but when you played through red dead especially the first time or as you kind of like think back on arthur uh how would you describe him to someone or what are some traits of arthur that stand out we're not in spoiler territory yet are we not yet no just in general terms yeah go ahead josh

because i got one thing on mine i can't stop laughing about i love arthur i really do man he's he's a little grouchy sometimes he's a little he's very grouchy sometimes. He's a little... Oh, he's very grouchy. You know, he's rough. He doesn't take poo from no one. As far as that goes, he's not scared of anybody. But at the same time, he's like your classic Western gentleman. He'll say ma'am to people and pardon me and stuff like that. So it's like he knows... Hey, mister. Oh, no, dad. Yeah, he knows how to behave unless you rub him the wrong way. And then he'll even warn you and he'll be like, hey, you don't want to mess with me,

or I'm not scared of you, or you'll kind of put out this veiled threat or something like that. I love him. I think he's one of the best video game characters ever made, in my opinion. I have nothing but amazing things to say about Arthur Morgan. I cannot agree with you more. I love that Arthur knows his place in the world. He's an outlaw. It's true. But he's got a good heart. And I love that. If you accidentally run into somebody in Sendanyi or something like that, and he's like know and he's like he's like he's a polite gentleman that being said he's still a western outlaw and he's still got a job to do and he's got another score to settle and he's got another score to go get and he's got all those things going on but it's it's so much fun to play such a robust character

that anytime you talk to someone you know decisions you make, it's still like, I feel like Arthur is... There's so much going on beneath just an outlaw and also just beneath just a Western cowboy. And like I said, he knows his place in the world and he's respectful, but he's kind of not a bad guy, but not a good guy. Yeah. He's certainly not all good or all bad. He's very complicated. And just how cool is Arthur? He is like the coolest cowboy you could ever come up with. He's a little funny, but he's very grouchy, but he's very pragmatic. He's cold and violent, but he's very kind to people in need. It's almost like he has his own set of ethics.

If you're in the game, you're fair game to be shot or robbed. But if you're a civilian, he treats you very well. And I find him to be so utterly fascinating. I think he's my all-time favorite main protagonist in a game. I love playing as Arthur. Dude, even the little things, and this is another thing that Red Dead does so incredibly well is as you're playing Arthur Morgan, you understand the struggles that he's going through. You get these little glimpses. I love when you start a new chapter or something, and he has his journal out. And you get to flip through his journal and see like, this guy's actually like keeping track of things and he's writing down like kind of his deeper thoughts. And, you know, there's, there's a scene where, you know, you,

you're, you're at the lake, you know, just gazing out over the water and, and you can, you kind of see that like he's contemplative about the, the way the world's going. And he talks to his gang mates a lot about like, Hey, the world is changing. Maybe we don't belong anymore in the world that we were in and stuff like that. So you do get like, this is not a dumb man by any means. And I love that the game gives you those glimpses, not only into his character, but into his actual psyche as well. And the game does a phenomenal job of developing that as it goes along, so that you get this crazy bond with him, man. I don't know that there's another game character that I have cared about as much as Arthur Morgan. No. And to your point, exactly. When it comes to how... Because you have a lot of ability to

be dynamic with the character. You can change how he looks, his hair length, his beard, what he wears. And Rockstar Games, they do this a lot where you can kind of pick what you want to do and how you want the character to look. I felt like this was one of the first times, and this is going to sound ridiculous, but hear me out. I feel like this is one of the first times that with the character, the way that I trimmed his beard and did his hair and dressed him, I felt like I was more feeling like, what would Arthur Morgan want? How would Arthur want to look and dress? Whereas normally, it's just like in Grand Theft Auto, it's like, there's some sick pants. I'll put them on. There's a cool baseball cap. I'll do that.

But in this one, I feel like it's more about how he wants to... How would Arthur Morgan look? And it's funny that I bring this up and chuckle to myself because of how often he goes back for his hat in the game you know like you're in a it's always getting shot off yeah and like my hat i need my hat and i think right off early early on in the game one of the first things that you have is an accomplishment after a bar fight is to go get your hat back it's like pick up your hat um but i think it's funny and actually here's a question for you guys real fast because i don't know if we're going to get to this or not. But did your Arthur have the most awesome beard ever? Or did you have a clean-shaven Arthur? I kept it very short.

Do you think I would have a clean-shaven guy as my main character? Good point. Did you leave it full max length? No. No, no. You got a manscape. I'd keep it at a two i would go two i think it's at a seven i would always go two out of seven yeah i found myself going to the

barber way too often because i was like oh no it's getting a little bit too long and you know yeah it looks like a mullet yeah and i'm like let's let's trim up a little bit put the pomade in the hair or whatever it is the dapper dan yeah the um yeah the pomade again yeah i i i know your reference with uh oh brother where art thou there you go the pomade is so important to me i don't know why i'm kind of with you michael i felt like there's no way arthur is gonna look this bad i mean this game does allow you to run around unbathed covered in mud people will comment storekeepers will actually say get out i'm not serving you. Go take a bath and come back. But my Arthur, I always kept very well-kempt, and the pomade was

a must. I always bought three pomades every time I visited a store. Gotta have that slicked back hair. Arthur's very cosmopolitan. Yes. All right. So let's talk a little bit about the combat. All right. So in Red Dead, like any cowboy game that you would expect, you've got firearms like pistols, revolvers, rifles, repeaters, and shotguns. You also have a bow and arrow that you can use for silent combat. You can fight with your bare fists. You can use knives, daggers, and machetes for melee. You can throw cleavers, hatchets, dynamite, and tomahawks. And maybe my personal favorite, you can capture people with a lasso and hogtie them.

Heck yeah. And rob them and then untie them or keep them tied and throw them on those train tracks until they get run over by a train. Feed them to an alligator. The lasso is by far the best thing in this game. Dude, the fun of the lasso is you have to play this game to understand what that adds to the gameplay. You can lasso anybody in this game. You get to go lasso wild horses and try to tame them and stuff like that. But man, somebody mouths off to you because this world is living. It is one of the better living worlds that exists in a video game.

And as you were trotting down these trails across the countryside, you will come across people and some of them are not all nice. And so you'll get a guy that maybe says something snarky as you're riding past. And I'm like, whoa, nearly. Turn around, lasso that guy off his horse, carry him to train tracks, throw him off a cliff, whatever. But it's like, dude, you can't say that to me and get away with it.

But yeah, the lasso is great. The combat adds a really neat layer to this game. This is not your super action-y combat. They do a very good job of keeping this kind of old Western, right? Like, yes, maybe you're going to get into a shootout at a little town, and there's going to be guys up on the little balcony or guys hiding behind water troughs or something like that. This is not an action game. It's not meant to be an action game. This is meant to maintain the old Western Wild West feel. Yes, you can rob things, and that involves shooting people and stuff like that. The combat for me is not the focus of Red Dead. And I don't think they mean it to be the focus. And that's okay at that point. The combat is not a slight against Red Dead, in my

opinion. Although there are a lot of people out there that if they are going to criticize it, they say, well, it's more of a story and it's more of a simulation of the Wild West, but there's not enough action in this game for me. And it's kind of like, it's not supposed to be. Right. I feel like the combat is very strategic when it comes to duck and cover a lot. It makes sense. It's not just going guns blazing, pun intended.

You're not going in there just like boom, boom, boom, boom. You've got to make sure that you're careful about certain things. Oftentimes, you have to pick the right firearm. The lasso thing, I didn't attach myself to that nearly as much because, I don't know, in the end, the combat is still kind of a shooter thing, and I found it kind of hard to use. And so I ended up a lot more gravitating towards Deadeye and that piece, which is really funny that you've got a video game where you're in the middle of a combat and you're like, hold on, I'm going to stop and smoke two cigarettes real fast and take this shot of alcohol so I can get my Deadeye up. But I agree with Josh in so many ways. It's not so much full- full-on action that being said there's plenty of action to

me but it's a lot more strategic and slow paced in certain ways i think the only gripe that i had about the combat really was i did not ever after i think 400 hours in this game ever successfully get a quick draw done at the first try i was terrible at it i couldn't stand it it was i just i'm like you gotta press it the right time and i'm like can i just dead eye these guys and shoot them or can i just open range shoot them but like i got four guys i gotta go you know yeah it's meant to take a long time guys add 30 more seconds to that bam bam bam bam bam bam you know and i don know. But luckily, it only required you to do that, I think, twice in the game where you had to use that mechanic. But maybe if they made me use it more, I would have understood it better.

But I feel like it was like 200 hours in between. And I just didn't like that part as much. Overall, though, I liked the combat. I love the cowboy simulator piece. I have no problem with it being a little slower paced and more strategic and more hiding and stuff. Maybe in that case, it actually does draw some similarities and some parallels to Elden Ring, where you've got to be smarter about some things. Not nearly as complicated, obviously, but I was enthralled by it. I loved every bit of it. Yeah, the combat is perfectly fine.

It's exactly the same as what you get in GTA. If you play it on console, I think it's a little too easy because of the auto aim. It has enough that you just really strong. The lock on is very strong. You literally just hold left trigger and bump slightly up and you get headshots every time. If you play with mouse and keyboard like i did i actually think the combat's a little bit more challenging because you don't have the auto aim by no means is it difficult and usually if you get in trouble

you just stay in cover and you heal yourself up you're not dying terribly often in this game but the action does come in big bursts. So you'll play various parts where there's not a lot of action, but now we're going to rob this bank and it's going to end in a massive shootout where we're running on rooftops and we're blowing holes in walls and people are getting shot and all chaos breaks loose and no one really knows what's going on so you get hit with like action set pieces but the entire game is certainly not action all the way through i mean the first time that you do a heist on a train you don't even really have to shoot hardly anyone you can actually pull it off almost without a hitch um now the one thing that I think is really fascinating in Red Dead is that they use a

character behavior system called Euphoria. And I remember this being kind of a big deal when the game came out, because this is where the little details go a long way for Red Dead. All right, if you shoot a character as they're pulling out their gun, they will fall over. And right before they die, they'll try to shoot you and they'll fire with their gun in the ground as like a last ditch effort. And I think that's really cool. If you shoot a character in the leg, they'll start really noticeably limping. And then you shoot them in the other leg and they'll fall to their knees and they'll still keep shooting at you. So there's like really cool things that work in that way. I don't know if you guys noticed this.

You can actually see exit wounds from the bullets on the corpses. Oh, really? Like, that's how detailed. Yeah. Yeah. The realism in Red Dead is unmatched, honestly. Like, it really is. I think I don't remember what episode we talked about it on. It's insane. differently in the cold than it does in other climates and stuff like that.

Like you said, the way that people respond to you, if I go galloping through town like just a madman, people will get mad at you because it's like, dude, you can't do that in the middle of a town. You're going to run somebody over? Yeah. You'll scare them. And they'll be carrying window panes, and they'll drop like they'll be carrying window panes and they'll drop them if you get too close yep it's i mean and and there's like honestly we could talk we could

have an entire show on just the nuance and the realism that they've managed to capture in red dead redemption 2 because there are things that you won't you won't see at first. Even the wildlife behavior. Dude, I don't know how... Number one, just programming AI in general and having this living world where people are actually like carpenters and sawing through boards and building a balcony in the town of Valentine. You actually see that happening. But then you go out into the wild and it's like, there's a bear that's mauling a deer you know what i mean or wolves chasing wildlife or fish that if you're too loud the fish will hear you and scatter away it's just it's absolutely mind-blowing and it's those things that's like it's very easy to overlook if you're not paying attention but it just it's a living world man and they do an

absolutely incredible job making it feel like everything is actually alive and works in this world. Well, and in Valentine too, when you first get there, there's a house that's only framed up. It's just wood frames. And if you go back and visit Valentine over and over again, as you're doing the things in this game, the house is slowly being built. And you'll find, you know, eventually, I think it's almost completely done. And it's incredible the way that like, such a subtle thing that doesn't need to happen in a game, but the fact that it's there, you're just like, how much else is there in this game that I'm not noticing just because it's so alive? Oh, yeah. So let's talk about a little bit more of those types of detail in the world, because I jotted a few down that I think are really interesting.

First of all, the footprints in the mud and in the snow are absolutely incredible. I did say in our God of War deep dive that Red Dead kind of ruined that mechanic for me because almost any game, if they're walking through deep snow, it just disappears in chunks. Like you'll see a whole like rectangular prism disappear. In Red Dead, you actually see like the imprints as the boot goes down into the snow, you see the snow get pushed to the side. I think that stuff is really well done.

Talking about like the fish in the game you can fish and when you catch a fish arthur holds it and you have you can like inspect it and you have to decide whether you're going to keep it or throw it back and the fish will keep moving did you know if you take too long the fish will die while you're holding it and you can chuck it back and now it's just a dead floating fish on the top of the water. I love the fact, the fact that they even built in this timer and how long you decide about the fish is so cool. Um, there's a person that is raising funds for the Quincy Harris Memorial Hall, which is a shelter for veterans, and you can donate $20, if you do,

as Arthur, you can return to the memorial later and there is a plaque and your name will appear on the plaque as a donor if you indeed gave to that fund. And if you didn't give, your name's not on the plaque. That is such a small detail that 99.99% of people are never going to notice. I only know that because of posts on Reddit. Because when Red Dead came out, I just wanted to consume as much as I could. And that's the kind of stuff that you get in those little details that is so cool. Do you guys have any other examples of little details like that before we move on to the next segment? Not quite that nuanced. But one of the things that I really love is the camp life. The more that you do...

Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. Honestly, your camp is your home base, and you feel good being back at camp. You go out into the world, and you work real hard, and you do these crazy adventures and stuff. And then you get to go back to camp, and you'll actually see the relationships of like the gang members change over time uh and then as you progress and you donate money to the camp you'll actually see the camp like get nicer over the over the course of the game you know there there's a few times where you know yes you move camp and stuff like that you know but but even then like you see the differences it's it's one of those things where if you get into a fistfight and you get knocked down, you have mud on your clothes. That doesn't

just disappear. It'll stay that way until you can walk through water or go take a bath, you know? And it's just like, those things, are they necessary? Absolutely not. Like, the game is the game regardless, but do they heighten? Man, they add so many incalculable things for the immersion that you feel. I think it's one of the things that honestly sets Red Dead apart is you have this incredible story, but you have this incredible world. And I said it right in the very beginning of the show. There is not a time when I play Red Dead that I don't want to just go be out under the stars, sleeping on a sleeping bag by a campfire, because the game is just so alive in that sense. I want that. And it's because of that immersion.

It's because the world actually feels that alive that it does that. It's 100% on that, where everything feels alive. Everything's perfect. There's so many subtle details that just blow your mind in it. And we've covered most of them, even the simple part of, you know, like when you're riding a horse in the snow, you'll start to see, you know, the snow getting on it. But the fact that the animals will hunt each other if you're just staying still and you'll watch these things and just simple things like that that just make it incredible. I love it when you walk into a room.

Like if you run into the room, it's different than if you walk into the room. Oh, you bust in. Right. Slam that door on the other side. Yeah. Oh, yeah. The only annoying part that I've found is – Shopkeepers get scared.

Yeah, they do. Oh, they do. Yeah. If you accidentally – like you walk in with your gun out on accident, like, Oh shoot, I got a holster. This thing. Cause Oh, Hey,

hold on. Um, but then also you can, you can interrupt a conversation. And when you walk away, you'll hear the same two characters pick up where they left off in the conversation. And that's just amazing to me. Um,

the only annoying part that I had with, with the whole thing of running around was I would, I would try to get somewhere at point A to point B as fast as I could often. And sometimes controlling the horse wasn't as easy as I wanted it to be and I'm like duh I just hit a person on accident and that person hates me now I don't want to run to this person oh it was awful but but I just bowling bowling over people or accidentally running straight into a tree where Arthur will fall off the horse i did that a lot on accident but the horse controls

are are not so good it's the only part that was a little rough yeah yeah uh last thing i'll say about the details is when you loot arthur is literally grabbing every individual item that he's looting so you will open a drawer and pull out a can of tobacco and he'll look at it and put it in his satchel and then he'll open up a cabinet up top and he'll look at it and put it in his satchel. And then he'll open up a cabinet up top and he'll get on his tippy toes and open it and look. So it's just really incredible. It's not like Resident Evil, where if you loot something, it just says, you have picked up the something something medallion. There's no animation for it. And when you shop at a store, you i mean you can go through the catalog but you can also grab all the individual items off the shelf and i think that stuff's

really immersive that was one of my favorite things about having the special edition that was the actual catalog you get the actual catalog oh like full size yeah it's a full size and i'm like flipping through it just like arthur is it looks exactly the same and sorry i know i know you just brought that catalog piece up. So I had to mention that. That was, if anybody can find one online anywhere, just go buy it because it's so much fun when you're playing through the game

and you're just like, I'm gonna look at the catalog so I can save myself some time in game. And it's the exact same thing. Well, you can see pictures of the real life catalogs and it looks identical to what Red Dead did. So they actually took the real life catalogs and it looks identical to what red dead did so they actually took the real life catalogs and copied the style now obviously you're not going to find like horse reviver in a real life catalog but in the world of red dead 2 they they do let you buy that you know magical shot for your

horse all right now we do need to talk a little bit about the open world nature before we jump into story spoilers. Now, we really praised Elden Ring, which it deserved, for going open world. There was so much to discover. How much did we love finding a little dungeon or using one of your sword keys, whatever they were called, and now you can access this dungeon. And Red Dead 2 really, in my opinion, does the open world stuff absolutely the best. It is not just randomly finding an area to kill bad guys and clear it out. This game will actually hit you with real puzzles. Like, this is a little bit darker, but you will actually find corpses that have been killed by a serial killer in the open world. And if you investigate the head, you can pull out a part of a map out of their mouth.

Now, there are multiple bodies that you will run across, and all of them give you a little piece of this map. And the killer is writing messages next to the crime scenes. And you'll see things like, look on my works, or behold. And after you put all the pieces of the map together, they point to where the killer lives, and you can go capture him and bring him to the sheriff and get a reward for it. So there's stuff like that in the open world that actually combines exploration with puzzle solving. I think that stuff's really cool. There are caves with statues, and you have to change all the orientation,

and then you can get some gold bars. There's a lot of things like that in the open world. The KKK meetings, right? Do you remember the first time riding at night? Dude, yes. And there's a clan meeting, and what do you do? Like, do you remember the first time writing at night and there's a clan meeting and what do you do? Oh, you take them all down.

Yeah. It's like, no, not in my woods. Yeah. You clear them out. That, that stuff is just so neat.

I mean, Michael is a testament to this. You can play this game for hundreds of hours and ignore the story. And you still have plenty of fun that you, of fun that can be had in the open world. I'll say this about the open world. And one of the things that they do really, really well, in my opinion, is they keep the UI clean and they keep the world clean. Yes. With so many things to do in this game. And I mean, we're talking literal hundreds of hours worth

of stuff that you can do apart from the main quest. But I love the fact that this game is not always pointing you towards an exclamation quest marker and saying, hey, go here. Now, what they do, and I think it's actually really smart, is they'll just say, hey, here's one of your gang members over in this part of the world. He wants to talk to you. You should go meet him somewhere. And it's just indicated by a little kind of yellow color on the map and that gang member's initials. And it's like, okay, so I need... Javier is over here. I can go east and go talk to him. Or Hosea is up here in the mountains and wants... I can go do something with him. Or hey, Dutch wants me at the camp. He's got, you know, something to tell me. And you don't know which one is the main quest. Like, honestly, like, that's the beauty of it.

It's just like, they do not put you on rails in this game. They literally say, hey, here's options, pick one. And you have zero clue whether it's a main quest, a side quest, a little adventure uh you know a hunting thing now you know hunting i guess they actually do kind of specify later on in the game but i absolutely love the fact that they just give you options of directions in the world to go without saying hey giant yellow exclamation mark this person has a quest for you you know and then it's like hey can you go clear out the rats out of my cellar? And it's like, no, there's none of that. It's literally interacting with the world, interacting with people.

You go talk to them. They have things to say. There's reasons for these quests. They're not just dumb, random things. But on top of that, if you like randomness, then there's these crazy world interactions where you're just riding your horse around and there's a lady that's trapped under her horse. I came across a guy that got bit by a rattlesnake and asked me to suck the poison out. Yeah. You know? And it's like, I mean, should I just put that guy out of his misery or do I suck the poison out? But so there aren't those random events too, which which i absolutely love but i like that the game just lets you play a hundred percent and that i think is what took me so long in this game to get through it is i've got this yellow blip on my map

that's a quarter of the map away from where i'm at and i'm like i'm not gonna ride the stage coach there i'm not gonna take the train i'm gonna ride there and see what the world has to offer on the way and a hundred percent of the time there was something noteworthy or funny or fun or crazy to do there's that guy that always wants you to take pictures of stuff with him you know he's like this photographer like help me get a bear over here and you're like i gotta try and get a bear over here i guess just you know and it's just there's always something like that going on in the game and then yeah to josh's point like you don't always know what the main quest line is you have an idea sometimes like oh i haven't talked dutch in a while about this and dutch has got something for me to do it's probably something with that so of course you know my mind always is like i'm gonna avoid that for a little bit

keep going side questing until i'm ready to get to that point but there's always more and more stuff popping up it's like playing whack-a-mole with just entertainment yeah yeah the the random encounters are awesome you might see women hogtied on some guy's back of the horse and she's screaming for help and it's like am i gonna turn around and like shoot this guy and then try to take her back home or am i gonna let them go because i'm on a mission like what am i gonna do but then one time she was evil right she was a criminal like you don't always know like when there's like there there's you come across two guys randomly having a fist fight in the middle of the forest and the guy's like help me and i'm like i don't know which one of you guys i'm supposed to shoot but if you wait too long and the good

guy gets killed it hurts your your, what's that meter? The honor meter. And you're like, I don't know what to do. All right. Well, this episode's obviously going very long as we knew it would. This is the point now where we're going to dive into some of the spoilers regarding the story. So if you want to avoid all the spoilers, go ahead and jump ahead to the 1 hour 32 minute mark or if you are a patreon supporter with ad free episodes the 1 hour 31 minute mark uh i i think for me the number one thing i wanted to talk about is the revelation that arthur has tuberculosis all right you see arthur degrade in health over the course of this game it's so sad

it is it is for me the saddest thing i have ever experienced in a game because this is not a big bad that you're gonna be able to kill in order to stay alive ar Arthur, it's a death sentence. And I remember the first time I played the game, it's kind of confusing because Arthur starts coughing a lot and you don't really know why. And his eyes start to get like red and yellow. And I remember at one point I thought, man, they did a really bad job with Arthur's eyes in this scene. But then all of a sudden, you hit a point where Arthur actually passes out from all the coughing, and he officially gets diagnosed with tuberculosis. And I find his impending death to be absolutely heart-wrenching. Well, and one of the things, too, is that in the Old West,

in the old days, tuberculosis was actually called consumption. And it's because it consumed you. It was a very, very awful way to go. Horrible. And so when you think about it, learning that Arthur has this, and like you said, Paul, there's no big bad you can fight with this. This guy who is an honorable, dapper character that I've been doing my best to stay honorable and get his honor up and do these things and go through the story like he's going he has an impending he has a a timeline he's he's got an expiration date and it's very sad because it's it's not gonna be pleasant you know no the the progression that they managed to show with arthur's decline is unbelievable honestly like the the hints that you get well beforehand like the second time through and i know like we we know now

we know the point where he gets infected with tuberculosis right you know because a dude coughs blood yes straight onto his face fairly early in the game but it's just something you don't even think about like it's this like yeah nuance right even think about. Like, it's this, again, nuance, right? Like, you just, oh, you know, he's beating this guy up and the guy spits on him. And it's like, that's what happens if you're beating somebody up. But then it's like, later on, you see this decline and then he gets the diagnosis. And the crazy part is the game, the tone of the game takes such a turn at that moment. But I don't think it's the game itself.

It's your emotion that takes the turn. Oh, yeah. That's the crazy part. They do such a masterful job of playing with your emotions and getting you to feel things that you think it's the game itself, but it's not. And you're just like, dude, you feel so bad for Arthur. And then it's like, I don't want you to go, Arthur. Like, don't leave me, man.

And then you see he starts getting so like he gets ashen and he looks terrible. And you're just like, I don't want this. Oh, yeah. It's so incredibly sad. And that idiot Micah runs around calling Arthur Black Lung. Every time I wanted to pull a Will Smith and be like, keep Arthur's name out your freaking mouth. It's like, shut up, Micah. You're not going to talk about Arthur this way. Oh, man. He calls him Black L lung the entire second half of the game and it's just like oh man you just want you want

to punch micah so bad the whole game i don't know that there's a character that's more loathsome than micah honestly like i mean i know that there's a lot of bad guys out there, but from the beginning of this game, the way that Micah acts, and even early on when you have to go to Strawberry and break him out of jail in Strawberry, and then you're doing him such a huge favor, right? You're putting yourself in danger for this guy, and then he just goes psycho. And it's like, I want to grab Micah and throw him off a cliff, but you can't because that's game over at that point. But it's's like, I want to grab Micah and throw him off a cliff, but you can't because that's game over at that point. But it's just like, that's what you want to do.

I hate that guy. Yeah. I don't know if I've ever wanted to kill a video game character that bad. Yes. And that early. And then he sticks around for the whole game. And you're like, I don't want to kill this guy. Well, not only that, he wins the showdown against Arthur.

Arthur dies. And Micah gets away with it. And when you see that happen, it is like, Arthur has such peace. And as long as you play an honorable Arthur, Micah does not actually kill him. But Micah runs away. And Arthur just very calmly, it's almost like he finally found that serenity where he's just watching his last sunrise. He knows that he's going to die, and it's in his last moments, but he has that kind of peace because he has achieved his redemption.

He has turned his life around. He kind of makes it his only goal to get John, Jack, and Abigail out of the life because he just sees that Dutch is a madman, and he kind of realizes that the blind faith has really been misguided at the end, because Dutch is insane, Bill and Javier are insane, and he just wants to get John out of the life. And he feels like if he can do that one thing it's like that one redeeming moment so he does get to do it but micah outlives him and then arthur has sacrificed everything to get john out of the life but when you play as john for the epilogue of the game and when sadie comes and tells you hey we know where micah is he's he's popped his head up. Oh, that guy's going down. And it's like, I don't even care that Arthur died to get John out of this life.

We're killing this guy. Yep. Get the posse. Get Sadie. Get Charles. We're going to go get Micah. And it's so satisfying. Yeah.

This game really pulls on the heartstrings and it seems weird for, you know, a video game that's about, you know, the Cowboys in the, in the wild West and stuff like that. But it, it plays into the fact that you like Arthur Morgan so much. And I'll be honest, I can't think of too many video games that kill off the main character. Who's so stinking likable,

you know? And, and I think that's what sets it apart to be honest, is it's just like that you become so attached to this guy from from start to finish and literally there's a finish and it sucks but it makes the game it makes the memory of the game and that that bond that you have with the character i mean they it really enhances that completely like would i trade it to keep him alive?

Yes, I would. But does it work? Absolutely. Yeah, I think that's a big testament to how well the writing is in this game and the storytelling is that there's really no clear black and white in this game in so many ways. Yes, we know that Micah is awful. And we know that overall, most people are going to that arthur is good overall but even dutch in his downward spiral you know for the first two-thirds of the game i'm like come on dutch man snap out of this like there's got to be some redemption for this guy and then you've got josea who is just an incredible guy i love but he's dutch vanderlyn's best friend and you're like how are you the best friend of this madman and again since we're in spoiler territory obviously you know hosea maybe doesn't get to see what dutch becomes but it's still like it's the characters really drive this story home so well and and again like like you guys were saying

with when when arthur finally you know meets his demise it's like you're playing a video game the main character is dead you're gonna play a different character for the last several hours in the epilogue but like it's beautiful and it's tragic but what a great story yeah completely agree the final words spoken in the campaign are very ironic and it's very bittersweet because the game itself is rather somber and it's got a lot of main characters dying i mean not more are dead almost all yeah when hosea and lenny get gunned down uh during the bank heist it's just it's so tragic but john after he builds this house with uncle abigail and jack are now you know here living with them they have like their new family and john turns to abigail and jack are now you know here living with them they have like their new family and john turns to abigail and says it's over abigail it's all over and then the game ends but of course we know what happens in red dead redemption one it's not over at all this is

literally the beginning of john's demise where his son tragically turns to revenge to kill the man who killed John. And so we see this cycle. We see that Arthur lived the life of a criminal, and he died for it. But he got John out of the life. Well, he didn't really. John gets sucked back in and he dies, and his son gets sucked into the life of a criminal. And so it's really well-written where Red Dead 1 and Red Dead 2 follow a very similar structure. And it's almost like that cyclical life of these criminals who are now raising new criminals, and they just don't know how to live any other life. They're just sucked back into it. And it's incredibly tragic. Even though Arthur turns good, he still has to pay the consequences for when he beat up the dude that owed them money because I beat a man to death for a couple bucks. You know,

so it's like Arthur still has to pay the price for what he's done. You know, he's just turned too late and it's just so tragic because you can imagine if Arthur had a couple more years, the kind of man that he would have been, but you know, we don't get to see it. Any other thoughts on the story?

Anything else you guys would want to share spoiler-wise before moving on? That was sad. It is sad, but it's so interesting. It's so well-written. But it is sad. I think at the end, too, another sad part about it is this veil over the whole entire theme of Red Dead 1 and 2 is this is the end of the wild west so at the same point while you're playing these characters this lifestyle is coming to an end

and so like paul just said it's very cyclical with what happens with these these guys but then like like part of the game that actually kind of turned me off was when we went to san denis and i'm like i'm not in the old west anymore i'm in like old New Orleans. And it's like, but that's the point of the game, is this lifestyle is going to end, and it's the end of an era. And it adds that more of that just somber despair to the overall feeling of the game, which I think is so important

to the overall tone of the characters. Yeah, you can't just glorify all the violence and have it end happy. It has to be realistic. And I think that they do such a good job with that. All right. Well, that's a lot of what we think about Red Dead. Josh, you've got a couple of community reviews to read for us. I do. We went to Steam, always pull some differing opinions, always find a couple recommended and a couple you know recommended and a couple not recommended just to see what works and what doesn't work for different people

try to give everybody that's listening as broad of a perspective as we can um so i've got uh i've got four total reviews two of them are recommended two of them are not the first one is recommended this person has 94 hours on record. They say one of the best open world games, graphics, story, atmosphere, and soundtrack. Everything is just perfect. Arthur Morgan is by far the best protagonist in any of the games created by Rockstar, a must play game for any gamer. Agree with that 100%. Arthur Morgan is easily one of the top video game characters ever, ever made.

In my opinion, I'd like to have a beer with him. Yeah. Touche. All right. So with Josh and then, uh, so this next one is not recommended three hours on record to play this

single player game. I had to install a Rockstar launcher, some Rockstar DRM, and the Rockstar Games social club, neither of which were optional, create a profile for the social club submitting personal stuff, such as my email and birth date, complete two captures picking the animal figure that's right side up, check my email to discover the validation mail didn't arrive, go back to the launcher and resend the mail. Go back to my email. Finally receive the validation mail and click it. Go back to the launcher and

fill out a million incomprehensible privacy options about my feed and my wall and other things. I have no idea where to find these or what they do. I paid $60 for this game. Can I please just play it? Josh, can you repeat everything you just said?

I tuned most of that out just a minute ago. I don't know where we're going with that. I will say that, yes, I bought this game on Steam. I'm sure you guys both did as well. And yes, it 100% forces you to install the Rockstar Launcher, which we have

all said we hate in that regard. So yes, it does suck. There are a lot, a lot of the negative reviews for Red Dead Redemption 2 had to deal with the fact that there is absolutely no way around having to use Rockstar's Launcher. I bought it through the Rockstar Launcher. Oh, did you? I believe it was not available on steam in the very beginning when it hit the pc port so i had already played on ps4 but when it came out on pc i think it was

exclusive at first yeah so yeah but the rockstar launcher and the rockstar social club really do suck you have to do so many workarounds to play like gta4 because it still forces you to like log into the social club but it's like this old defunct thing and uh it's not easy so i i understand those frustrations but ultimately that's not that hard to get through yeah no honestly and and y'all have heard me do this before but my my thoughts on this are very clear i've been very vocal about it i don't think you should slam a game because of the accessibility to it. Play the game. What's the game like? And I get it, but I don't know. I just bought it on PS4 anyways, so I didn't experience any of that stuff. All right. So this next one is not

recommended. This person has 10 hours on record. The amount of detail in this game is ridiculous, but the actual story and gameplay is kind of boring. I feel like watching a movie where I have to hold W the whole time. Most of the missions have the same template dialogue. Hey, don't worry. It's going to be totally safe. Nothing can go wrong. Something goes wrong. There's a shootout. You kill everyone and escape, rinse and repeat. Well, yeah, you're a cowboy outlaw. You commit crimes and you kill people and then, rinse, and repeat. Well, yeah, you're a cowboy outlaw. You commit crimes and you kill people and then you rinse and repeat.

It's kind of the life of an outlaw. Yep. All right, and then this last review is recommended 112 hours on record. The absolute pinnacle of first-person, open-world, story-based gaming. Red Dead Redemption 2 is easily one of the best games ever created, full stop. The story is the greatest told in the medium. The gameplay is some

of the best Rockstar has ever created. The world design and graphical fidelity is that which can only be created by large AAA studios. Red Dead Redemption 2 is the golden standard by which other games are compared. You cannot go wrong playing this timeless classic, this absolute titan of gaming. You think that guy likes the game? Yeah. A little bit. I'm with him.

I agree with a lot of that. Other than it's not a first person, it's third. You can play. You can play in first person you actually have the option of changing the camera to a zoomed in i mean you know you can zoom in closer to arthur's back you can zoom further away and you can actually play it in first person now nobody does four different views on it yeah and i always did like the not the farthest one away but the second farthest away because I wanted to see more, but the farthest away was too hard to control, Arthur.

Yep. Yeah. All right, guys. So that's a couple positives, a couple negatives. It is time for us to make our guesses as to where we think Red Dead Redemption 2 falls on the Steam scale of 0 to 100%.

Was it Michael that won last time? Or was it Paul? No, it was Paul. That's right. So Paul, I guess it's a million. You're up first. Sorry. So, oh man, I feel like this is one of those games where it's going to be rated lower than it should be.

Because you're going to get the Rockstar Launcher hate. You're going to get a lot of rock star backlash in general i think this deserves high 90s but i bet this one shook out somewhere around 92 i'll say 92 92 for paul i guessed i mean mean, it's Red Dead Redemption 2, boys. I figured this game is beloved by just about everybody. I really wanted to win. So I went 95% because I figured it's going to be in that mid-90s range overall. So I'm saying 95. Paul says 92. What do you say, Michael? This puts me right in the middle of the sandwich because there's no way I'm winning with this guess. But my initial immediate guess was 94.

And so it's right between you guys. What I should do is guess 91 or 96. I don't care. Go 94. 94. Oh, nice. I like it. That's a bold move.

You should have played the strategy, Michael, because you would have won with one of those. I do it all the time where I just get it right wrong. The actual is 87%. Oh, that's sad. I don't think that this game deserves an 87%. Now, I did say that there's two main types of negative reviews for this game. It's one, Rockstar Launcher, and it's two, Not Enough Action. It's a story-based game.

The combat's not that fun. It's slower-paced. Blah, blah, blah. And that's the majority of the negative reviews were those two complaints. Yeah, and you always get a little little bit of the backlash so red dead released to such critical acclaim that expectations were impossibly high that no matter what you were going to get a little bit of a backlash anyway but i will say i bet the ratings are higher on console because this game is flawless on console the pc port was a little more dicey but i feel like between this game and god of war

we got perfectly made games on ps4 when those released that the bar was set so high no one's been able to meet it since we've gotten a lot of games that are good but none of them are as polished as what we got with god of war and red Dead. Yeah, I agree with that. All right, Paul, you won. So I won it. You won. I thought I was going to lose for sure. No, you didn't. I mean, you can thank Michael for having really bad strategy.

Yeah, I don't even realize that's why I don't play poker, I guess. I'm like, hey, guys, is four hearts good? I would like, in part, to thank Michael for this victory. I really couldn't do it without you. I love you, too. All right, let's hit that music. Hey there, Ms. Adler. If you were a vegetable, you would be a cute-cumber.

I don't know, Paul. I think it's gold. That hurts. My sides hurt. I'm laughing too hard. I stand by know, Paul. I think it's gold. That hurts. My sides hurt. I'm laughing too hard. I stand by it, guys. Not all of them can be winners, Paul. I stand by it 110%.

All right, so if you are new to the show, this segment is called Make Love, Marry, or Murder, and this is where all three of us give the deep dive game our individual rating. Is this a game that you want to marry because it's marriage material you want to stick with it long term and commit is it a game that is worthwhile to pick up and play for a little bit but then ultimately leave it or is it murder material and stay away i probably i should probably go first i have made it very clear this is my second favorite game of all time, only behind Mass Effect. It's absolutely marriage material. Hundreds of hours. It's fully polished. What an incredible game. Arthur, favorite protagonist. I love open world games. This is the best open world game, in my opinion. It might not be the biggest map, but man, does it have the most to offer for my money.

And I'm going to say Mary all the way. It's an easy Mary for me. I do think that there are some flaws in Red Dead Redemption 2. I mean, any game has flaws to it. It's one of those... I don't pretend like it is a perfect video game. But I think that this is one of those games that absolutely needs to be played by every gamer out there. Honestly. If a guy said, Hey, listen, I'm dying in the next three months, and I have time to play two video games, and I've never played any video

games in my life, which two should I play? It's going god of war and red dead redemption 2 like honestly like at that point it's like you know it's hard to find fault in the game i i would say a good nominee for that case is battlefield 2042 because then you're gonna wish for the sweet release of death you're like just let me go i like, just let me go. I'm ready. Just let me go. So depending, you know, maybe that's not the worst. That's true. There is a good point there. But yeah, I mean, this is one of those games where if you have not played it and you have heard everybody talk about it, you owe it to yourself to play this game. There's no other way to say it, in my opinion. Like, do I think it's perfect? No, I don't. But it's perfect? No, I don't.

But it's a game that everybody should absolutely play. So I don't like to use strong language at all. So I'm just going to come out with it real fast and say that I'm going to murder any thought that I have in my mind that this game shouldn't be married because this is marriage material. When Josh said it's not a perfect game, I don't know, man. It's the closest game to perfect I ever saw. It's amazing. Yeah, it kind of depends on exactly what you're looking for. I would say it definitely has its flaws,

but Red Dead 2 might be the most ambitious game ever made. The level of polish and detail and the size of the world and everything that they put into this the amount of voice acting and motion capture and everything else this game is incredibly ambitious that some of the flaws like really bad horse controls i'm not gonna lie the horse controls are pretty bad they were rough i find that to be fully forgivable because it just does so much right uh i would be very hard pressed to find a better story a better protagonist i can maybe find a game that's a little bit better action but it's going to be a game that offers a lot less in the other

areas but it is a darn good game all right is it time for the leaderboard? It's time for the leaderboard. Nope. All right. Oh, let's go to the leaderboard. See where this game stacks up. Well, I do have one more comment.

Actually, it's funny. The part that I was chuckling about earlier before spoiler territory. Now I can say it because we went through spoiler territory paul earlier you asked you were like hey any thoughts on you know arthur from the beginning of the game to the end of the game things that changed i'm like yeah in the beginning of the game he was alive oh that's the part i couldn't say because i was laughing so hard in my head i'm like oh too soon sorry poor arthur still getting over his death all right leader leaderboard, here we go.

Sorry about that. By the way, did you know his tombstone changes depending on your honor level? It has different text on his tombstone. No, does it really? Yeah, so this game actually does give you a couple of options where you can make choices in the world. But yeah, if you are honorable, Arthur's tombstone will

read, Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness which of course is from the bible and if you are dishonorable they use a different verse blessed are those who mourn for they will be comforted so even little details like that and then also if you die honorably the grave is really well kept and there's flowers placed there and if you are dishonorable it's clear that, just no one's come to visit. It's a little bit of disrepair. All right.

So for the leaderboard, Michael, why don't you tell the people about what our leaderboard actually is? So the leaderboard is a long list of all the games that we've played and done a deep dive on, on this very podcast that you're listening to right now currently there are scroll scroll scroll scroll 68 games on this leaderboard and essentially what we do now is we pick where we think this game ranks versus other games that we've done what

do you think guys is that pretty good today was eloquent? I think it sounds great. Yeah. Thank you. So we currently have in our top five, God of War, Overwatch, Rust, Apex Legends, and Rocket League. We've got some others down the list. Like this game's going to be a top five.

It's top five. Yeah, I think so. And side note, if you guys do want to look at the leaderboard while you're listening right now, you can go to multiplayer podcast.com and kind of look at this list as we go through it right now yeah absolutely it's right on the front page you just have to scroll down a little bit uh not only is it top five i will quit this podcast right now if it's not top two because it would be preposterous to rate

god of war one and then somehow put this below Apex Legends. I would find that preposterous. I agree with you. I'm 100% on this. Now, the question is, are we going to put it 1 or are we going to put it 2? Because I think we know where Josh and I stand. Josh would stand behind God of War. The only argument that I will make for God of War is that it does everything

right. It focuses on the story, but it also focuses on the gameplay and action part, where I feel like Red Dead is miles above in the story. I am not doubting that. I'm not saying that it's not better than God of War in the story department. But God of War, to me, is a more all-around fun video game to play that also has amazing... We talk about you don't get amazing characters and gameplay and story. And with God of War, I feel like you do. You just get it in a 20-hour package. Whereas with Red red dead you get absolutely top tier story absolutely top tier characters but gameplay is kind of down here a little bit so it's like even though it's better in two it's worse in one in my opinion so that's the only caveat that i'll make as far as like putting it

just under god of war is i feel like god of War is a more complete game that hits all the points versus hitting two points really, really well and then kind of missing on the other point. What I actually heard there was Josh saying, listen guys, I look a lot more like Kratos than I look like Arthur Morgan and so I like God of War

better. I mean, do we want to look like Arthur Morgan? I don't know. He's a arthur morgan i don't know right well beginning of the game or ending the game i don't know depends on what part of the game you're looking at right so my ranking on this is going to be kind of tough because i have really not spent any time in god of war that being said had i played god of war it might change my opinion but overall since i tend to definitely lean towards longer open world games as my all-time favorites i would assume that i would want to put this number i feel like you

would like red dead better than god of war michael i think so too and that being said i think it's going to between you guys figuring it out but if there's a tiebreaker i think it's going to end up number one well i think it's going to be a tiebreaker because i'm i don't see paul i don't see paul putting putting agreeing that god of War is better than Red Dead. So here's the thing. I love both games. They're both in my top 10. Josh has God of War in his top 10, but not Red Dead.

Michael has Red Dead in his top 10, but not God of War. My thing is, as fun as God of War is, if someone were to tell me, like, did God of War make an impact on you as a person? I would say no. I would say it was very fun. I enjoyed it. God of War. I said, I started out the show saying, is this a perfect game? And we agreed, yes, it is. But at the same time, I feel like you just kind of turn off god of war and i don't really think about it a whole lot i did not seek out videos and little easter eggs nearly as much as i did red dead red dead just offers so much more material it's so much more ambitious it makes you think about life and people and morality and ethics to me that puts it into not just fun but also important

i think it's a very important game um but that being said as long as these games are the top two you don't have to i have i i mean for me yes god of war is number one but i have no issues with red dead being number one and god of War being number two. It's that good of a game. I am not slandering Red Dead at all. The game is absolutely incredible. If you have not played it, you are severely missing out on an absolutely incredible experience.

I'm not upset if we put Red Dead at number one. We're splitting hairs. They're both so good. They're just good in different ways, right? Absolutely. I do think, think though that red dead does things that are so innovative um that it just to me stands out a little bit more than most games that i've ever played like simple things like the footprints in the snow and the fact that when you're riding along the deer carcass and you know it gets gets snow developing on it and like what pa Paul said earlier with a fish dying in your hand because you didn't throw it back fast enough.

This being said, I guess one of us is now going to have to go as Arthur Morgan for Halloween. I vote Michael. I'd say Michael looks the most like Arthur. They'll be like, what are you guys? We'll be like number one and number two

on the leaderboard. Boom. Oh, yes. They'll be like, wait, what? If we want to put a third in, that means that Paul has to go as Reinhardt. Boom. Oh, yes. I was going to be like, wait, what? If we want to put a third in, that means that Paul has to go as Reinhardt. Three.

Well, three. Yeah, that's true. I'll go as Reinhardt. But you know what? This also gives us the chance to play God of War Ragnarok later, and maybe that'll hop up to number one.

Who knows? So God of War could make a comeback. Don't you threaten me with a good time, Paul. Red Dead 3. I got bad news for you guys we're gonna be waiting a while yeah it's not gonna be anytime soon well we got the witcher to play eventually anyways and there's a lot of games so i guess we'll go with it yeah wait it out all right you guys have any closing comments or thoughts after this epically long episode it's almost as long as how long it takes to play Red Dead.

Yeah. Just thanks to Nevo. Again, honestly, our legendary supporters are an amazing group of people. We say once legendary, always legendary. You always keep your Discord perks, your legendary status, and all that. But a huge thanks to Nevo for supporting the show, picking an absolutely phenomenal game for us to play. So thank you.

Thank you for that. And then, yeah, this was a fun one, man. Absolutely. If you guys didn't know this or not, I do like this game. That's my final thought is this game is pretty good.

Also, if you guys want to keep the conversation going, follow us on all socials at MultiplayerPod and let's talk about what you thought of this game. Yeah, absolutely. Both on socials at multiplayer pod and let's talk about what you thought of this game yeah absolutely both on socials and on discord so check out that link in the episode description we'll see you on discord and then we will be back with our twig episode on thursday

and until then happy gaming everyone i've got a plan see you partners cheers Got a plan. See you, partners. Cheers, all.