Red Dead Done

THERE ARE SOME SPOILERS IN THIS SO BE WARNED

Last night I was riding into Chuparosa with yet another bounty trying to finish up my 99.8% completion.  I had been stuck on trying to finish up the bounty locations and for some unknown reason I just couldn't get two of the locations to register with the game as complete.  I was to the point the game had given up giving me wanted posters with names on them, I was collecting bounties with no face and a ? on it.  I figured it was one of the many glitches I had seen through out the game.  Thinking it was a glitch, I did what everyone else would do; I hit the the internet and found out on a RDR forum that I was the problem. How so?  Because of my prefered method of collecting the bounty.  The two locations I was having problems with were Barranca and Rancho Polvo both of which are excellent places to engage the banditios with the carcano rifle.

What I learnd from reading the posts was I was killing the bounty target  too far away. In order for the game to recognize I was collecting the bounty, I had to get close enough for the three hints to come up and then the name of the location would pop up. On the next bounty I followed the suggestion and rode in, shot it out , and  collected the bounty . I went back to Chuparosa and Ta-DA!  I was now at 99.9 %.  I went and played some poker, rode around a while and hit the sack until the next day came up and there was my next bounty. This time it was the other bounty location. I did the same thing as before, and as soon as I collected the reward, BABOINK! 100% completion. Yay for me.

Now for me the game has come to and end. Like a good book or movie, it's time to reflect on the story and move on.

This is my second "sandbox" game. Fallout 3 was my first and I really liked that game. The one thing I enjoy is how both games had me immersed with the character.

In both games the direction your character takes is mostly under your control. There are some scripted scenes to move the story along but other than those instances, you control the development of your character. You have something invested other than power ups or weapon upgrades.  I know there are some people who probably like doing those things that you can't do in the "real world" like go on murderous rampages but I wanted Marston to redeem himself.  Well if you played the game,you know how that turned out.

Which leads to the Part 2 of the story.  I actually wanted revenge for Marston.  I finally tracked down the man responsible and confronted him. During the cut scene I thouight, "Oh shit, is this the whole we make our own fate and he lets him live cop out?" but luckily for me, I got the chance to blast that sorry SOB. Someone said something to me  about killing his wife and  brother, but I didn't because they were not responsible for what happened. 

I'm sitting here playing a GAME rationalizing my actions. Same thing with killing buffaloes. I didn't kill a single one because it wasn't necessary. I know there's an achievement  for killing all of them, but I'm not that much of an achievement whore. 

I did do the killing bears achievment but they asked for it.  I had to kill some of them to get the hunter and marksman challange for the 100% completion. but I wasn't planning on killing the amount needed to get the achievement That was until I was involved in the Great Tall Trees Bear Massacre.  I was trying to just kill one bear with the knife for my hunter challenge when apparantly every damn Grizzly on the map came in for tag team rage in the cage ass whuppin. I would kill one, then before I could finish the other one with a knife, her comes another one killing me. This went on for a few times until I got pissed and broke out Mr. Buffalo Rifle. Now I was killing bears, skinning them killing the ones that respawned and before I realized it, BABOINK!  - achievement.  After  I met my hunter challenge, I just avoided the bears but they apparantly held a grudge because they showed up during a bounty collection in Tanner's Reach and killed me yet again.

If it wan't the bears it was the cougars. There seemed to always be at least two hanging around Beacher's Hope waiting for me to ride out so they could come running out of nowhere and kill my horse.  I started getting perverse pleasure out of seeing one running in,  dead eyeing it with the semi auto shotgun and giving it all  five blasts. Then, here comes the back up. Say hello to my BOOMSTICK!!  F U kitty.

Speaking of perverse pleasure, I did do the dastardly achievement but there again, she asked for it. It was one of those stage coach ambush girls and when she ran away, I was just going to hog tie her and leave her on the side of the road which may be some B&D thing I have.   But after chasing her down and hog tying her, I heard a train whistle. Well, she did try to kill me, but even then I had  second thoughts. But hey, its just a game, right? Sucks to be you lady.  I didn't  kill any more after that, but I did follow one woman around after she ran off until wolves got her.  I thought I could have intervened, but it'ssurvival of the fittest. After that, I just let them run off to dissapear into the binary limbo they came from.

I had to break a lot more  horses than I wanted to because I was babysitting my daughter one day and she saw me breaking one of the Hungarian half breeds. This kid loves anything to do with a horse so when she saw Marston on a bucking bronco, she wasn't leaving the room anytime soon. Since she was in the room and her mom has a strict,  "No killing people or skinning animals in front of the kid" rule, I had to ride around roping horses while she said,  "get that one! "  This went on until I was bucked off a horse and I told her I would have to come back and try later. Not exactly an outright lie.

I don't think I'll play any more multiplayer. I tried it a couple of times but I don't like the random asshats that seem to permeate the free roam world. I may try the co op, but it will have to be with someone on the friends list.

O.K, I've taken up enough space on this. But hey,at least I wasn't trying to get you to go to some stupid level boosting site.