Nut Load. Mini reviews of games old and new. No fuss. No spoilers. Occasional shock face.

Wednesday, September 19, 2012

Red Dead Redemption: Undead Nightmare (2010)

Genre: 3rd Person Shooter / Action  |  Players: One / Online Multi  |
Developer: Rockstar North / Rockstar San Diego

All they had to do was give us more of the same awesomeness for this Red Dead Redemption expansion and I'd have fapped in their coffee cups.  But they didn’t, they changed things, which is a pleasant way of saying they fucked it up.

The undead have appeared in the Wild West and waste no time in shitting up everyone’s routine.  You once again play as John Marston; his quiet life has been interrupted so he sets out to remedy it.  You’ll meet some old friends from RDR along the way, so it pays to have played it first.
The core game mechanic is the same but what they do with it is painfully formulaic.  You ride into town, kill zombies, ride into the next town, kill some zombies, ride into the next town… yawn.

Beyond that, the game is an endless hunt for ammunition.  You can’t buy it.  You have to farm it from the dead zombies.  To kill a zombie you have to get a headshot and blow his/her brains all over the dusty plains.  Worse still, to save a town from being overrun you have to give away a portion of your precious ammo to the townsfolk, who, in an act of asshat economics, will get overrun again 2 hours later while you’re off doing something else, and they will all die.  Your great heroic deed is for naught.  You could drop what you’re doing at the time and go save their sorry asses again but that is even more tedious than farming for ammo from dead dead people.

In the regions where there’s no high ground for you to climb, you’ll spend 90% of your time running away from a horde of hungry dead cretins so you can line up a shot.  By the time you’ve picked off 2 or 3 the remainder are clawing at you, killing you; you will die.  When you respawn they will all be back but your valued ammo stock will still be depleted.  To succeed you have to drop your aim and run away some more, etc.  It’s hateful and it’s the polar opposite of fun.

Heaven forbid your horse gets killed.  You’ll be stuck with a zombie horse that controls like a supermarket trolley; the one with the wobbly wheel.  I’m not even kidding.  The bastard nag won’t run straight.  He’ll pull you off ledges and bridges and into rocks and trees.  I couldn't even gain any joy in shooting it in the head because technically it was already dead.

Fuck you, Rockstar.  You turned one of the best sandbox games you've ever made into the worst sandbox game you’ve ever made.  I may well be the only person that doesn't think this is good but I care not.  I can't even give it away as I bought it from PSN.  Another reason to hate digital D/L.

Buyer’s Guide:
Available on PS3 and Xbox 360 as a D/L from the stores.  The D/L can either be as regular DLC, or as a full game (also available on disc) which will give you access to further add-ons, and multiplayer even with those that just own the original RDR.

2 run away, shoot, run away, run away, shoot, farm ammo out of 5

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