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Cowboysrock55

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I didn't realize Micah was in jail. He was around in the intro. I know a couple of the guys -- Sean or something? -- is in jail apparently. I have the Javier Escuella mission to go down to blackwater and do the jail break. I haven't tried it yet... probably next time I play, tonite or tomorrow maybe.
Yeah the Sean one isn't technically a jail you break him from.

I'd recommend covering your face before you break anyone from jail though. I made a mistake and didn't do that. Now I've got a $300.00 bounty on my head from that territory. Fun mission but a lot of men died. The end result though was great. You get to duel wield pistols after that.

I also recommend the gunslinger missions if you want to get some nice new pistols.
 

Smitty

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Yeah I did the Emmett Granger one and got his revolver.

Though frankly, I upgraded the Cattleman revolver to the 7" barrel, gave it blue steel and a pearl pistol grip. It looks like an exact replica of the Colt Single Action Army, it's so sexy I don't think I can stop using it.
 

Cowboysrock55

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Yeah I did the Emmett Granger one and got his revolver.

Though frankly, I upgraded the Cattleman revolver to the 7" barrel, gave it blue steel and a pearl pistol grip. It looks like an exact replica of the Colt Single Action Army, it's so sexy I don't think I can stop using it.
Yeah but when you get to use two at the same time you'll want more than just the cattleman revolver. Unless you choose to not use the duel wielding ability.
 

P_T

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Hmmm, I don't really have a set of instructions, per se. I use a youtube Channel from a guy named ETA Prime. This is his most relevant video for general installation, but he's got tons of specific vids.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2QcC2GmV9Ew&list=PL_IqQoAmrtFDK4QWl_iaimL9Lh-hpvKpR&index=3&t=0s

Here are some internet set up articles I found helpful:

https://www.pcworld.com/article/3190347/gaming/how-to-build-a-raspberry-pi-retrogaming-emulation-console.html
https://howchoo.com/g/n2qyzdk5zdm/build-your-own-raspberry-pi-retro-gaming-rig

Here is a list of the parts I bought:

The Raspberry Pi 3 Model B: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B01CD5VC92/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o05_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1
You can get a B+, which runs slightly faster, but I've heard that's not really necessary. When the 4 comes out, whenever that is, they will be able to do a lot better with the N64 games and newer, but for now, the 3 does run MOST N64 games and many PS1 games.

You can also find "kits" on Amazon that come with many or most accessories, but I liked this specific case my friend had, so I get everything piecemeal.

Here's the case: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07349HT26/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o06_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

You need a 2.5 amp power supply. I recommend one with an on/off power switch so that you can turn the system off that way besides powering it down in the OS: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B01FM0XOH8/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o04_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

You need a "class 10" microSD card. I got a 64 GB. Many people are saying that if all you want is NES, SNES, Genesis, the older systems, you are just fine with a 16GB or even a 32 GB could be overkill. Other people seem to be saying they can fill up a 64GB or even push capacity on a 128GB when they have "all" the games even from the PS1 era, which are much larger. I doubt I'll ever get "complete" collections from the PS1/N64 era, I just don't care that much for most of the games besides the classics, so I went middle of the road with this 64GB, which for me, is still probably overkill: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B06XX29S9Q/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o04_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

You can use pretty much any USB or even bluetooth controller with the Raspberry Pi 3 because it has on-board Bluetooth and on-board wifi built in, but I wanted to be tech nerdy and instead of using my existing PS4 controllers, I went out and bought two highly rated retro controllers, one cheap one and one expensive one, to really sell the experience. The first has USB and bluetooth and is more expensive, the second is just usb and is relatively cheap. I haven't received the second one yet; and I'll say this about the more expensive one: It feels relatively tiny, and I'm not thrilled with the responsiveness over bluetooth, though it IS functional. I may try with it plugged in instead and see if it's any faster.

1) https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B018K3Q4KS/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o05_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1
2) https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B06XWD8QQJ/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o01_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

I also got this wifi/USB keyboard pad. Many times you need a keyboard to be hooked up (for set up, and even some roms require keyboard input, like with MAME arcade emulators, apparently, you need the keyboard to exit the emulator at all). Better to have this little portable thing than having to lug around a full size keyboard to attach to it all the time: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00WQG6A8C/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o01_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

Finally, I got this carrying case from Amazon, hasn't arrived yet, but I anticipate all the accessories will fit in here nicely (with the possible exception of the keyboard, but I think it will fit also), so I can carry it all around in one package: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B002VPE1QG/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o00_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1
Hey [MENTION=24]mschmidt64[/MENTION], I'm getting this for my brother for Christmas... do you have any updates (i.e. which controller works best)?
 

Smitty

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Hey [MENTION=24]mschmidt64[/MENTION], I'm getting this for my brother for Christmas... do you have any updates (i.e. which controller works best)?
Ironically, a Dualshock4 seems to be the best. I spent money on blue tooth retro controllers and they aren't great.
 
D

Deuce

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Reached the Epilogue in RDR2 last night. Still some stuff to do, but overall the game was kind of meh to me. Great graphics as expected, but voice acting was average and the story matched it. RDR1 was vastly superior.
 

Cowboysrock55

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Reached the Epilogue in RDR2 last night. Still some stuff to do, but overall the game was kind of meh to me. Great graphics as expected, but voice acting was average and the story matched it. RDR1 was vastly superior.
I feel like you rushed it too much. I feel like this is a game that you sort of have to savor as you go and slow play the main storyline.
 
D

Deuce

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I feel like you rushed it too much. I feel like this is a game that you sort of have to savor as you go and slow play the main storyline.
I did every side quest as well, I just put a lot of hours in. In somewhere around 90% completion and I’m now just looking for random animals to identify.

As I stated, the graphics are top notch but I don’t see what else there is to “savor”. Oh, and the ending to the Epilogue is dumb.
 

Texas Ace

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I did every side quest as well, I just put a lot of hours in. In somewhere around 90% completion and I’m now just looking for random animals to identify.

As I stated, the graphics are top notch but I don’t see what else there is to “savor”. Oh, and the ending to the Epilogue is dumb.
I just got to the Epilogue myself and I mostly agree with you.

The game could have and should have been so much better. But there's so much fluff that doesn't really add to the experience and Rockstar games are in desperate need of overhauling their mechanics.

The most annoying shit in the world is doing a mission that leaves you on the other side of the galaxy and now you have to ride the dam horse for 10 minutes or more just to get back to an area where you can perform another mission or action.

And why do I have to walk at a super slow pace whenever I'm in camp? It's 2018 for crying out loud.....these sorts of restrictions shouldn't be in a game anymore.

The world is beautiful, yes. But don't force me to interact with it. If I want to see it and explore it, I will. Putting me in situations where I have to do so for no other reason but because you want me to look at all the work you did is dumb.

The ending to the main story was very disappointing, but par for the course with the way the rest of the game went.

Creating technical marvels is cool and all, but Rockstar needs to stop reading their press clippings so much and start putting more substance to all that style.

I'm glad GoW won the game of the year and rightfully so. From start to finish, it was an amazing experience that never let up.

RDR has its wonderful moments, but it always shoots itself in the foot when the game slows down to a crawl or forces you to do things you don't want to.

RDR1 was better.
 

Smitty

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I'm only about halfway through the main story, in Chapter 4. A couple of things I'll say:

It's a technical masterpiece. It's graphically pretty awesome, though not revolutionary. It's just kinda the summation of the generation's work, kinda like GTA5 was for the PS3/Xbox 360 era. It has more detail than ever before, and that's one thing the "new" consoles added the ability to have; more detail. RDR2 is the unquestioned king in that regard.

Their mechanics DO feel like they are slightly aging, but they aren't in need of anywhere near the overhaul that say, Bethesda games are. But another one or two titles like this, and Rockstar will be entering that territory. The whole "go to destination while listening to NPC pontificate" formula is a bit dry. Not that it can never exist -- the Witcher 3 does it, for example -- but once again, studios need to look to the Witcher 3, because it's the King right now. No one has done it better than that 2015 title. Meanwhile, Rockstar seemed to take more of it's interface and visual design cues from 2013's The Last of Us, if you ask me. It has a lot of that feel, and even a lot of that level of graphics and look, except it's able to do all that in an open world, not a linear game.

The writing/story, voice acting and dialogue leaves a bit to be desired; but that's kinda always the Rockstar deal. It's not NEARLY as bad as, again, Bethesda, which at this point is like cringe-worthy how mechanical, uninspired, and corny it all is. Rockstar has too many lazily written moments, too many lazily written dialogue lines, too many lazily delivered dialogue lines, but they feel worse than they are, in comparison to the rest of the industry, because of how good everything else is. Arthur Morgan, IMO, is excellently written and excellently delivered. So is Dutch for the most part. Some of the side characters, though, even John Marston, feel like they fall a bit flat.

And the regular NPCs, like quest characters, my god, some of them are not good. They talk like they are speaking how a 20th century high school student THINKS a 19th century person would talk; that is, in ridiculous platitudes and generalizations. Even Rockstar's satire here is empty: their mocking of the KKK, Eugenics advocates, suffragettes, gun fanatics, politicians, race and sex in general, the satire is empty and stereotypical itself. The Eugenics advocate says, plainly and shallowly "You are a fool for thinking that colored people are equal! Good day to you sir!" He has no more complex argument than that; it's almost farcical. The complexities of the eugenics argument are so much more ripe for a DETAILED skewering, something that might be funny to both sides, in today's political environment, but instead Rockstar punts with "This character just hates everyone. Look how dumb he is!". Not even fun to interact with this character.

Overall, how does it grade? Does it hold up to RDR1? I'll say yes.

My overall grade is leaning towards like 9/10 or higher. It's a tremendous work. IMO, it's a blast to get sucked down the rabbit hole of it's hyper-simulation. Yes, it's time consuming. Yes, it's a chore at times to walk across your camp. To not be able to fast travel. To whistle and your horse is too far away (ironically, people mocked the Witcher and RDR1 for the insta-spawning horse when you whistled, so, you know, damned if you do, damned if you don't). But at the same time, it's also obvious those were conscious, deliberate design choices that the company was specifically willing to live with, so I'm not faulting them for bad design. It's just not everyone's cup of tea.

Does it compare to RDR1? Well, I think I'd have to say RDR1 was better, but RDR1 was also an all-timer. And I think from many (most, really) perspectives, RDR2 is objectively "better," but SUBJECTIVELY, RDR1 has the newness edge; RDR1 did it FIRST. Which is why it scores better, why it's remembered better.

What RDR1 was a first for many open worlds, it was a first for the Western Genre (a game of that quality as a western was unheard of), and John Marston was such a good character. RDR2 is BETTER than RDR1 in almost all regards, but not enough better and not enough different that it scores better marks, because it's essentially duplicating and cleaning up a lot of what RDR1 offered, so we feel like it's repeated, and the repeat nature of it loses some of it's desirability. But let's not forget: RDR1 had a lot of fucking slapstick, cornball characters, a lot of real bad dialogue from guys like Seth, Nigel West Dickens, Irish, Sheriff Johnson's deputies, the Mexican Rebel leader was atrocious, and the entire Native American storyline with Dutch at the end of the third act felt rushed and glossed over. I play that game barely remembering that Dutch is the ultimate bad guy (even though his final scene is pretty satisfying); but Bill Williamson seems like the main draw of most of that game; and Javier Escuela is barely explained at all (also side note: Escuela is excellent in RDR2, a dramatic imrpovement; while Williamson is not so much).

Long post summed up: I think RDR2 is great. I will buy it again if it comes out for PC. I will play it all the way through again. It will crack my top 10 or so games of all time for sure (that's another fun topic, post your top 10 games all time). It's right there with RDR1, Skyrim, Last of Us, the Uncharted Series, the Witcher 3, it's in that conversation.

But it can be all that, and it's still fair to feel like it falls a little short of expectations. I wish the world was bigger (amazingly enough. I actually feel like it's a little small; but then, I haven't opened up New Austin yet. Also, Why the fuck remake new austin, but not Mexico? Seems lazy. They better patch Mexico in). I wish some of the dialogue was a little better acted and delivered. The story is ok, but the mechanics need refreshing soon. It's great.... but it's not revolutionary like the Witcher 3 was.

That's my take. Love it. But I can see why others are left wanting something a little different.
 

Texas Ace

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mschmidt64 Yes, the Witcher 3 is how an open world game with a great story should be done.

To use a sports analogy, I didn't feel like there was a lot of wasted movement with TW3.

With RDR, I fee like there's a lot of wasted movement. When this game shines, it's amazing. Unfortunately, there's a lot of times it doesn't and it trips over its own feet.

Arthur is great character which is why I have some issues with some thing that we can discuss later, and Dutch could have been much better, but like with a lot of other things in RDR, Rockstar dropped the ball.

My final grade is a 9 out of 10 which is extremely high praise, but this game could have and should have been a masterpiece but it didn't.....and the sad part, it's their own fault.
 
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Deuce

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I can’t give it a mark as high as 9. That’s an elite level game and this game is only elite in graphics. 6 or 7, tops.
 

Cowboysrock55

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I feel like I've forgotten RDR1 too much. That was so long ago that I forget the whole story. Which is a little unfortunate because the connection with RDR2 is probably super interesting but there was too much time between the games.
 

Cowboysrock55

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I did every side quest as well, I just put a lot of hours in. In somewhere around 90% completion and I’m now just looking for random animals to identify.

As I stated, the graphics are top notch but I don’t see what else there is to “savor”. Oh, and the ending to the Epilogue is dumb.
You've definitely put a lot of time in the game over a short period of time. I've loved it so far but I'm only in the fourth chapter. I don't like to rush my way through games like that too quickly. The one thing that does bother me is that I can't run through camp. I get having to ride your horse back after missions. Sort of forces you to deal with the open world and it's realistic. It's why the lack of fast travel doesn't bother me. But why can't you run in camp? Has no logic to it in my opinion.
 

Cowboysrock55

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I started playing GOW 4 again this week. Far superior game in all aspects.

Story, gameplay, visuals, everything.
See I found that game to sort of be a little boring and repetitive. Beautifully done but it was sort of run ahead and hack and slash. I just like the way that an open world game sort of lets you take an enemy by surprise or strategize how you want to approach something. GOW was just sort of run ahead, open all the chests and then run ahead some more.
 

Texas Ace

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See I found that game to sort of be a little boring and repetitive. Beautifully done but it was sort of run ahead and hack and slash. I just like the way that an open world game sort of lets you take an enemy by surprise or strategize how you want to approach something. GOW was just sort of run ahead, open all the chests and then run ahead some more.
The new GoW is not like that at all.
 

mcnuttz

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Does anyone in here have the Nintendo Switch? We got our kids a PS4 a couple Christmases ago, but outside of Lego Dimensions they hardly ever play it.

I think the Switch would get a lot more use, but it doesn't seem like there are many games to choose from.
 
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