Red Dead Redemption Catch-all

MeatMan wrote:

Now on to the bigger issue - a RDR movie. Is this even a good idea? A movie about a game that's heavily inspired my a genre of movies? We all know good, new ideas are few and far between in Hollywood, but is it this bad?

No, not a good idea. The game is 75% The Wild Bunch already.

Yeah, Brad Pitt is good at playing a cocky badasshole. The key to Marston's personality is that he really would rather be at home, living peacefully.

To be really true to the video game, the movie needs to tell us that the age of the West is ending every 15 minutes. If they do that there will be barely any room left for plot, so it might as well be the wild bunch remixed. No one will be able to tell anyway.

Any of you who've played RDR seen Pitt in The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford?

I, for one, am looking forward to Red Dead Redemption: The Movie based on the Game based on the Movie based on the Game.

MeatMan wrote:

Granted, the movie could trim the fat from the game's "script," such as the minigames and a few missions here and there (mainly the beginning tutorial missions), but to squeeze the game's great story, experience, and environment into a 2-hour movie would not do it justice, I'm afraid.

Hrm... I'm going to trot out that old saw: RDR has a great story—for a video game. It repackages all the movie western tropes into one great game, whose greatness is dependent on so many factors that are off-limits to movies. The story itself, stripped of the game that surrounds it, penetrates it, binds the story together, would be a thin, weak string of cliches that would be left in the dust of the last 30 (?) years of westerns, before it could even get started.

There's a reason video game movies don't work, and the short (but correct) answer is that the stories just aren't that good. But that's not an issue when the stories are a part (importantly, a part) of a game, in the same way that operas and musicals can have weak stories (I forget where I just read that, but I won't take credit for the comparison) (Tom Bissell also points this out in his book Extra Lives). The story is there to frame the actions, and it's those actions that make a work like RDR so great: exploration, combat, hunting, discovery, watching the sunset, duels, hanging out in a tavern. You can't do that in a movie, and when you take it out, you lose what makes a video game unique. Then someone watches the movie versions of Silent Hill/Max Payne/etc, and thinks, "Jesus, video games are stupid."

RDR, as I alluded above, is especially redundant in this regard. Max Payne translates film noir to video games: turning that back into a film noir movie was pointless. RDR will be set up the same way.

I can understand the allure of seeing the look and action of RDR in a filmic context, but I don't think it will be as good as the RDR we have now—in fact, as I've argued, because RDR is already so good, the movie version can only be inferior practically by definition. And while I'm at it, it goes both ways: video games' persistence in aping cinema (part of why it seems like RDR could make a good movie) is also what's still holding them back as a story-telling form. They need to discover how to tell their own stories, and ignore the superficial resemblances between games and film is the first step.

Edit: Found where I got the opera comparison from, and clarified some language.

4xis.black wrote:

I, for one, am looking forward to Red Dead Redemption: The Movie based on the Game based on the Movie based on the Game.

Is that like what I saw at Costco the other day? Precious, a novel based on the movie, based on the book Push by Sapphire. I really hope they make a movie based on that book, then another book based on it, then repeat ad infinitum.

I'd honestly really dig an RDR movie, but I think they should keep with the idea of unknown actors as they did with the voice work in the game. Pitt wouldn't be a bad choice per say, but well, you'd know if was him before he even uttered a line.

Folk still playing this? I've just started it and would join a posse like it's going out of fashion.

I've tried three times to get in on the multiplayer side of things to no avail. It attempts to put me into "free roam", fails, says it will try again ad nauseum until I "force quit" to the dashboard. I can't even stop the process! Any suggestions? I'm connected directly into my router; fairly sure I have an open NAT but at the very least it's moderate.

Speedhuntr wrote:

I've tried three times to get in on the multiplayer side of things to no avail. It attempts to put me into "free roam", fails, says it will try again ad nauseum until I "force quit" to the dashboard. I can't even stop the process! Any suggestions? I'm connected directly into my router; fairly sure I have an open NAT but at the very least it's moderate.

That happened to me... somehow, my NAT settings magically changed to CLOSED. (The only way I knew for sure was to fire up Modern Warefare 2, and it tells you on the first multi-player screen.)

I've set it to OPEN several times, but somehow it gets set to CLOSED occasionally.

So, you have to go to Network Connections and Test the connection.

I believe that's all I had to do and it reset back to OPEN... I've had to do this three times in the past 6 months.

Just wrapped 144 hours and 16 minutes of the singleplayer. Milked it like you wouldn't believe. And MAN it's just going to be one of those games that I'll always, always look back upon fondly. First openworld game I've ever finished, too.

The zombies add-on, Undead Nightmare is looking very cool. Right in time for October and Halloween. Trailer here.

Yeah, I'm kinda looking forward to it because it's SP content for RDR. But then again... zombies? Really?

Orphu wrote:

Yeah, I'm kinda looking forward to it because it's SP content for RDR. But then again... zombies? Really?

The great thing about the zombie fad is that it can't be beaten to death. Ba-dum-ching.

Gravey wrote:
Orphu wrote:

Yeah, I'm kinda looking forward to it because it's SP content for RDR. But then again... zombies? Really?

The great thing about the zombie fad is that it can't be beaten to death. Ba-dum-ching.

*golf clap* well done sir.

I'd really like it if you could toggle a switch and put the zombies into an MP lobby or whatever. Ride around with a pal and have the ever present danger of the undead lurking around the corner? Sounds awesome to me. I've probably gotten my hopes up.

I had so much fun with this game back when it was released. Man, those were the days...

I still play, and have the most recent DLC, if anyone would like to posse up and hit some gang hideouts together.

Prederick wrote:

I still play, and have the most recent DLC, if anyone would like to posse up and hit some gang hideouts together.

I've still got RDR in the drive, but haven't played in a while. I'm up for joining a posse -- when do you usually play?

Asz wrote:

The zombies add-on, Undead Nightmare is looking very cool. Right in time for October and Halloween. Trailer here.

That looks awesome. I've been looking forward to Rockstar doing something like this since RDR came out. I loved the old west as a setting for horror since Darkwatch, probably because of the stark isolation.

Tell me, O Literature majors and People Smarter than me, is it ironic that in a videogame, I will bust my ass collecting bounties and herding cattle only to waste all my money busting out on Texas Hold 'Em? Or is that just art imitating life?

Grenn wrote:

Tell me, O Literature majors and People Smarter than me, is it ironic that in a videogame, I will bust my ass collecting bounties and herding cattle only to waste all my money busting out on Texas Hold 'Em? Or is that just art imitating life?

It represents Man's Inhumanity to Man, and the Loss of Identity in the Post-Modern World. Your ass represents your soul, busted and exchanged for useless material money, then gambled away as you try to fill the void post-War ennui has left. The patriarchy makes you do this.

SpacePPoliceman wrote:
Grenn wrote:

Tell me, O Literature majors and People Smarter than me, is it ironic that in a videogame, I will bust my ass collecting bounties and herding cattle only to waste all my money busting out on Texas Hold 'Em? Or is that just art imitating life?

It represents Man's Inhumanity to Man, and the Loss of Identity in the Post-Modern World. Your ass represents your soul, busted and exchanged for useless material money, then gambled away as you try to fill the void post-War ennui has left. The patriarchy makes you do this.

Deep down, I knew I wasn't to blame.

Grenn wrote:
SpacePPoliceman wrote:
Grenn wrote:

Tell me, O Literature majors and People Smarter than me, is it ironic that in a videogame, I will bust my ass collecting bounties and herding cattle only to waste all my money busting out on Texas Hold 'Em? Or is that just art imitating life?

It represents Man's Inhumanity to Man, and the Loss of Identity in the Post-Modern World. Your ass represents your soul, busted and exchanged for useless material money, then gambled away as you try to fill the void post-War ennui has left. The patriarchy makes you do this.

Deep down, I knew I wasn't to blame.

You partially are, because you won't embrace your feminine side. Granted, the patriarchy doesn't want you to, but still. Coward.

It would only be ironic if you were playing poker against cattle or the criminals you had caught.

Well, looks like I've hit a game-stopping bug in RDR on the 360. I keep hitting a bug where I fall through the world & have to exit the game. It was happening at one particular spot on the map that I learned to avoid, but now it's happening at a spot that I have to go through to advance the story. Too bad--I just got to Mexico & was really enjoying the game, but I have no idea how I'll ever get past it now.

Anyone playing the Liars and Cheats add-on? The Stronghold MP mode is actually quite entertaining.

Going to get back into this one. Don't know what distracted me last time. I loved every minute that I did play.

So I gave up waiting for a PC version and got it for the 360. I am really enjoying this game mainly because of the setting. I am very surprised at how well it controls for a Rockstar game. The auto aim is nice but coming from a PC background I kinda feel like I am cheating. However, I know if it wasn't there I wouldn't be able to hit a thing with a controller.

I also cant believe I lost 45 min of my time playing blackjack. Liars dice is the dumbest game ever.