Red Dead Redemption Lost

Redemption Lost

Section: 

2010

I’m procrastinating. I should go back to work, but I take a quick peek in my bookmarked folder of nerdage sites. Surely organizing that is a productive use of my time!

I delete the link for 8-bit Theater, as that webcomic is apparently, for reals, done-done. Shamus’s Let’s Play of Lord of the Rings Online just doesn’t have the same umph as his old DM of the Rings but it’s still just entertaining enough to make the cut. Order of the Stick is brilliant as always, and I’ll be sad when the author wraps everything up. And …

“Gun-Horse? What is Penny Arcade making fun of this time?” I’m not as tapped into the gamingsphere as I used to be, so many PA jokes just go right over my head. This is one of those.

I do a quick Google search and it looks like they are referencing a game called Red Dead Redemption. Huh. The game looks REALLY interesting. It has everything I never knew I wanted in a Western game: Horses! Duels! An achievement for exterminating the buffalo!

If it were available on the PC, I’d buy it – but it’s not, so I give a mental shrug.

I don’t even consider the possibility of buying a PS3; my wife is pregnant with our first child, after all. I’ve got more important things to spend money on than a new console. Anyways, Rockstar usually takes about a year to port their games to the PC, and I’m patient enough to wait that long.

2011

I push the stroller as fast as I dare, intent on getting to the children’s area as soon as humanly possible. Casey needs to get some play time in, stat. When it’s raining (and raining and raining), she’s denied the park outside our house as an outlet for her boundless energy. When that happens, well I’m a loving father so I say she's being “emphatic,” instead of some other choice words I could use.

Oregon’s grey months raise my own personal stay-at-home-dad difficulty level a full notch. Luckily my nearby mall has an indoor play area that Casey loves to clomp around on. I push forward, eager to get her out of the stroller and onto the back of a giant plastic turtle. I halt my march when GameStop’s display window catches my eye; RDR Game of the Year Edition? Wow, I had no clue about that expansion. Since Casey’s birth I’ve been completely disconnected from the pop-cultural landscape. Anything below the level of Charlie Sheen’s meltdown just doesn’t penetrate the baby bubble I’m in. But zombies in the Old West? That sounds really cool. Maybe I could ...

Crying. Lots and lots of “emphatic” crying.

I push towards the play area.

2012

I finish watching the original version of True Grit and turn to my father-in-law. “I liked it! Honestly the remake was more enjoyable just because it had a more modern pacing as well as style and sensibility, but both were fun to watch. Probably because each one had pretty much every last Western trope you could want in a movie: horse-chases, poisonous snakes, bounty hunters, outlaws ... huh.”

As I’m talking, my mind starts to tingle. As I mention trope after trope, I’m oddly reminded of a game that I’ve never actually played.

I finish talking with my father-in-law and leave to pop onto Steam (it’s amazing how I’ve been using that service lately). I see if I can buy RDR on the PC and ... no, I cannot. That’s kind of odd. I see if there is any information about an upcoming port on the web. While I can find rumors aplenty, there is nothing definite. I’m getting paid well enough at my new job, but with a second baby due next month I’m not going to buy a console for just one game. I’ll wait.

2013

I leisurely walk around Fry’s and pass a display stand showing off the brand new PS3 model. It’s pricy but it comes with an embiggened memory and a copy of Grand Theft Auto V. Hmm … that game is the principle of this generation’s capabilities, a generation that I’ve mostly missed. I’ve wanted to play Skyrim and Arkham Asylum and Fallout 3 and a bunch of other games for years now, but my PC just can’t handle the power such games require.

My job is going well and, despite the cost of two kids in day care, financially our family is doing pretty well. Maybe it’s time to splurge. Why, if I buy this bundle I could finally play those games and … oh yea! Red Dead Redemption! Man, I’ve been wanting to play that game for years now. I put the PS3 in my cart and push it towards the cashier. I don’t go more than ten feet before I stop.

There is a thing called a “Steam Sale,” and the summer one is literally happening right now. I didn’t buy any of the games I saw on it earlier in the day because my rig couldn’t handle them. BUT what if I upgrade my PC instead of buying a new console?

That would be cheaper. Plus the PS4 is literally going to come out next month. Do I really want to buy a console when it’s about to be obsolete? By getting a high-end graphics card, chances are I’ll be able to play most of the PS4’s early games in addition to all the PS3 games I’ve been wanting to play, except ... .

Except Red Dead Redemption. If Rockstar was going to port that, they would have done so already. But that is just one game, after all. I shouldn’t make my decision based on just one game. I put the PS3 back and head on over to the PC section. It’s the smart decision.

2014

I’m finally going to buy a PS3! I’ve hemmed and hawed for years and years but I found one on Craigslist for a price I feel comfortable buying, so I’m going to bite the bullet and just frickin' buy one already! And the best part? It’ll come pre-loaded with Red Dead Redemption! The seller is a 30-minute drive away. I’m super busy with job/house/wife/kids/etc., but I can spare that much time. I can make it work. I can fit into ... traffic jam! Probably the biggest traffic jam I’ve seen in five, maybe ten years! Frickin' A!

My car is at a dead stop. I have all the time in the world to think about how I don’t have time for this.

After an hour and a half I finally arrive at the guy’s house. I try to wipe the frustration from my face and smile as I shake the seller’s hand. My smile turns into a grimace as I watch his PS3’s screen freeze as it loads up Red Dead Redemption. The guy says that this has never happened before! It’s a one-time thing! He can fix it! I continue to smile. Politely.

My smile grows harder and harder to hold as the stranger fiddles and probes. My smile is fully gone when the stranger gives up. I politely excuse myself and leave. Did the seller know the system wouldn’t work fully? Was that why the price was so affordable? Was this just a mistake from the beginning? I shake my head. I don’t know if I’ll try this again.

2015

I watch, with rapt attention, a video of a guy running Red Dead Redemption on a PS3 emulator. Every justification for piracy I’ve ever read has seemed self-serving and disingenuous to me, but perhaps this might still be a way I could finally play RDR!

I don’t want to break the law. I honestly don’t. But I’ve read that emulation in and of itself is not illegal; it’s the piracy of the software that is illegal. So if that’s true, then if I were to legally buy a copy of RDR and emulate a PS3 on my PC to play it, then both legally and morally I would be in the clear!

No, wait. It’s a fake video. Reading through the comments, a PC emulating a PS3 playing RDR isn’t even remotely achievable at this point and won’t be for years and years. At best. Never mind.

2016

I’m smiling. It’s not the rapturous smile of pure joy I see on my kids at Christmas. It’s not the smile of a man who has achieved a lifelong dream. It’s not even the smile that naturally comes to my face when I’m hanging out with a good friend. But as John Marston races through the dusty Mexican highland in search of his latest bounty, as the background music swells, as I hear the neigh of the horses, as I see the sun crouch below a scenic bluff, as the setting, the mood, the ambiance of Red Dead Redemption gives me everything I had hoped it would, my smile is real and genuine. It is a smile of a man who feels perfectly satisfied with his decision to purchase a console to play a single game.

It’s not that I have been thinking about Red Dead Redemption non-stop for the last six years. Rather it was that every time I saw something about the Old West, a small part of my mind thought, “Let’s have the debate about getting a PS3 to play RDR again! I’ll start! Wouldn’t it be cool to play the best game ever made in the Western genre? Wouldn’t it be neat to play RDR?”

And I would agree with that part of my brain, but then decide, for various reasons, not to do it.

But now I am finally, finally playing the game.

And. It. Is. Great!

43.2 hours into the game, and I’m not remotely bored with it. It’s still something I’m eager to claw time out of my busy life to play. I think that’s because RDR managed to distill the mythology of the West in such a way that ...

Pop-fiz.

Huh. That’s odd.

The PS3 shut itself off.

I try to turn it back on.

Pop-fiz.

Huh.

Don’t panic. I very methodically type the symptoms into Google. I discover with a blank face that my PS3 has contracted a case of “The Yellow Ring of Death.” That it is to say, the machine I finally purchased, after six years of waiting, has died on me when I was three-quarters of the way through Red Dead Redemption.

I do some more research. There is no way to transfer save files from a broken PS3 to a new PS3. I haven’t just lost my PS3, I’ve lost my save file too.

I keep researching. And researching. I read something.

I read it again.

I look at the screen. At the PS3. The screen. The PS3. Screen. PS3.

I know what I have to do.

I just don’t know if I can.

Comments

COME ON, MAN! OUT WITH IT! DON'T LEAVE ME HANGING LIKE THAT!

Or maybe you're trying to convey to me how you felt in that moment. If so, kudos, good man. You've done it.

2017
I recently found my physical copy of RDR. Thanks to XBox's backward compatibility I was able to launch it on my XB1.

Spoiler:

I recently took stock of my 360 games and gear. I decided that I would part with all of it except the physical copies of the Rockstar games. After all, they're some of the few console games that had maps and posters included in the box. I tend to keep my stuff in pristine condition, so all of the fold out maps look brand new. I even decided to keep L.A. Noir. Talk about a flawed masterpiece.

Man, RDR is a great game. Even my 13 year old son can't take his eyes off the screen. A few days later I try GTA IV on the XB1, just on a whim. It was always one of my favorite 360 games. It has about the same impact as RDR. My son and I are both completely captivated by what we see on the screen.

Spoiler:

My son asks me how much longer he has to wait before he can play the GTA series. I throw my wife under the bus. I explain to him that I'm fine with him playing it, but his mother will not allow it for a few more years. At his age, I really feel that it's harmless. He's a smart kid. A good citizen. If anything, GTA might be a good outlet for him to blow off a little steam.

I lost interest in GTA V after playing for a while. Never finished it. The main story wasn't very interesting. It's a shame, really. The online portion of GTA V is excellent. With a few friends, all on mics, it's a super fun playground where you get to make up your own rules.

I hope that Red Dead Next can recapture some of the old magic.

Oh, one more thing. The film Deadman, staring Johnny Dep, was probably the single most inspirational piece of material for RDR. Right down to the soundtrack.

I lost a 20-30 hour long game of RDD due to my own foolishness. I'd been 100% relying on autosave, and when a visiting friend booted it up to have a go, he started at the start, and you guessed it, unknowingly overwrote my one and only save file.

I never went back.

This exact thing happened to me. Not the delay in getting RDR, but 2/3 of the way through the game, I got the ylod. I tried to replay it and didn't even make it as far as I did the first time. It wasn't the same. That save game system is terrible.

So wait, is there gonna be a PC port or not?

Serengeti wrote:

So wait, is there gonna be a PC port or not?

IMAGE(https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-h80d86BtSK8/UvUBV7gZvnI/AAAAAAAALu8/-J0XteIhg1I/s1600/unnamed.jpg)

I was thrown by this quote:

BUT what if I upgrade my PC instead of buying a new console? That would be cheaper.

The PS3 was at $299 in 2013 when not on sale. What kind of upgrade were you considering that would be cheaper than that?? A very mild video card upgrade? Additional RAM? Certainly not both, right?

I don't know what model of PS3 you finally got, but they did have a relatively low failure rate - 10% in the first two years according to SquareTrade. That being said, they're likely pretty long in the tooth now... I think the days of consoles still working 10+ years later are likely behind us, barring some new technology to keep things from heating up.

That sucks, man - I hope you are able to continue. That is still one of my favorite game endings ever.

dewalist wrote:

I hope you are able to continue. That is still one of my favorite game endings ever.

Not only one of my favorite endings ever, but RDR continues to be one of my favorite games of all time. Thankfully, back in 2010, I still had a working Xbox 360 that hadn't RROD'd, so I got to play RDR from start to finish, which I played at my PC desk on my PC monitor with cable converters.

Also, I was able to rescue a dead PS3 by disassembling it and replacing the dried up CPU thermal paste with new stuff. It worked, but I gave it away not long after so I don't know if that was a permanent fix. I'd be willing to advise or even assist if you're interested (and if you haven't tried that already).

dewalist wrote:

Also, I was able to rescue a dead PS3 by disassembling it and replacing the dried up CPU thermal paste with new stuff. It worked, but I gave it away not long after so I don't know if that was a permanent fix. I'd be willing to advise or even assist if you're interested (and if you haven't tried that already).

There's also a finicky bake in the oven option, a blow dryer/ heat gun option, and a few others that have worked for people. At the very least, you may be able to get it working long enough to export your saves. The thermal paste option sounds like the best first step.

dewalist wrote:

I was thrown by this quote:

BUT what if I upgrade my PC instead of buying a new console? That would be cheaper.

The PS3 was at $299 in 2013 when not on sale. What kind of upgrade were you considering that would be cheaper than that?? A very mild video card upgrade? Additional RAM? Certainly not both, right?

The way I remember it is that I bought a pretty good PC in 2010 but it came with a cheap (and old by 2010 standards) video card. Come 2013 upgrading to even a mid-range video card allowed me to play games I couldn't before.

dewalist wrote:

I don't know what model of PS3 you finally got, but they did have a relatively low failure rate - 10% in the first two years according to SquareTrade.

CECHA model, first gen fat model, fully backwards compatible. I wanted the one that could play all the old ps1 and ps2 games.

But I got it in 2016, at which point it was 10 years old.

Localgod54 wrote:

There's also a finicky bake in the oven option, a blow dryer/ heat gun option, and a few others that have worked for people. At the very least, you may be able to get it working long enough to export your saves. The thermal paste option sounds like the best first step.

Ahh, interesting! I hadn't heard of those ideas when mine failed. If those options don't require opening up the case, they're probably worth trying first. Getting down to the PS3 mobo was not as easy as a normal desktop PC, if I recall correctly.

jrralls, I don't know what your current financial situation is, but if you have a PS4, you could spend $10 for a month of PS Now and play RDR that way... Not the best experience, but far better than not finishing RDR!!

must..not..hook...up...my...360...again.....must..not..hook...up...my...360...again.....

In regards to PC iirc this is on PSNow which is in turn on windows so one actually could play on pc.

Part 2 is posted for those who are interested;
https://www.gamerswithjobs.com/node/...

Happy 10th Anniversary Red Dead Redemption!

I'm gonna say it; RDR1 is THE best game Rockstar ever made.

I had a similar relationship with the Thief series. I was always getting close to playing the original games but they would be moved just out of my grasp (my own fault for working on and owning Macs.) Whenever there was a new game I'd think, this is it! I get MY Thief game but the were never good or didn't live up to the stellar, sneaky gameplay I had in my head.

I greatly appreciate the love for the original Red Dead. Sad to hear it was thwarted in so many cases. That used to be one of my dreads, saving over the file you needed to proceed *Shudders.*

It might be worth watching the endings of the original Red Dead (if you don't already know them) and then playing Red Dead 2. It has it's problems but, honestly, the ending of RDR2 (the ending ending, not the ending, if you know what I mean) is one of the most incredible things I've experienced in video games and I'm surprised it doesn't get talked about as much as the first games ending does. You need to know the originals story though for it to have the resonance it did for me, which might actually be the explanation.

Higgledy wrote:

It might be worth watching the endings of the original Red Dead (if you don't already know them) and then playing Red Dead 2.

There is another part to my story....

Oh wow. Thanks.