This seemingly creates an issue in the storytelling, which is that the players’ John Marston may in fact be very different from the John Marston of the cut-scenes. This issue is seemingly caused by the objective and subjective storytelling aspects of the game. Where you have the objective storytelling of the cut-scenes and scripted moments, where the player is not in control of Marston. And then the subjective storytelling moments which is basically ever other moment in the game where the player is in complete control over Marston’s actions.

But this issue doesn’t seem to actually occur, because while the player is seemingly given carte blanche over the game world while they playing the game between those scripted moments, they actually aren’t. In fact they are actually rather limited in what they can do, especially when you compare it to the Grand Theft Auto games (post GTA3.) Specifically on one detail, prostitutes.

In the past GTA games one was able to have sex with prostitutes, which was one way to rejuvenate the character’s health. But in Red Dead Redemption, while there seems to be no shortage of prostitutes, it is impossible to procure their services in any way. While it could have been done simply to avoid the unpleasantness that sort of thing brought to the GTA series from people looking to blame society’s ills on video games, I think that rather this was done as a conscious storytelling decision.

John Marston is a married man, one incredibly devoted to his wife. So much so that he goes around hunting his old friends to make sure she is safe. If he weren’t so devoted he would have no reason to be doing the things he is doing. Thus if the player were allowed to have him cheat on his wife, it completely ruins his motivation for what he’s doing in the first place. Thus it is removed as a choice for the player, because it is impossible for Marston as a character to do it.

This is in line with Anthony Burch’s “suspension of agency” idea that a player is willing to give up some control/choice in order to have better immersion in the game. This is arguably what they are doing by taking away that option. By removing it they are making the player more in line with Marston then having the player make Marston like themselves, but by doing so they make the player more invested/empathetic to him and thus more immersed and engaged with the game.

Now I would argue that John Marston in the game is supposed to be a good guy, by that I mean he doesn’t go around shooting everyone, robbing banks, stealing horses, etc. Well perhaps not a “good guy,” but a reformed bad guy. One wanting to leave that life behind him, and not wanting to do the bad things he did when he was younger. Which is why I think that the choices there for the player to do bad things is not about giving the player a choice between a good John Marston and a bad John Marston, but rather a John Marston who wants to be good but can easily lapse back into doing bad things. The bad choices, (the things that give you dishonor,) are there to taunt Marston to coax him back into his old outlaw/bandit way of doing things, and thus are also there to tempt the player as well.

The “morality system” supports this by being made up of honor and dishonor, and not some version good or bad. The reason this is different from saying he is good or bad is because in order to gain or lose honor one first has to have set morality to judge actions as being honorable, or dishonorable from. In the game the actions that give him honor are good deeds, rescuing people, not killing a criminal when you can capture them alive, etc. While the actions that bring dishonor are stealing horses, money, killing innocents, killing your own horse, etc.

Based on what constitutes honor and dishonor, we can deduce that Marston is neither a good or bad person, although aspiring to be good (which is supported by some of the scripted moments.) This is because if he were a bad person, then the actions of killing and stealing would possibly be considered honorable, with the good deeds might be seen as dishonorable.

What this all means is somehow this team at Rockstar has managed to tell an objective story (one without any branching or multiple endings,) while still giving the player the feeling of agency (that they can do whatever they want in the world and aren’t unnaturally restricted.) Without making any of their choices inconsistent with the character and story they are trying to tell, while also immersing the player into the role of John Marston.  This is by no means a small feat, especially in an open world/sandbox game.

With only a few days before the release of ME2 I finally buckled down and decided to finish the first game since I had barely made a dent in it since I had picked it up. This caused me to finish the game the day of the release of ME2, so I finished ME1 then went straight into ME2. Which looking back on it now was maybe the best thing that could have happened.

Going right from ME1 to ME2 like that proved to be a really great experience, since you are playing with your same character from ME1 and it picks up right at the end of the last game so it almost felt like I wasn’t so much starting a new game as I was continuing onto the second disc of an epic game (I guess you’ll only get that reference if you played some of the long ass RPGs from the PS1 days when games like Final Fantasy VII came on 3 discs; I think FFIX came on 4.)

It’s also a testament to how well designed this series is. While ME2 does have better visuals then the original, everything still felt familiar, and looked consistent with ME1. It’s a great game, and I think that anyone who hasn’t played or finished ME1 should probably go and play that first, because you’re experience in ME2 will be all the better for it.

<Possible ME1&2 spoilers ahead?>

My one possible complaint with the game, although I’m not sure if it is, is that the ending doesn’t seem as fulfilling as it does in the first game. But as I noted I’m not sure its a problem with the game, but perhaps more a problem with Act 2′s.

See with ME1 it’s basically the first act of a larger trilogy long story. As such it’s more about introducing the player to the world of ME, as well as introducing the the overarching story. It did this through your pursuit of Saren and his goal of finding the conduit so that he can call the Reapers back to the galaxy. Thus the crux of the story is chasing after Saren to stop him, which serves as a very understandable goal.

ME2 though is Act 2 of this trilogy, so although it delves deeper into the world of ME, it also has to serve as a vehicle for mainly moving the overarching story of the games. Although the story feels somewhat less focused then in ME1 where you were set about stopping this one person who you could understand the motivations of, while in ME2 you are trying to stop the Collectors who you don’t really understand at all.

But even though you are trying to stop them, the missions you go on are generally not in pursuit of them. They are typically about building up your team so that you can fight them and win. Then when you do pursue them, or go to fight them, it’s generally on someone else’s terms and not your own. You generally seem to only have control over how you go about constructing you team.

As I was saying I’m not sure that this is so much the fault of the game, but more about where it falls in the overarching story, since they need to start setting the stage for the final battle while also trying to tell you an interesting story. So regardless of what you do I think that it no matter how you try and end an Act 2 game like this, you are going to end up leaving a lot open and leaving it feeling like you are just setting up Act 3 (the last game,) because that is what you have to do.

</Possible spoilers>

I have one more things I want to talk about in regards to Mass Effect, but I think I’ll save that for a separate entry, as I think this one is long enough, and that it can stand on its own.

In the game you are playing as a lone special forces type trooper, who has been unconscious for a few hours after getting dropped into a urban warzone. As you make your way through the city you find items that give you flashbacks to what the rest of your team was doing while you were out. Which helps you figure out where they went. You actually get to play the flashbacks, as you embody one of those teammates as you play through what they experienced.

Aside from that while you are wandering the city alone, the artificial intelligence that runs the city and helps you out a bit, also occasionally detours you to pay phones, ATMs, or other devices. These house audio recordings which detail the story of the daughter of the creator of the AI, as she tries to get back to her father while the alien invasion is first happening. In a way it’s similar to the audio journal stuff that was done in BioShock, but its really more of a radio drama. It’s a pretty cool little extra to the game, that really makes the whole thing feel more real and compelling.

As cool as the story stuff is though, I’m not sure its worth the price right now. It feels like it should have been a $40, but then the additional Halo 3 multiplayer disc was thrown in the justify the $60 price tag. My only other compliant is that its not really friendly to people new to the Halo series. I’ve only played Halo 1, and that was on PC about 5 or 6 years ago, so I have some understanding of how things are supposed to work, but not really. And the game gives you no real tutorial aside from explaining the new stuff that’s different from when you are playing as Master Chief. They also don’t explain how to fight certain bad guys, who obviously have specific ways you are supposed to fight them. They sometimes drop hints in the spur of the moment dialog, but if you miss it you’re kind of in trouble.

It seems to me that this could have been a nice stepping stone game for getting people interested in the Halo series who haven’t really played the games. Not that they need anymore people buying Halo games, but it never hurts to try.