The PS4 port I've been waiting on for over 10 years now is finally here. Red Dead Redemption is likely the game I'm most intimately familiar with, I played it over and over as a teenager upwards of 15 times and for me it defined the PS3 generation. Its story and characters have stuck with me ever since; to this day I can still practically remember the dialogue line for line.
The game has aged since 2010, sure, but it means more to me than the sequel for a number of reasons. To this day I still think it has the most innovative videogame soundtrack of all time, the way everything is written in A Minor so motifs can seamlessly weave in and out of the soundscape depending on what's happening onscreen is amazing. Drums, for example, become much more prominent if you get on a horse. There's a really great making-of video on YouTube that lays it out in detail. Undead Nightmare also twists the soundtrack in such an inspiring way to give it a sinister feeling and for me the soundtrack made that DLC.
As for the remaster, it's great to finally have this game running at a reasonable resolution on current hardware and with a consistent framerate. It's even better that we can now play in 60fps at 4k on PS5. It is disappointing that there's no remastering at all in terms of textures and wider graphics but it still looks okay - its age is just showing now.
What I did notice however is that there are a lot more glitches with NPC AI and physics at 60fps. My horse frequently clipped into the ground causing audio issues and NPCs sometimes went sort of crazy: Landon Ricketts started wildly shooting up Chuparosa at one point during a mission. Mostly, though, 60fps works. It could probably be tweaked a little to cut down on these issues, but I don't think the team that ported it are looking to put much more effort into patching it further.
It's ultimately a bit disappointing this wasn't more considering the wait, but I'd still rather have the game as-is on my PS5 than have to contend with the awfully remastered GTA trilogy approach. Playing this does make me kind of wish for a full remake though if I'm honest.
The game has aged since 2010, sure, but it means more to me than the sequel for a number of reasons. To this day I still think it has the most innovative videogame soundtrack of all time, the way everything is written in A Minor so motifs can seamlessly weave in and out of the soundscape depending on what's happening onscreen is amazing. Drums, for example, become much more prominent if you get on a horse. There's a really great making-of video on YouTube that lays it out in detail. Undead Nightmare also twists the soundtrack in such an inspiring way to give it a sinister feeling and for me the soundtrack made that DLC.
As for the remaster, it's great to finally have this game running at a reasonable resolution on current hardware and with a consistent framerate. It's even better that we can now play in 60fps at 4k on PS5. It is disappointing that there's no remastering at all in terms of textures and wider graphics but it still looks okay - its age is just showing now.
What I did notice however is that there are a lot more glitches with NPC AI and physics at 60fps. My horse frequently clipped into the ground causing audio issues and NPCs sometimes went sort of crazy: Landon Ricketts started wildly shooting up Chuparosa at one point during a mission. Mostly, though, 60fps works. It could probably be tweaked a little to cut down on these issues, but I don't think the team that ported it are looking to put much more effort into patching it further.
It's ultimately a bit disappointing this wasn't more considering the wait, but I'd still rather have the game as-is on my PS5 than have to contend with the awfully remastered GTA trilogy approach. Playing this does make me kind of wish for a full remake though if I'm honest.