Red Dead Redemption 2 has been such a polished jewel of what AAA open-world narratives can be, but just now there\u2019s this adult-female-as-young-male casting (for young Jack Marston, the post-epilogue PC of RDR1) \u2014 a classic voice acting scenario \u2014 somehow done more infuriatingly bad than old Capcom \u201cmaybe you, the master of unlocking\u201d lines with no direction at all
this was the fishing mission, for a bit after this I was like \u201cyou know, RDR1 had that the awkward subtext about John and Abigail was how they were committed to this domestic thing after back in the day every guy in the gang had a turn\u201d
and they weren\u2019t even touching on that so I was like \u201chuh are they retconning it\u201d but then there was the \u201cintroduce sniper rifles\u201d mission and in a passing ride-to conversation Albert (this game\u2019s PC) ripped John up over it in a way that was kind of a critique of him as a protagonist that then immediately got flipped around in a way that like
\u2022 presented self-awareness at the narrative level
\u2022 and meta-narrative
\u2022 and how they tied into 2010 and 2018 narratives of masculinity
\u2022 while throwing a series lore screwball?
\u2022 in like 6 lines
Man I missed Rockstar, you could tell they were like 2/3 done GTAV when they had to rush it before their target console generation expired
(even then, they delivered Did Somebody Say Yoga?)
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