During the month of Ramadhan, moslems fast fom 4 am to 6:15 pm , enduring hunger and thirst. There is a promise of forgiveness behind fasting on this month, but another form of promise is there, namely Ifthar, the fast break , where moslems can devour and drink as much as they can to satiate their surpressed desire during fasting. The promise of Iftar accompanies the fasting itself.There is a build-up and there is a pay-off.
Now imagine if you can build a system that is based solely upon build-up , but without any pay-off or a revelation at the end of an aimless journey , no oasis to satiate your thirst after a troubled struggle. That is Red Dead Redemption 2. A mere test of endurance without any meaning or absolution to it.
There is a certain confusion surrounding the beginning Red Dead 2 . The plot somewhat tells you to carry on with the gang leader's plan. Then you are told to go to certain points on the map riding on your horse to accomplish some objectives , over and over. The missions involving shooting really feel like Virtua Cop, an arcade game from the year 1994. Yet the game convinces you, through its graphical splendour, its ecosystems, thourgh finding out about its characters and their fates,its variety of landscapes and sceneries, that this is a world worth investing in, endure the dated,unimaginative game mechanics, endure the disastrous transportation mean of repetitive horse riding, endure the reloading of your saves over and over because auto-save ruins your game experience due to random robbery or assault,endure the incapability to run on the camp and its other confining mechanism. By then, the game already implants its deadly seed unto your brain, seed of unconditional obedience, a false hope of a big unveiling at the end of this excruciating journey. It's like Ramadhan , only without Ifthar at the end of it, only the demand of blind obedience and endurance.
This game ushers you unto authoritarian society , it neuters you into not questioning anything that the elite has been constructing for 2.5 millenias. Ever wonder why the liberals keep uttering the words racists, Nazis , homophobic ,transphobic, Islamophobic to everyone that oppose their world view in an attempt to humiliate those ? Same tactics as in Red Dead 2, promise of equality in Liberalism gives the same exact lure as Red Dead 2's graphical majesty and the vibrancy of its inhabitants, a lure to a non-existent grand finale , a world filled with happiness , and peace without any social, economical, hierarchical gap between its inhabitants, when in reality, it's universal mental slavery where you have no other choice but to obey.
Log in to comment