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Thanks to PlayStation Access by way of comicbook.com, I just read that dead bodies will decompose or attract and be eaten by predators as apposed to simply vanishing after a firefight. Also we can praise and scold dogs. So there’s that. Is this common knowledge? I hadn’t heard that yet. Personally, I find that very exciting. One of my biggest pet peeves in any video game is the disappearing of enemies I’ve killed. Looks like this vast world will be littered with the bones of every life you’ve taken. Sick.

Jeesh, fine. Here's my last haul from my new pit.

End of discussion.

Pics and recipes or it didn't happen! My girl and I just bought a house in Pittsburgh, zombie capital of the world. Over the summer we practiced making a charcoal grill into a smoker. Had some nice pork shoulder we shredded up for pulled pork sandwiches and tacos.

Rockstar Games recently gave fans their first look at what the actual gameplay of Red Dead Redemption 2 will look like. The fandom has hardly been quiet in the past, but the trailer - and promise of more to come - has ignited hype like never before. Let's take a look at all the detailed revealed by the footage. This first look focuses mainly on basic gameplay and the vast open world you will be exploring as Arthur Morgan, enforcer of the Van der Linde Gang. The trailer puts a lot of emphasis on showing off how gorgeous the frontier looks like, and how varied the landscapes you'll be traveling through are. Though a Wild West game through and through, Red Dead Redemption 2 won't restrict itself to the typical setting of plains and deserts. This won't be too new for fans of the series as Red Dead Redemption also offered a wide range of landscapes, but the prequel will be going beyond what we saw in the 2010 title. We'll get plenty of your typical Wild West locales, but joining these will be snowy mountains, swamps and dense forests. One of the first shots we see from the player's perspective sees Arthur riding along mountainous terrain, also giving us our first look at the mini-map. A simple, traditional round compass-like dial in the lower left corner of the screen, the mini-map shows a basic depiction of the area around you. We suspect its opacity will be adjustable. This will also be the only constant HUD element. One of Rockstar's main goals with the world of Red Dead Redemption 2 isn't just to make it pretty or big, or even detailed, since all of these are things they have already achieved in other games. Making the world truly feel alive to set it apart from most sandboxes is the primary goal. While Rockstar made significant strides in this regard with Grand Theft Auto 5, if all goes well Red Dead Redemption 2 will outperform it. There are two sides to this sense of life - interactivity and detail. The Frontier will be one of the most interactive open worlds gaming has ever seen, giving Arthur a wide selection of interaction options with all NPCs he meets. There is a contextual interaction menu that appears whenever Arthur approaches other characters. With random passers-by, you can call out to show you mean no harm, insult them to provoke an encounter or straight up point a gun at them. At other times you'll encounter folk who are hostile by default and don't much appreciate you butting into their business. In these cases, you can try to diffuse the situation diplomatically to prevent conflict. Throughout the course of the game, the Van der Linde Gang will be chased across America's heartland by the authorities, forcing them to pack up and move their camp. This camp will acts as your home, this is where the other member will hang out and where you can come back to between missions to rest, resupply and interact with your comrades. Among other activities, you can play cards to win a bit of change. Arthur will be able to supply the camp with food and other goods in order to maintain a high morale and endear himself to the other members. If you choose to neglect these duties, the other members won't starve to death but they sure will remember how much of a help you weren't. The better your standing with the other members, the more likely they will initiate side quests with you. Your actions have both direct and indirect effects. Sure, saving one bloke from a bear trap is guaranteed to get you a friend, but if you kill someone on the road you might have a vengeful widow or cousin to deal with later on. You can also use past actions as leverage when persuading or intimidating characters. One aspect of gameplay that got a great deal of attention was combat mechanic. Hand to hand combat is made all the more in-depth than simply hitting a punch button, and you'll be using this system plenty - in bar fights, when threatening witnesses or when interrogating prisoners. The shooting mechanics have also been overhauled. Though only briefly mentioned, the footage at one point shows Arthur very quickly switching between a sidearm and a shotgun, the latter of which he carried in the off hand while aiming with the pistol using only one hand. This leads us to assume that the game allows you to customize your combat styles in terms of shooting stances. Carrying a secondary weapon in your arm instead of a holster might decrease the time needed to switch weapons, making you more reactive, while decreasing accuracy due to aiming with one hand. Another interesting tidbit was the brief appearance of the Dead Eye targeting mode, which needs no introduction to any fan of the franchise. We didn't doubt such an iconic mechanic wouldn't make a return, though Rockstar has tweaked it a bit - which they will expand upon in the next video. Looking at past Rockstar titles, while Red Dead Redemption had good gunplay and shooting mechanics, the more recent Grand Theft Auto 5 was weaker in this regard. Many of its guns felt floaty and weightless, with no real kick or heft. For Red Dead Redemption 2, Rockstar implemented realistic kickback and reloading according to the video. Only brief, disjointed scenes of gunfights are shown, so this is something we'll be able to dig into better when a combat oriented gameplay demo is shown, however what we saw so far indicates that guns will pack more of a punch. We also saw decent variety of weapons, including scoped rifles, various shotguns, bows and a whole lot of pistols. Besides cowboy hats and revolvers, no Red Dead game is complete without horses. We speculated a bit about how in-depth horse related game mechanics will be, but this trailer takes some time to explain. With Red Dead Redemption 2, several entirely new activities are being added to the game allowing Rockstar to deepen how horses work compared to the previous entry. Various breeds will be suitable for different tasks, so you need to fill your stable with several horses to cover your bases. Some are endurant workhorses, suitable for driving the heavily laden carriages whenever you change camp, or carry a deer carcass back home. Others, however, are built for short but very quick bursts of speed in case you need to outrun some lawmen. Grooming and caring for your horse will deepen the bond between beast and rider, making the horse less prone to behaving erratically under duress or during gunfights, giving you the stability necessary to aim from the saddle. Equipping various saddlebags can also act as an extension of Arthur's inventory, allowing you to carry additional weapons into combat, pack extra supplies or have more space to make off with the loot. Hunting will be a major part of Red Dead Redemption 2, as it will allow Arthur Morgan to feed the other outlaws and sell off his kills for extra cash. While Red Dead Redemption already featured a wide range of fauna, this game seeks to implement a dynamic ecosystem that is proactive instead of reactive. Animals don't just exist in this world for the players character to kill, but they interact with one another, seek food and take shelter on their own. Charles Smith, one of the other members of the Van der Linde Gang, is also an expert hunter, and the players will learn a lot from him. It is likely that every side activity will have a gang member who teaches Arthur about the finer points of whatever it is the activity requires of you and accompanies you on training missions. The hunting system also takes a more realistic approach. Not often does a single shot down large game, but rather mortally wounds the animal which, in panic, runs as far as its legs will take it before it bleeds out. Arthur will need to track wounded prey to claim the kill, and the rewards. For a brief moment while the footage shows Arthur tracking the wounded prey, the screen changed to a monochrome colour with the carcass glowing yellow, and a faint floating trail marking the path towards it. Whether this is just restricted to tracking wounded game or a more universal Witcher Senses/Eagle Vision/Bat-sense kind of mechanic is to be seen. Considering how common these have become in AAA games, we wouldn't be surprised. Another mechanic not mentioned but shown is the wanted system. When you are wanted, the top right corner of the screen is dedicated to what looks like a snippet of a wanted poster describing the current status of your pursuers "Dead or Alive" indicates open combat (the minimap changes to red during this time as well), while "Investigating" shows that they lost sight of you but are looking to find you. During the investigation phase, the red fill will begin to deplete from the Wanted text, and if it is empty you're in the clear. The witness system also makes a return. The trailer also has plenty of evidence showing just how extremely detailed the game world is. When showing off the horses, their musculature was realistically modeled and animated. When firing a shotgun in a swamp, a pack of bird flocked off a roof nearby. Punching a bloke with a hat will send the hat flying off his head as a separate physics object. Like GTA 5 before it, Red Dead Redemption 2 will set the bar for visual detail in games for years to come. Stay tuned for further coverage of the new information, as well as upcoming gameplay videos. The post Red Dead Redemption 2 Gameplay Trailer Analysis appeared first on RDR2. Read the full story

One of the things I've noticed about Rockstar overall: they tend to build upon their successes as a company when it comes to game design. Every iteration of GTA has improved and tweaked little things (as well as some big things), and the polish on the physics engine has shown consistent improvement across their titles.