Weird West Elizabeth (or, How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Uncanny)

I'm currently on my second playthrough of Red Dead Redemption because

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I just got to West Elizabeth the other day, and strange things have been happening ever since. Not strange in the traditional glitchy sense, either.

The first off thing came when I noticed a wagon in the distance. It was off the road and wasn't moving, which could mean a number of things, none of them good. I was planning go deal with whatever problem had arisen, but decided it'd be wise to first check it our from afar with my binoculars so that I'd be prepared. When I did, I saw a bunch of dead horses, a law man, and a couple of criminals. If you've played the game for a while, you've probably encountered this scenario before. The lawmen explains that the criminals have escaped and asks you to either round them up or shoot them down. However, the odd thing was that the criminals weren't running, they were standing perfectly still, as was the lawman. It was like they were waiting for me to ride over before beginning their little play. I rode off, somewhat unnerved by the sight.

A while later I was trying to capture an American Standardbred (but that's a different, longer, and much more boring story) when I came across a fellow standing in the field, shooting into the sky. You meet these guys from time to time; they challenge you to a sharp shooting competition of sorts, in which you try to shoot x amount of birds in y amount of time. When I looked into the sky, though, it was empty save for a single bird, and when the prompt to accept the bet appeared, it said the wager was $0. Curious to see how this would go down, I accepted (after all, what did I have to lose?) and... it instantly declared that I'd lost the bet, and he began shooting me. Apparently the wager wasn't money; it was my life.

I did survive the encounter, and continued on my hunt for the rare horse. Along the way I stopped to pick a few flowers (I'm trying to unlock the Legend of the West outfit) when I was knocked over by some invisible force. John yelled out "Get the hell off me!" and I ran off, not confident in my chances against an unseeable foe.

After all this, I decided to set up camp. As I did so, my horse suddenly died of no readily apparent cause.

I've got to say, all this weirdness certainly gave the game a different vibe. I felt less like I was in the american west and more like I was trapped in some sort of twilight zone.

So, to add some discussion value to this strange story, has any game unintentionally creeped you out?

Yeah, sandbox games are notorious for weird bugs / glitches and so on. I've had a few in RDR myself, some of the game-stoppers. The oddest one I had was in a cutscene in a very late mission. An army guy orders a soldier to blow open some gates with a bundle of dynamite. But for some reason, the game wouldn't draw in the soldier. So this disembodied, poltergeist bundle of dynamite just bobbed along the path, secured itself to the gates and then exploded. Witchcraft !

The there's this fucking creepy glitch that I never saw personally :



Good luck with the Legend of the West. I was pretty keen for it, but looking for certain animals is a real pain in the ass for hunting (looking for bloody skunks !) and the level 10 sharpshooter seems nigh-on impossible.

Why do you hate ... that thing you mentioned in the spoiler ? I don't mind but ...

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Uberman wrote:

Good luck with the Legend of the West. I was pretty keen for it, but looking for certain animals is a real pain in the ass for hunting (looking for bloody skunks !) and the level 10 sharpshooter seems nigh-on impossible.

I had trouble finding the damn skunks too.

Quote :

Why do you hate ... that thing you mentioned in the spoiler ? I don't mind but ...

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Would you believe it's because I

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Fair play. I don't mind

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But then, you are the Drifter.