Friday, March 1, 2019

"Everyone hates my big stupid horse in Red Dead Online"

Cass Marshall for Polygon:
No one else is using the big Belgian Draft horse, and as it turns out, that’s because it kind of sucks.

Hayseed’s stats are lower than those of most other horses. His long-term stamina is garbage, he has a definite curve to his turns, and in a straight sprint down a path he will lose to most race-horses. Hayseed has one advantage, and it’s a potent one: He is so large that I can use him as a brick wall.

In races, I often score top three by using Hayseed as a physical barrier. Nimble steeds with slender frames smash into Hayseed as I continue on at my relaxed pace. When players are forced into choke points and all of the horses are jostling, Hayseed is the shore upon which the weak, cowardly waves break. One time, a guy openly scoffed in voice chat: “Who brings a Belgian into a race?” I do. I knocked that guy over a fence with Hayseed’s mighty haunches.

Not only does he work as a barrier, but I utilize Hayseed as a weapon of war.

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I asked my friends to comment on this article, and they kept their thoughts brief. Matt simply wrote, “Hayseed is not a friend. He is a sin.”













Related: "Is Red Dead Redemption Online tanking Take-Two's share price?"
By any reasonable standards, Red Dead Redemption 2 is a runaway success. 23 million copies of the game have been shipped to retailers, as of Take Two's earnings call at the start of February, making it into one of the best-selling games of the generation after only a few months.

With a hugely positive critical response likely ensuring a long tail for the game, it's overall a very solid achievement from a commercial perspective, as well as a creative one. Nevertheless, shares in Take Two have declined by 30% since the game launched at the end of October

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The perfect example of this in the games business in recent years is Nintendo -- which regularly sees its stock price take a tumble just after doing Nintendo Direct online announcements of major games for the Switch