Red Dead Online Review (WondrousGamer)
I got Red Dead Online standalone as a highschooler who had heard of and watched some of Red Dead 2's base story. I loved it but was broke and 60 dollars was a lot of money, so when I realized there was an online version for just 12 dollars I jumped on it. It was easily the best and most frustrating decision I have ever made. I spent hundreds of hours messing around in one of my favorite gaming worlds to date, grinding daily for better items and cool clothing. Eventually I got my cousin and sister to buy the game as well and it was easily the most fun I had playing, just goofing off and lassoing each other off of roofs and bridges. This was around 2019/2020, in 2024 the game literally died and I have unfortunately not seen any reason to go back even though I get nostalgic and think about it sometimes. I had a couple funny run ins with hackers, but they were always on the rare side compared to just being blown up randomly for no reason other than some basement dwelling weirdo who's only goal in life was to mess around with other people's enjoyment. Rockstar dropped the ball on an amazing game that could have easily been on par with gta online if they actually listened to their players, but we will never get that now.
It's not worth playing anymore unless you figure out how to make it be single player, which y'know, defeats the whole point and you might as well just wait and save up for the actual single player game or wait for a sale. Or figuring out how to join modded servers. Hacking is rampant, it's a buggy mess, had some of the most stupid mechanics I have ever seen in a game (why the fuck would sitting around in my wagon for an extra 10 minutes mean I get MORE money) and none of the characters I met have a satisfying story and none of them matter other than as talking store fronts. Yet I still loved it, and wish I could still love it now.