Reading Time: 4 minutes I’ve just finished my first hour in Red Dead Redemption 2, which equates to 1% of the story, and what an hour it was!  The following are my thoughts of the opening hour.   As I progress throughout the game, I will be writing a gameplay diary, just as I did with Assassin’s Creed: Origins. The first thing I noticed about the game, was just how good it looked.  I’m playing on an Xbox One with the ViewSonic XG3240C Curved Gaming Monitor to play the game, and the graphics are breathtaking!  I can only imagine what it would look like on the Xbox One X.   The cinematic opening scene wouldn’t be out of place in a blockbuster movie.  What I found impressive was that when it switched from a cutscene to the gameplay, the visuals were just as stunning.  In fact, I really couldn’t see any discernable differences betweem the two. Everything is so detailed.  To the lamplight flickering through the night sky, the blowing snow, and the most beautiful snowdrifts I’ve ever seen in a game.  The moon’s glow was really eery in the dark sky.  As your horse moves through the snow, it leaves behind lifelike trails. Every effort has been put into this game to make it look and feel as lifelike as possible, and so far, it certainly achieves this so far. Just as impressive as the visuals, was the audio.  I was using the Plantronics RIG 800LX Wireless Headset and I could hear every crunch of the snow as my horse traversed the Wildlands.  The voice acting is excellent. Although most of the controls are very familiar if you’ve played Red Dead Redemption, there are a couple of new gameplay mechanics.  Notably the dialogue options.  Holding the LT button allows you to focus on who is talking, and offers you a choice of retort.  NPCs also seem more involved in your character’s actions and will call out to you at times.  This new feature makes the game feel more alive somehow. Another interesting feature is the addition of options when dealing with the bad guys.  As you can see, I had the option to choke, spare or beat O’Driscoll.  Being a nice guy, I decided to spare the poor chap.  It’ll be interesting to see if these actions have consequences later in the game à la Assassin’s Creed: Origins. I’m not going to give away any of the storylines from the first hour. However, I will say that I’ve been out to search for supplies, found myself in a shootout, tamed a horse, been set upon by wolves, and traversed snow covered mountains. The cinematic mode was a gratifying experience, and you can change the camera angle, while your character continues to follow the path ahead, as long as you press the A button. At the end of each mission, you can see how well you’ve done.  You are shown a checklist of the mission objectives.  I haben’t delved depper yet to see if you can go back and replay a mission to try and complete all of the objectives. Whilst the first hour of Red Dead Redemption 2 felt like an extended tutorial, it has been really enjoyable, and I have been blown away by the stunning graphics and attention to details.  I look forward to spending some more time in the Wild West.