Red Dead Redemption Undead Nightmare is a Halloween treat on the Asus ROG Ally X – but Windows 11 is still pulling the trigger on gaming.
Because it’s Halloween, like any responsible and functioning adult, I’ve been looking for spooky video games to play. He is also a great player (I really think if I get a chance to play PT, tyou cooperate Silent Hills joke, I’d be dead), so I was on the hunt for a weird game that didn’t compromise my sleep/underwear.
Thankfully, Rockstar has released a remake of its original cowboy sim, Red Death Redemptionn, for PC in time for Halloween – and it includes An Unforgettable Dream – one of the best game expansions ever made. I remember playing it on the PS3 back in the day and loving the shlocky B-movie vibes, and finding the combination of Wild West and zombie attack so good that I thought the game would make its own mini version.
Now, 14 years later, I’ve been given the perfect opportunity to get back into the old game without breaking my PS3 – so I plugged it into my Asus ROG Ally X gaming PC and settled in for All Hallows ‘ Eve … eve (I played it the day before Halloween, in fact) a meeting of cows and zombies – and I was surprised, surprised and yes, even a little scared.
The good of the devil
Let’s start with the things that really impressed me. After a horrible install process (more on that in a bit), the fact that I was playing the game, despite being almost a decade and a half old, was overwhelming and a passion. power as Red Death Redemption the handheld was incredibly impressive.
I first ran the game at 1080p with graphics set to ‘medium’, and I was very impressed with the performance. However, in this graphics area, the game’s age was clearly visible, especially in the low-profile and high-end areas.
So, on a whim, I uploaded the images to ‘Ultra’ and… well, quickly downloaded them again. In ‘Ultra’ the game became very sluggish to play as the frame rates dropped, but in ‘High’ there was a good balance between visual quality and performance.
Sure, it was still an old game, and the controls remained sluggish – but this is a Rockstar game. The controls that feel like you’re wading waist-deep in bloated zombies are all part of the ‘charm’.
Of course, I could always play the game on my RTX 4090 gaming PC and crank the resolution up to 4K (or maybe even 8K…) and the graphics settings on ‘Ultra’, but I I really like the idea of being able to play. gaming comfortably from bed or lying in bed when the October-in-England weather hits my windows from outside – and the Asus ROG Ally X gives me the best opportunity to do so, being a device that The power of PC gaming. It’s as easy to hold as the Nintendo Switch, yet it has the most powerful features you can find on a handheld right now. As much as I still love my Steam Deck, I felt that the ROG Ally X would give me a better gaming experience.
And there were times when the game looked really good. Riding across the plains as sunlight breaks through the clouds, or slowly riding a burning bridge as zombies make their way through the city at night, they manage to be atmospheric despite the age of the original game and the small screen of ROG Ally X. .
I really have to give a shout out to the Rockstar and Double Eleven teams, who ported the game to PC. After the mess that was the GTA Trilogy remaster, my hope for Red Dead Redemption Remastered they were certainly angry, especially since this was the first time the game was officially playable on PC.
So far, I’ve found it to be a faithful recreation of the classic game that has been updated where necessary, but without compromising – or disrespecting – the original game.
It’s also a testament to the Asus ROG Ally X hardware that gaming works so well in the hand. Perhaps most surprisingly, however, I was most impressed by the ROG Ally X’s speakers. Despite the two speakers built into the ROG Ally X, the sound quality was excellent and the separation of the stereo was wide. It meant that the sounds of the zombies and the screams of the victims seemed to come from all around me – an impressively deep performance considering the hardware.
And as for the game itself – well, it’s considered a masterpiece for a reason, and that includes An Unforgettable Dream. Since it’s a standalone story, you can dive right in, and I was reminded not only of how fun Undead Nightmare is to play, but how tense and scary it can be – and how funny it was.
There were plenty of scary moments (the creepy zombies crawling on you are especially scary), but that was balanced by a wink at the familiarity and acceptance of classic zombie movies – and the dialogue that really funny, shows off Rockstar’s great writing. and amazing performances from voice acting stars. It made me wish Rockstar would go back to releasing more than one game per decade.
It’s demonically bad… and very bad
Although there were a lot of amazing things that happened while you were playing Red Dead Redemption Undead Nightmare on the Asus ROG Ally X, there were also a few negatives.
Some of the graphics, especially when it comes to textures, reminded me why I rarely return to games from this era. I’ll happily play 2D classics from the 8-bit and 16-bit eras, but I find the PS1 – PS3 (including N64) eras to be. coarse when it comes to many 3D games.
Having the game running in 1080p on the 7-inch ROG Ally X screen was a good move in my opinion (humble pride), as was playing the game up to my 77-inch 4K OLED TV ( non-submissive) make low polygon counts and texture decisions more visible.
It also reminds me how sad it is that we won’t get an expansion like Undead Nightmare for Red Dead Redemption 2 – or even a variation of the original game within its sequel, although the entire map is included. Red Dead Redemption 2 is still one of the best games ever made, and I would have loved to see what the original game and expansion would have looked like on the engine. new.
It also saddened me that we won’t be getting a single player version of the Undead Nightmare from Rockstar again. Leaving GTA V an.d Red Dead Redemption 2it looks like Rockstar isn’t interested in single player DLC, focusing on online campaigns instead.
And then we get to the bad – and the nightmare that is running Windows 11 on a handheld device. As I lamented earlier, including in my Asus ROG Ally X review, Windows 11, an operating system designed for laptop and desktop PCs, seems ill-suited for handheld devices. Windows 11 requires a mouse and keyboard to work properly, and it has led to manufacturers such as Asus to create touchscreens and simple control interfaces for launching games – but these are always uncomfortable in Windows 11.
To install Red Dead Redemption Remastered in ROG Ally X highlighted how bad Windows 11 is for this kind of thing. Launching Steam from the Armory Crate interface was easy enough. I chose to install the game through Steam, and after a quick download, the ‘Installation Initialising’ screen appeared. I left it for a while. Then the time is longer. Even more. Finally, I discovered that something was wrong – swiping up from the bottom of the screen showed the Windows 11 workspace and I saw another app open. Clicking on that, it was a window asking to install Rockstar mod. So I had to click on several windows (all of which were small and easy to control with just the touch screen). After installing that… I had to log into my Rockstar account. After I got my information, I entered it, slowly tapping away on the on-screen keyboard.
Another window popped up, this time asking me to check my email and enter a two-digit code, which again I had to do all while tapping very small buttons.
The whole thing was very confusing, and while I had to download a new speaker and log into another account just to play the game I have on Steam, it’s not specific to this game or Windows 11, the process became more and more annoying. with different windows and messages that appeared. For anyone looking for a console-like experience where you can just install a game and play, Windows 11 can’t provide that. It’s a real shame.
It meant that on the night of the killing of zombies in the West, having to deal with Windows 11 on a handheld device was the most terrifying part. And that is not enough.
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