Red Dead Redemption mini review 2

In my mini review I complained about how Red Dead Redemption would allow you to take on jobs you weren't fully equipped to deal with. Having returned to the game with that knowledge it gets slightly worse. They change one of the weapon dynamics after completing a certain quest.

Running through the tutorials you're taught about Dead Eye the game's BulletTime system. Hold L2 to aim, click R3 and you enter Dead Eye mode. Time slows down, you can move the aiming cursor at someone, hit R2 to fire and if you've still juice in the gauge continue to move along to hit another target. This is excellent as you can take down a group with a set of headshots or if you want someone alive you can target their leg or hand to disarm them.

That is until you complete this one little quest which as a story quest you have to do. Now when you enter Dead Eye mode little red crosses appear on any viable target; as soon as you hit the trigger you exit the mode and fire off a slew of bullets at those targets. Here's the problem - the crosses appear automatically. So you aim at one guy, hit Dead Eye and you get a cross on their shoulder, sweep it across to the other enemies and you get a cross on their head, then their other shoulder - that's three bullets on one guy where one would have been enough. It gets worse.

Crosses appear on any valid target so get a group of horse riders shooting at you as they ride towards you and as you sweep across you'll get targets on their horses, which isn't nice and is a waste of a bullet. If it's someone kidnapping someone you can end up with a cross on the person you're supposed to be rescuing. If you want to take them in alive you might end up with three crosses on them equalling a kill shot.

Checking the 'net this seems to be Level 2 of Dead Eye. Hit Level 3 and it turns off the automatic 'painting' system switching to either Level 1 or manual painting.

Judging by the vitriol I'm not the only one who found Level 2 rather annoying.