Headscratchers / Red Dead Redemption: Undead Nightmare

• They start the game with the unsaid promise that there'll have more mythical creatures. I mean, fairly early there is the sasquatch mission, and you get the horses and all, but from then on, it's just zombies all the way. Oh and a chupacabra apparently, but I haven't seen it yet. I wish they'd add at least a couple more mythical beings or just use supernatural stuff to explain how a few aspects of the original game could work, like for example, see how there are no trains working except for the crossing border mission? I kept expecting a ghost train to appear, but no luck. There is also the fact the game doesn't manage to kept it's vibe for long; the first city has ominous messages scribbled on the walls, and well, it's the only time the game tries to be remotely serious, the rest of the game being mostly goofy.
  • Apparently the horses of apocalypse and a unicorn dont count either.
  • Well, I think the mythical creature quota was filled pretty nicely, and a ghost train wouldn't really fit since it isn't a creature. As for the seriousness of the game, John was clearly concerned for his wife and kid, and constantly muttered phrases of despair and desperation. Sure, the game threw in some jokes and tongue-in-cheek moments, but those were mostly in cutscenes. Random encounters and Missing Persons missions are taken pretty seriously.
  • That's pretty much how the supernatural is represented in media now. Everything's always zombies, zombies, zombies. No invisible man, no creature from the black lagoon, just more freaking zombies.
• Even though sanity and reason have left the world, it's odd that people are so nonchalant when John comes riding up on a mythical steed (especially War, who's on fire). This is doubly true when John returns as a zombie but no one shoots him on sight, treating him as just another guy.
  • While alive, John was one of the most badass people these characters knew, so much he could ride the horses of Apocalypse. When he comes back as a Zombie and is capable of using guns Who in their right mind would want to try to kill him!? Who would have the balls to even think that trying to kill what is quite possibly the messanger of death right now would be a good idea? Same as the Prototype deal, people are more scared of what you would do if they gave you a reason rather than what you might do for fun.
    • It might because Marston has already completed the main game, thus earning the highest possible fame and possibly honor. Either way, seeing the most famously lethal person in existence ride up dead on a flaming horse isn't something most people would want to shoot at.
      • It could also be because he's the only zombie who uses a gun.
      • I drew the conclusion since it states that he is still possessing the soul of a man while being undead, I thought regular people didn't see him as being undead Marston but rather as human (alive) Marston. That our that just knew he is still a good guy.
• After you complete the main story, John dies offscreen. This is implied to be his death from the main game, when he is killed by Ross. But why would Ross still be after Marston? Even assuming Ross survived, 90% of civilization is gone. He'd have bigger fish to fry.
  • Or not. Basically, if society is going to hell, you might as well kill a few demons if there isn't a chance of survival.
  • Just because some of the civilization was lost doesn't mean Ross and the bureau will stop in their mission to "civilise" the remaining part of the old west. Oh no, in fact they might even see this as an opportunity, with most of the population dead (that counting most criminals also) it is actually easier to start a new set of more civilised society, and John is still despite all his current action seen as public menace because off his past deeds.
  • Or maybe it's because the plague was limited only to New Austin, West Elizabeth, and Nuevo Parasio in scope (Seth says that "this land" is doomed. Thats open to a good deal of interpration). Once the plague ends and the rest of Mexico and the U.S.A. send help, they're gonna find a lot of fresh corpses. A lot that John personally put bullets in. Anybody who didn't see it (esspecially someone like Ross) is never going to believe that Zombies, Sasquatch, a unicorn, and the four horses of the apocalypse flooded into the West all at once. Ross might see it as the last straw. Given the opportunity to return to family, Marston went on a killing spree so massive that destabilized the entire region and left people so in shock they're pointing fingers at the living dead.
• The mission with the film maker Mac Kena: Why didn't John save him? I just got through playing that part the other day and I waved my hand in frustration at why John couldn't have shot those two zombies full of led before they even had a chance to get anywhere near Mac Kena. Even if John didn't like the guy he isn't anywhere near as bad as a guy like Herbert Moon where he would feel it's OK to leave him to be trampled on by zombies.
  • He probably figured the guy was long gone in the head, if you get my drift. There's no telling when he might decide to kidnap a live human and use them as a victim in another film if he got the chance. John may be the "good guy", but he's still a practical (some would say violent) man who was few qualms about killing people or letting them rot if he doesn't have a reason to be nice to him. Letting the director die was cruel, but it got rid of a nutcase.
  • That and I think if John had really cared all that much for MacKenna's safety, he would've just flat-out refused to bring in the zombie in the first place, because not being Too Dumb to Live, he had to have known something like that would happen. Any fool could've seen it coming a mile away except, obviously, MacKenna himself. I imagine John simply thought, "If this guy's so bottom-of-the-barrel stupid he thinks he can film a zombie movie with live zombies, more power to him, but I'm not pulling his fat out of the fire when the inevitable happens."