One of 2022’s best books includes a Red Dead Redemption 2 review

polygon.com:

A prestigious short story collection from an award-winning Irish author isn’t the first place I’d expect to find a clever critique of a popular video game, and the double-edged sword of escapism. In the second story of Colin Barrett’s Homesickness, the glowingly reviewed collection of eight connected tales mostly set in western Ireland, the plot takes a breather to weigh the goods and the bads of Blood Dusk 2, a not-so-subtle wink at Rockstar’s massively successful open-world Western.

Gerry, a boy raised by his siblings following his parents' death, refuses to leave his room. When not spying on his family, he finds a mix of comfort and frustration in the predictability of his current game of choice.

Here’s the excerpt:

Gerry, the flesh-and-guts boy, was lumped on his beanbag, the only light in his room the glow from the TV atop the dresser. His PlayStation wheezed on the floor at his slippered feet. The game was Blood Dusk 2. You played as Cole Skuse, an ex-Yankee soldier and mercenary. Right now, Gerry was about to attempt the rescue of Skuse’s love interest, a beautiful blonde prostitute named Dora Levigne. She was being held hostage by the Cullen gang inside the saloon. Mission objective was get in there, ventilate as many of the Cullen boys as possible, and get her out. The Cullen faction was part of a larger horde of roving rapists, murderers, thieves and scalp hunters led by a scarred brute known only as the Padre. The Padre was your true and final adversary, the man who, in the game’s prologue, had ordered the murder of your family.

Gerry liked Blood Dusk 2, but was becoming less and less enamoured of the repetitious, shootout-intensive missions you were obliged to complete in order to advance the plot. The game