I'm a little late to the game... literally. I just started Red Dead Redemption and I already like it more than any GTA game.

I'm getting into the story missions slowly, choosing instead to fill up on hunting, making money, side quests, and such... though I have done most of missions at the ranch and for the marshal in Armadillo.

But I wonder many things...

What is the penalty for death? So far, all I can tell is that I'll lose anything I've hunted or gathered. Not complaining, really, but it seemed that death has few if any consequences.

Should I be selling or hoarding feathers and flowers? So far, I am hoarding them.

I know it is hard to see at night, but damn, it is hard to see at night.

Should I be really protective of my horse, or is my trusty steed really not that important in the long run?

What are your strategies when you play?

This ain't Modern Warfare, so I turned on casual aiming. I'm more playing the story than trying to prove my mad 1337 skillz with a controller... but I think the targeting system makes it too easy to target things that you don't wanna shoot, so I think I might switch it back to normal... what do you think?

I am totally loving the hell out of this game. Love sandboxes. Love Westerns. And I love playing a character who isn't just a thug and doesn't screw prostitutes and then shoot them in the park. I actually like James Marsden quite a bit and find his faithfulness to his wife and his new found moral compass quite refreshing.

I love the GTA games, but this has, to me, far more depth and character. RDR is more like playing a western movie than GTA is like playing a gangster film.

Oh... and a cougar killed my horse :-(

Dying means you lose anything since your last (auto)save. I'm a bit unsure, actually, but it's not a very stiff penalty. I'm pretty sure you can cheat by using a horse deed from your inventory.

There's a Stranger task or two that requires you to turn in a number of materials. The materials requested are very specific, though, so just sell what you've got. There's no point in hoarding gathered materials; they're vendor trash.

I didn't feel there were any particular problems with night vision... Is the room you're in properly illuminated? Is the sun falling on your TV?

There's an Achievement for completing 20 story missions in a row without switching horse, but no, losing your horse does not seem to carry any particular penalty. If you have a few horse deeds you can (I think) cut down the waiting time after a horse dies by simply using an inactive one.

Use Dead Eye a lot. Don't worry about wasting items, either. Other than that, make sure you're on the right side of cover you're using. It's not magical like in Gears of War; cover usually isn't made from right angles, and the enemy can still hit whatever parts of you that are visually exposed.

Not too sure about Casual mode, but Dead Eye comes actually gets upgraded twice. The first time you get the ability to mark targets automatically, and the second upgrade lets you pick targets manually. It may sound like a downgrade, but it's more precise once you get used to it.

Damn those cougars. :(

Red Dead Redemption is a very good game, even though it has some serious flaws. The atmosphere is great, the graphics are gorgeous, and the open world is huge and very detailed. The story is pretty good, too, even though the outlaw trying to find redemption is a bit of a cliche.

Unfortunately, the main character doesn't really have much of a personality, and as usual in a Rockstar game, a lot of the missions make you feel like you are an errand boy for pretty much every person you meet. John Marston's family has been kidnapped, but when he encounters a random old man in a cabin, he agrees to take the time to pick a bunch of flowers for the old man's wife... I also didn't like that life (or death) is very cheap in RDR - thanks to Rockstar's trademark statistics I know that by the end of the main storyline I had killed over 1,000 people.

When you get to Mexico the story loses momentum and focus, and I stopped playing for a while because I was kind of bored. Things pick up later, however, and I ended up getting 100% completion in the main game and in Undead Nightmare (first time I have ever done that in a Rockstar game). I have barely touched the multiplayer though.

Anywho, to answer your questions:

Death is pretty inconsequential in RDR. You just restart at the nearest safehouse and lose your most recent progress, but I think you get to keep all your items. Thanks to Deadeye targeting, combat is pretty easy in this game unless you use the expert targeting mode (no autoaim), which is very difficult. The only times I ever died in combat were when I was standing out in the open and getting shot at from several directions. So yeah, I would set the targeting back to normal, it's more fun and not that challenging.

Don't waste your time picking flowers or collecting feathers. It's tedious and unnecessary since their value is pretty low. There is a series of ambient challenges that require you to pick a number of flowers of a certain type, but the counter starts when you begin the challenge, so the ones you have already collected do not count.

If you can't see well at night, maybe your screen brightness setting is too low. I've never had any problems seeing at night since the moonlight is usually bright enough.

Keeping your horse alive is not that important. You can easily find a new horse, and when you buy a horse deed you can respawn a horse of that type at any time. However, there is a secret achievement (if you care about that sort of thing) which you unlock when you use the same horse for 20 consecutive story missions.

The cougars in the game are truly scary. They usually attack you by surprise. I nearly had a heart attack a couple of times when a screaming cougar jumped at me from out of nowhere and knocked me to the ground. There is even a challenge where you have to kill some cougars with your melee knife. That was probably the most difficult thing to do in the entire game.

COME OUT ON PC GOD DAMMIT!

This.

They clearly don't think that the game is good enough to be able to make a profit on PC. All I can do is assume they're right. :P

If you are playing on the PS3 try going into the display settings and changing RGB Full Range to Limited. It made a huge difference to my game; in the wilderness at night and building interiors are now much brighter and clearer.

And wait 'till you get the Hunting Challenge that involves killing two cougars with a knife. I see the 'Dead' screen a lot.

I wouldn't even trust it if it did come out on PC. Bully and GTA IV were terrible ports.

I haven't touched the game in ages but I strongly remember cougars constantly killing my horses, so I feel your pain. :( I always tend to burn myself out on Rockstar sandbox games so I put it down and then haven't picked it back up yet. I got to the Mexico section and felt a bit meh about the story in the region (probably about halfway through the Mexico storyline). I'll get back to it someday. I must admit I really do like the stranger missions, they're fun little diversions for me when I don't feel like working on the main story.

Or they're just too goddamn stingy to pay for the music rights.

Very true.
If they're willing to blow $100,000 on DRM for GTA IV then I doubt stinginess is the problem. More a lack of willingness to spend money on things that might encourage people to buy the game instead of spending it on things that will deter them.

Getting your horse killed before getting the Spurred to Victory achievement is a worse punishment than death. But, later, after you've ridden halfway across Mexico to get your damned bounty, getting killed feels punishing enough.

Once you break a Kentucky Staddler or the white equivalent from Mexico, just buy the deed, you can summon one right away. Also, summoning one forces an autosave, if you're skinning in dangerous territory it's a good trick.

Oh, all the DLC is worth it and certain DLC outfits make the core game better.

There's only a few times when you have to turn in stuff for a quest, but hunting some new ones down isn't much of a chore (Beaver Pelts can be a bit of a pain), hock them for guns. Also, doing challenges unlocks better guns earlier in the game, making some really hard missions much easier. You also can get perks such as a bigger bag (to carry more consumables), etc.

The online multiplayer is really good, as well.

With Dead Eye you don't need casual aiming. Just stock up on Dead Eye replenishers (note Moonshine is different, after a swig you get free Dead Eye for 10 seconds AND it refills your meter).