Red Dead Redemption review

The masses have prayed and Rockstar Games finally delivered a memorable title outside of the Grand Theft Auto franchise. After massive promotional campaigns—which I guess Rockstar could afford after Grand Theft Auto 4 was the most profitable entertainment product ever made—they have released to the public, Red Dead Redemption, or Grand Theft Auto on horseback.

I must say, it was just kind a letdown for me that they didn’t even try to break away from the GTA format even a bit. The buttons for getting on and off your horse, and for punching someone in the mouth (much needed in all Rockstar Games, given their propensity for creating back talkin’ peripheral characters) correspond to all of the GTA games.  This in combination with following those single letter icons on a circular map to find the next bump forward in the very linear narrative was just a little too familiar for me.

But here I am trash talking a game that for all intents and purposes has done a pretty good thing. I think they really did deliver a playable game here, it’s just that I often have hopes that a company that has had such a revolutionary track record will be able to repeat its past ground breaking and give us something previously unseen again. This, I realize as I say it, is probably very unrealistic. Okay, now that I’ve cleared that out of my system I do have some more good things to say about the game, really.

Visually the game was breathtaking and not in a way where they did something totally new with the graphics (they were pretty sweet though), no it was more something that Rockstar did with the mood or the feel of the game. The music was perfect and the landscape was drab and dusty, almost a sepia tone thing going on there. The way the protagonist walked suggested that, even with all this crazy shit going on in the world we have to take it as it comes, because that’s how it’s done in the West. Great attention to detail was paid to the stark furnishings and emerging newfangled technology, like the telephone. Doing a period piece can really pay off if attention to detail is focused on the right things, the artists at Rockstar came through for us, all the way from the landscape artists to the character designers.

The story is good enough.  You are a retired outlaw with a real ugly face that is being extorted by the soulless Federal government to hunt down the old members of your gang. This takes John Marston (that’s you) from the little border county, where the game starts, across to Mexico for a spell, where he gets caught up fighting on both sides of a civil dispute. Then back up to the States to track down the old leader of the gang.

The thing that this game has is a silly amount of is little side stuff. If you are a collector, be prepared to spend the foreseeable future holed up in your mom’s basement with a chamber pot and a cheesy poof feeding tube. To start there’s the games like poker, black jack, horseshoes, that one where you stab your hand with a knife and probably more, I stopped looking for them after a while. Then there’s the herb collecting… Sweet zombie Jesus… so many herbs. Oh and don’t forget hunting, the old west was littered with live animals to shoot and skin. On top of all this, it seemed like every fifth person I passed by was either genuinely being robbed or trying to lure me into some kind of trap.

This last element was where I think the game really came into its own. What was delivered better than anything I have ever seen before was a feeling of immersion in the world they created.  All the time as you ride around, there are people doing stuff.  People are setting up camps, riding around, or just going about their well programmed lives. I definitely got the sense that when I left a town or ranch for a while, life had carried on without me. The exception to this being the plot points, those remained frozen in time until I was kind enough to come and activate them. This, of course, was completely dependent on how much peripheral action I decided to engage in along the way. A memorable moment in the game for me came when I was walking around town, minding my own business and a gang of thugs came galloping though dragging a woman behind them. Feeling compelled to do right by her (I don’t think I would have got involved if it was a guy being dragged) I started shooting everyone on horseback I could see. Before long, I had shot a marshal and was being chased out of town, never having a chance to buy what I came in for in the first place.

The online multi-player has cooperative and competitive modes for up to 16 players simultaneously. The competitive games include team and “every man for himself” game types like standard shootouts and capture the flag. Free Roam is where they do something different, it lets up to 16 players join into one world and then explore the entirety of the single-player map. You can join some friends and take part in little skirmishes, or simply shoot each other in the face, assault bandit hideouts and forts as a team, or just ride across the countryside together while taking part in hunting and gathering challenges. This is the way the game really ought to be played in my opinion; the open air setting was one of its freshest aspects. To really play Red Dead Redemption I suggest rounding up a posse and storming a bandit fort, then when your friend’s back is turned, you skin his horse.

In conclusion, it’s a game that I wouldn’t miss. Rockstar has done their usual thing, in that they have the balls to create a game with some edgy content. I think that anyone that starts spouting a bunch of malarkey about “an uncanny ability to hold a mirror up to society reminding us about present day hot button issues like racism, immigration, federal government power and personal freedoms” is probably on the payroll though.