Red Dead Redemption, Tim's Review, "The Best Western Since "Unforgiven"

The Old West, a period of history with great legends of struggle, loss and triumph has been given rather short shrift in the world of videogames. How many Western based games are out there right now? You can count them on one hand. So did Dan and Sam Houser, the masterminds behind the legendary Gran Theft Auto series deliver the consummate Old West Experience? Read on…

Red Dead Redemption
Developer: Rockstar San Diego
Publisher: Take Two Interactive
Type: Third Person/Action/Open World
Genre: The Old West
Launched: 5/18/2010
Platforms, Xbox 360 and PS3

Highs: Excellent Graphics, top drawer sound production, solid mechanics, deep and well crafted story, lots and lots of game for the money.

Lows: a few mechanical glitches here and there and some occasional visual pop in, some of the voice acting was not up to par.

Back Ground: A few years ago Rockstar Games inherited a property called Read Dead Revolver, from Japanese publisher, Capcom. The game was mostly completed but Rockstar added some touches and pulled off a great tale of revenge, with the feel of a classic Clint Eastwood “Spaghetti Western. Contrary however, to their ongoing Grand Theft Auto Series, Read Dead Revolver was a much more linear experience than GTA fans expected.

After the release of Read Dead Revolver, Rockstar’s parent company Take Two, decided to retain the license and Rockstar began development of a spiritual successor based on its more traditional open world format, the result, Red Dead Redemption.

The Plot: The year is 1911. As our story opens, we meet John Marsten. Marsten, a former outlaw who ran with a notorious gang, had tried to retire to a quite life of farming when Federal agents decided to use him to track down and eliminate three of his former friends, including the gang’s former leader Dutch Van der Linde. The government is holding John’s wife and son hostage, forcing him to pick up his guns and head back out into the frontier to do their dirty work. What follows is a richly spun story of struggle, betrayal, greed and ultimately, triumph. Marsten’s life and motivations for his actions are unfolded in a pitch perfect rhythm that compels the player forward to know what is next. The end contains a very powerful plot twist (I will not give it away here) once more Rockstar has crafted a great story, one that would match any legendary Western book or film.

The Gameplay: For those who have played GTA IV, much of the mechanics will be instantly familiar. Red Dead Redemption is a non linear, digital sand box, formatted in much the same way as its Gran Theft Auto cousin. As John Marsten you have the freedom to choose the order of the missions you take. In addition to the main missions there are numerous side missions to choose from as well. The random citizen asking for help mechanic from GTA IV has been greatly enhanced here. One really great touch in this game is to be able to acquire side mission without disrupting a main mission. If you are on your way to doing something for one of the main missions you can interrupt that mission for example, to stop a horse thief and return the horse to its rightful owner. Once the side mission is completed you can then continue with main mission straight away, preventing a lot of backtracking. This particular idea worked very well and I hope to see this in future itinerations of Gran Theft Auto.

The controls are fairly straight forward and are for the most part simple to master. A few tricky points, were using the lasso (took a bit of practice to get the rhythm right) and jumping on to moving vehicles took some real focus to get consistently correct, but there was nothing here that was ever frustrating. The combat is slightly different in that your weapons are accessed through a “wheel” that is called up with the press of a button, this turned out to be more efficient than the toggle system of GTA. Marsten can end up packing a variety of weapons, rifles, revolvers, and explosives. The quick targeting system of GTA is available here and is a real ally when faced with large groups of enemies.

In addition to combat, Marsten can take on a number of more traditional “cowboy” tasks, such as hunting for skins, herding cattle and breaking in wild horses. All of these elements worked well, the animal AI (particularly the horses) was for the most part excellent. There would be some occasional collision detection issues, but nothing really distracting. The human AI, both “buddy” and enemy worked quite well, with allies offering effective covering fire and staying out of your way.
There is a lot of game here frankly and doing everything offered (including bounty hunting) would take up a good forty hours. Once the main campaign is completed there is also an excellent free roaming multiplayer mode. It was fun forming up a posse with others and riding into battle.
Sights and Sounds: Red Dead Redemption is beautifully crafted. The environment is enormous and rich with detail. Rockstar has proven they are as adept at depicting a desolate wilderness as they are at showing off the urban jungle of Liberty City (aka NYC). The landscape offers huge variety, from the Great Plains, to the desert of Mexico, to the snowy forest atop some majestic mountains. The lighting, shadows and particle effects are first rate. The game world is fully accessible; point your horse in the right direction and just ride. You will actually spend some time just wanting to look at all the scenery. The world itself is alive and teeming with animals, plants and people going about their business. The only issue is the occaisional “pop-in” diminished from GTA IV, but still noticeable from time to time.



Character models are also improved a bit from GTA IV, with a better range of facial expressions and more realistic clothing textures. The animations of people and animals are spot on, with some of the best horse riding ever depicted. Physics effects are well done here, especially death animations.

The sound effects are also top notch, with a nice emphasis on echo and secondary effects (bullet ricochet for example). The game environment is loaded with well thought ambient sounds (animals, wagons rolling, pianos playing etc) The sound score for the most part is right on the money with three beautifully arranged original songs that come on in major moments of the narrative. The voicing acting for the most part is solid and compelling, however there were a few stiff and poor performances sprinkled in as well, nothing that was a real problem though.

Kids Corner: Red Dead Redemption is a rather violent affair, with lots of gun battles and a fair amount of blood. The themes in the game are rather adult in nature and there is a large amount of course language. There is also one semi –nude scene. So I cannot recommend this one the young ones, simply too much there in adult oriented content.

In Summary: Red Dead Redemption is far and away the best “Old West” videogame ever made. Rockstar has a definite big hit on its hands here. The game is an incredibly immersive experience and much like a great novel, hard to put downand stop. In many ways it feels a lot like the great Clint Eastwood film, “Unforgiven”. If you enjoy tales of the old west, want to put on that cowboy hat, and ‘head em out and you happen to have a PS3 or Xbox 360, this is a must buy! Run out, grab a copy and spend the next 30 hours are so living out your cowboy fantasies.

Check out the Video!!!

The graphics here are beautiful Tim.

I forgot to mention that a special co-op mission pack will be available soon for both consoles via download.

I've gotten to watch a lot of RDR since it's come out. I've played it a couple times, it's just kind of hard when my husband is always playing it. We do have 2 xBox systems, we even had 2 copies of the game, but then I wanted a DSi XL more.

I do agree with you though, the graphics are amazing. Sometimes I can't believe how detailed the background is. Especially all the stars in the sky.

one of the improvements over GTA IV is how much clearer stuff looks at night, also I liked the honor/fame mechanic, it gives you an incentive to back and play a different way.

The characters and well, just about everything on this game seems to be really well done!! (Yes, this isn't one for the kids! It's rated M.) It depicted reality more accurately than most games when it came to the finer details, which made the game look great.

And I must mention something about Marston's scars. It's a bit graphic, wouldn't you think? :P

I have been wanting to play this game since I heard there was gonna be a 2nd red dead. I loved Red Ded Revolver. It is one of the top five in my all time. They storyline was something out of Josie Wells. I loved it. I can't wait to get my $$ saved to get a ps3 and this game.

I think the scars are a great detailed, I like my protagonists flawed. I think it suits the backstory of the character's former hard living.