Red Dead Redemption was a widely-anticipated Rockstar game that hit shelves May 18th this year. Rockstar are the same guys that brought us the hugely popular Grand Theft Auto series, as well as Max Payne, the Midnight Club series, and others. Although it is a spiritual successor to 2004′s Red Dead Revolver, not much relates back to it, other than the western setting.
You play as John Marston, an ex-gangster in the early 1900′s who is being forced by government officials to hunt down and kill the surviving leading members of his former gang if he ever wants to see his wife and son again. As such, your overall mission as John Marston is to save your family and kill your once-friends.
I’ll start off on gameplay… Red Dead Redemption is, overall, a fantastic game, and a lot of its successes and high points boil down to the gameplay elements that hold everything together. I feel that this game is the first that has gotten down the formula of open-world gameplay down to a T. In-between missions, you can do just about anything… Ride around on your horse, start trouble in towns, and even play minigames (such as Texas Hold ‘Em, Five Finger Filet, and Liar’s Dice). It all holds the gameplay together perfectly and keeps things going, even if you’re not currently interested in the story.
But I think the thing that makes this one of the best open-world games available is the random events that occur. Indicated by a blue blip on your minimap, random events occur pretty often in the Red Dead world. These include men asking you to help them catch a thief to stealing a wagon for them, and sometimes to just duel in the middle of town. This really helps the game feel more alive than anything, and gives you something to do (or even just to ride around and look for) when you’re not playing a mission.
These random events, as well as other things in-game, will affect your honour. Red Dead Redemption has a morality system that’s based on how you act toward other people. This changes how people act around you. If you’re a generally good person, you’ll be treated with respect. If you go around shooting old ladies and robbing card dealers, your presence will be met with fear.
Aside from random events, another great gameplay element in Red Dead Redemption is the gunfighting. Gunfights can escalate to huge numbers and are always a blast. There’s a quick-aim system in place, which helps a lot in the midst of battle. You can also choose to take out specific body parts to reach a desired outcome. For instance, if you’re looking to hogtie a hostile, you can temporarily take him out by shooting him in the kneecap. This will put a damper on his short-term fire as well as give you an opportunity to get up close and throw the lasso. You can also just shoot their guns out of their hands if you want to avoid any bloodshed and have enough time to get away. There are so many variables in each showdown, which keeps the gunfights incredibly fresh throughout the entire game.
A feature that will help you achieve these accurate shots with time to spare is Dead Eye. The Dead Eye targeting system allows you to slow down time (think max Payne) to take out enemies with ease, or to make your aiming more precise to fit certain situations. There are three levels of Dead Eye — In level 1, time simply slows and allows you to get a shot off with a huge upper hand. Level 2 of Dead Eye has an auto-target system, in which targets are placed on your foes as your cursor runs over their body, and you can execute the shots with a button press. In Level 3, you are able to manually seek out and place targets on your enemy’s body, and again execute the shots with the press of a button. Level 2 is a bit of a pain, as it feels like you lose a lot of control in the transition (which, of course, you do), but once you get to level 3, you’ll feel like the best marksman ever born.
One of my favourite parts in this game is also one of the most often encountered. Horse riding. It’s an incredibly refreshing break from driving a car to get from Point A to Point B. The mechanics are fantastic and it feels incredibly authentic, at least with a controller. The running animations are also incredibly well done. All-in-all, it’s a whole lot more fun than driving a car around. It’s something different, and Rockstar pulled it off incredibly well.
Taking a trip with a companion is also a lot of fun. Just like in GTA4, the mission dialogue as you make your journey differs from time to time, meaning that each play-through of each mission may contain a slightly different conversation, and it makes me want to not throw the controller at the TV when I fail a mission that had a long transmit.
When it comes to multiplayer, Red Dead Redemption delivers very strongly. You start off online in a “Free Roam” mode, which allows you to hook up with other players and cause general mayhem with formed possies battling it out or just going around shooting NPC’s and avoiding the law with a character completely separate from your campaign.
From here, you can take the battle to one of several different kinds of play, one of which is a gang shootout. This particular gametype begins with both teams in a faceoff in the center of a town. You draw your weapons simultaneously and quickly try to take out the other team. The last man/men standing represent their teams in victory, all of whom get an XP bonus. After this, you begin a typical team deathmatch kind of gameplay, but with certain elements that still help to differ it from the competition. For instance, you can still use Dead Eye in multiplayer, although it’s a bit dumbed down. There’s no slow motion, but the auto-target system is in place, allowing you to quickly acquire several targets on an enemy’s body before they’re able to aim down their sights. This is incredibly useful.
Through getting kills you get experience points. With experience, you’ll level up. Your higher level will unlock you things, such as new horses. A faster ride can give you a huge advantage in the midst of battle (especially if you intend to flee).
Overall, the online play in this game is one of many elements that will force me to play it for a long time to come.
Now, if you haven’t been able to understand this yet, Red Dead Redemption is absolutely gorgeous. The immense attention to detail that the designers paid is astounding, down to the fibers in clothing and individual strands of hair. All of the animations are also excellent, and it has a very life-like feel to it.
There’s also an immense amount of variety from location to location, which always keeps things interesting throughout your multinational journey across the lands. Each town has a distinctive layout to it, with recognizable NPCs and unique buildings that really allow you to easily memorize each location. I love that.
But good graphics and gameplay can easily be torn apart by poor audio design decisions or recording issues. Fortunately, there’s none of that here. All of the audio in Red Dead Redemption is top-notch, down to the piano tunes that boom through the saloons as you drink yourself unconscious.
As far as voice acting goes, I’ve heard almost nothing as good as Red Dead Redemption in the past. Rockstar has always been known for having great voice acting, and Red Dead takes it a step further, I feel. All of the characters are incredibly believable, and I’ve actually been quite sad to part with a few of them due to the personalities they develop as you spend time by their sides.
But one of my favourite bits of audio gold in this game is the ambience as you sit in the wild at night. It has a very immersive feel to it. It’s all very realistic and well-done. If you have a surround-sound system, this is a game you’ll quickly be able to appreciate.
Overall, I have to give this game the highest possible score. It blew me away around every corner and I don’t find myself tiring of any of it. The replayability is through the roof, with the online play and the morality system to make sure this one stays in your collection.
If you enjoy third-person shooters at all, this is a game to pick up. A video game that has distractions in and of itself (comprised here of many hours of texas hold ‘em) is more than worth it’s salt.
Keep an eye out for a video review soon.
10/10
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