Review - Red Dead Redemption (PS3, X 360)

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The West is a horrible place. Death in all its forms is present here. Larceny, rape and corruption pass and swell like the clouds in the sky. Through all of this, John Marston has persevered, surviving in a domain which mercilessly snatches people away as each day passes. He wears this constant struggle in the scars that adorn his face like trophies. In Red Dead Redemption, he saddles up one more time to fight for the most crucial thing to him – his family.

Red Dead Redemption is a study in wonderful game design, specifically in open-world gaming. The designers understand all the steps necessary to create a great experience, and all the staples of Grand Theft Auto 4 are still there, with the map and travel banter still intact. Everything has been further refined though, and the art and details really shine through to make this game a super set of good design choices. The horses behave like the cars of the last game, except a loyalty system has been worked in, so that the longer you stay with one horse, the longer it can sprint for you. This makes losing a horse a frustrating ordeal. As one of the two staples of a Western, horses have received a lot of attention. Motion capture (using a real horse in a studio) along with exquisite modeling and textures have crafted the most lifelike and realistic looking horses ever in a video game.

Shooting people is one of the more satisfying pursuits in RDR.

Shooting, the other vital part of any Western,  is beautifully executed. The guns have a powerful kick that rocks John back, and each reload animation is properly detailed, with him opening up a break-apart revolver like the Schofield, or rolling a chamber to the side with the double-action revolver and feeding in each round. Lever action rifles are common and very useful. I haven’t used such rifles in a videogame in a long time, and the solid report of each rifle as it delivers a round is very satisfying, accompanying the cocking action to free the shell. The game is very quick and dirty with the fighting, but has beauty buried in its execution. The Dead Eye mechanic is something akin to Max Payne (also from Rockstar) and allows you to drop multiple banditos or empty a few rounds of your pistol into a duelist’s chest. I have fond moments of high-art gunplay, such as when characters being thrown back when hit, and combatants stumbling realistically away from the point of impact. I rode up to a man at one point, and shot him point blank (knowing he was going to steal my horse) in his face. He rocked back, almost as shocked as he was injured, and then dropped to his knees, grabbing onto a bench beside him, before lying still. Moments like this are hard to find anywhere else, and the formula is refined from GTA4.  The fine touches are both beautiful and greatly appreciated: blood that paints a wall from a shotgun blast, or pools around a bandit as he meets the business end of your pistol. The variety of body destruction achieves its goal with exit wounds and churned flesh where needed, adding to the brutality of combat.

The multiplayer must not be over looked. A variety of classic game modes, including Capture the Flag, Team Deathmatch, and Deathmatch, are rounded out by the innovative online free roam. This last mode allows you to assemble a posse of up to 16 players and travel to wherever you like within the map of the full game. You can hunt bears as a group or take on gang hideouts – all while seamlessly working together. You gain experience, which in turn unlocks better weapons, character models, and horses, which serve to fuel your ascent upwards, in addition to awarding arbitrary titles. An interesting feature of the Deathmatch and Team Deathmatch modes is that at the start of every battle, the players form either a circle or two parallel lines, and then are told to start shooting. Generally, you shoot at whoever is across from you, but you can pick whoever you want. This leads to interesting scenarios in the free-for-all. Dueling in such a way allows the member with the fastest draw and a decent amount of luck to get a head start, gathering any weapons or powerups they want before everyone else respawns and the game begins proper. It’s a fun and novel mechanic which serves to dish out some immediate action, and an added incentive to hone that trigger finger.

Traveling in a group has its advantages.

The residents of the various towns, outposts, and establishments are also very well crafted. Unlike traditional free-roaming games, which only allows rudimentary movements, RDR provide you with a variety of encounters, such as people chopping wood, selling wares, drinking, gambling, haggling, hunting, and behaving in any manner.  The populace will challenge you to duels, call you out for cheating at Poker (which leads to duels), ask for assistance, or attempt to beguile you into a scam on the open road. The inclusion of a fair variety of wildlife roaming the countryside is an important factor. It serves to further immerse you as you travel across wide open plains and slow rolling hills as deer prance by or trotting through the pseudo-Colorado “Tall Trees” forest, with your hand constantly on your rifle as you survey for cougars or bears.

The need to hunt for a source of money is pervasive, and the tools to aid you, be it bait or a survivalist map for herbs, are properly implemented. Hunting and skinning your prey can lead to the leftovers that make an animal lover cringe, but it’s worth it. The more rare or dangerous an animal, the higher the payoff when trading their pelts or claws in town. The skillful recreation of the noises of the animals, whether it’s the “rattle” of the rattlesnake in the bushes, the call of a song bird in the early morning or the frightened shriek of an elk as you startle it with a gunshot is an evocative feature. Firing off a gunshot sends creatures skittering for cover and birds into flight from the trees. I find that it serves to better communicate the impact you have on the world around you. The animals don’t constantly feel like set pieces, and they seem to breathe and interact as their own distinct characters at times.

The music is some of the best I’ve heard in a long time. It captures the mood of the game at every turn with a wonderful combination of modern direction with Western inflection. The sound in general is moving. As I rode through a powerful thunderstorm, I stopped for a second to enjoy the savage splendor of it, whipping around trees and soaking the terrain around me, as lightning blasts hard light across the scene. Spectacular. There are several key songs played throughout the game, which were departures from the usual “sans-vocals” background music, and awesome in their own right. The set mood and approach of each tune is a signature moment in the game, and also marks my favourite moments within the narrative. The background noise pulls away, and a slow, melancholy tone overtakes you – with a lower the chance of interruptions like random encounters – as you travel to a destination. John Marston renders a superb performance, coming across as gruff and worn, but at the same time intelligent and well-rounded. His admiration of Landon Ricketts, an old Western duelist who confronts and trains him in Mexico, adds a subtle depth which further serves to make you enjoy the ride. Even now I’m listening to track after track as I type this.

The inclusion of costumes that affect variables in game is not only appreciated, but awesome.

Know how I got these scars?

It allows the character more freedom than being stuck to one garment for the entire game, and allows players who enjoy getting into the experience the opportunity to dress up John for the locale he inhabits, whether it’s the duster accompanying the Wild West, a musky poncho thrown over his shoulders for Mexico, or a suit for more civilized destinations. The inclusion of faction costumes allows the player to disguise themselves and sneak into gang hideouts, making it fun to turn on the men around you suddenly and unleash a surprise attack.

The bottom line is that Red Dead Redemption is one of the best games to come out this year. It is the best Western ever made, and possibly the best free-roaming game in the last couple of years. This is a title that should not be missed and any minimal graphical or gameplay glitches don’t serve to sour the deal in the least. This is a game for the ages. Whether you’re nearing  100% completion (95.4% at the time of writing this) or cornering the story and then jumping into the fun and engaging multiplayer, Red Dead Redemption is a must have for any fan of a good story, great gameplay, and an awesome Western.

Jeremy Cole is a game enthusiast that compares games to fine wine way too much in casual conversation, talking of "flavours of this" and "motes of that" so much that he is continually on the hunt for new friends. He owns a PS3 and a PC but has been bumming game systems off of friends for ages.