Red Dead Redemption Review

Every few years, a game comes along that causes a moral outrage. Scenes of graphic violence, foul language and depiction of hard drug use are the central areas that get overly sensitive people in a flap.
The crown for these types of games has traditional gone to game studio Rockstar, the creators of the infamous Grand Theft Auto series. However this year’s offering hasn’t pushed the censorship barrier further across the frontline and instead has settled down with a tar chewing, whisky swilling, revolver toting envisioning of the Wild West in its dying years.

Red Dead Redemption is set in the Frontier lands of the American mid west at the turn of the nineteenth century. The federal government is gaining strength and believes that the taming of the West is what is needed to bring stability and order to their great nation.

Enter John Marston, an ex gang member from the fictional state of New Austen who left his criminal ways years ago and set up an honest life for himself and his family. That is until his family is kidnapped by the government and he is marched back to his old stomping ground to find and either apprehend or kill the men he used to ride with.

First off, Red Dead Redemption is visually stunning. As the opening credits roll and a cinematic charts the John Marston’s journey from one side of New Austen to another the landscape is breathtakingly beautiful. The scale is enormous. When gameplay kicks in, riding off into the distance is a possibility, however not advised. Its best to get your bearings of the area, get some weapons before taking on all the bandits the west can throw at you.

Mission structure is taken straight out from the GTA handbook. A small compass has initials of your partners/friend/assistants and show up as capital letters. They then stick to the point by point run through of the GTA mission scenario; cinematic chat and explanation of task, travel to location, burst of in game dialogue, shoot and finish.
However Read Dead dots smaller side quests and tasks around the story missions. Helping strangers with their troubles on the sides of roads or in towns helps earn a bit of money and challenges such as hunting and collecting shrubbery are used to break up gameplay and get closer to unlocking the ultimate cowboy costume for Mr Marston.

One of the new gameplay additions new to this Rockstar outing is the Red Dead meter. The feature allows you to enter a sort of bullet time mode that can be used to tag the spots where you want to hit an enemy. Its best used in duel situations where you have the choice of either disarming your opponent by blasting their hand into a stump or tearing their head off their shoulders. The meter works well in missions when tight quarters involved and an entire room can be cleared with six to twelve bullets.

Travelling across the great state of New Austen is accomplished by the use of horses, different breeds of which can either be as fast as lightening or travel at the speed an inebriated infant.
Exploring the world opened up is a mix of pleasure and work. The simple A-B routes can be marked on a map and the quickest routes can be taken. But side missions such as helping the weak and collecting flowers become part of what makes the game immersive and colourful. While riding from across the dust bowl and admiring the scenery during sunny afternoons is well and good, it feels a little repetitive and boring without the radio stations that made commuting through Liberty City seamless and enjoyable. What I would do for a bit of Wild West’s equivalent of WKTT.

The AI and NPC’s that inhabit the world being revisited by John Marston do well at portraying the traditional expectations of how the Wild West worked. Saloons/brothel are full of drunken cowboys and scantily clad wenches. Main roads are littered with opportunist bandits waiting to pounce on unsuspecting passer bys and steal everything not physically attached to their victims.

The main story characters do well in reinforcing a solid story that is enticing and enjoyable as it is bleak and desperate. John Marston’s journey has him meet with a range of memorable characters such as an insane grave robber who seems to favour the dearly departed for conversation than the living, an entrepreneur selling the elixir of life to lowly cowboys through empty promises and big words and a Mexican rebellion leader with a brain like a sieve for the names of female amigos. Which leads to another game dynamic that isn’t quite as exciting as the above

A Rockstar game wouldn’t be a Rockstar game without a misogynistic depiction of women being included somewhere. Red Dead is no exception. Women are seen as a commodity by most of the male population in the settlements of New Austen. Damsel in distress doesn’t begin to describe how often the screams of prostitutes being mugged, kidnapped or assaulted frequent the air.
Harrowing portrayals of violence to women are included in the game and genuine sense of unease and sorrow for the pixel based females. One mission early in the game involves clearing a ranch of a roving gang of murders. Upon finishing off the last thug John and the accompanying Marshall talk to the women caught up in the raid. Their faces are beaten back and blue, swollen and their clothing torn. The voice acting superbly voices the distress and heartbreak felt by the women who want nothing more than to just live their lives.

Red Dead Redemption is one of the finest examples of a sandbox game in the current console generation. After the success of GTA4 setting the standard of how a sprawling urban metropolis should be done, Rockstar have found a way to carry that success over to the Wild West.
A strong story line that inevitably makes Rockstar games what they are coupled with dazzling graphics, intuitive controls, AI that becomes difficult with numbers, a vast space in which to explore and make a reputation for yourself and some of the finest voice acting to be heard for a while, Red Dead Redemption is a rip roaring, dust coating wearing, horse riding adventure into the sunset.
While Just Cause 2 made use of huge landscapes that became irritating to conquer made it quickly boring and repetitive, Red Dead Redemption falls more in the category of Fallout 3’s post apocalyptic wasteland. Huge spaces with occasional settlements and plenty to explore and find make for hours of playtime outside the main missions while not delving too deeply into the World of Warcraft or other RPG range of collection quests, instead finding a level plain between RPG and third person action shooter.

A game with plenty of replay value, Red Dead Redemption has plenty to see and do after the story has finished. It is a game that has more of a moral compass than its studios predecessor which actually has implications of how you are seen as and interacted with. It’s deeply involving, incredibly moreish in the first few hours that it can delay a review of said game for at least a week or so.
Highly recommendable, guaranteed to last making it worth its price tag and oddly for a Rockstar games, teaches you that killing prostitutes isn’t actually the best way of earning a quick buck.