Red Dead Redemption Review

Two barrells of fun, coming right up!

In the unlikely event that Red Dead Redemption doesn’t pick up any Game Of The Year awards, then it must be a shoe-in for the Most Anticipated Title of 2010.

Before I kick this review off, I’d like to tell you about the craziness that was release day here in Australia.  To begin with, five of around seven major games retailers broke street date a day early, much to the delight of gamers country-wide.  When I went to pick up a copy at around 11AM, the Big W store I visited hadn’t even had time to shelve the game’s boxes, and had sold over half their stock just over the service counter.  Leaving the store, the 50-something gentlemen who validated my parking smiled when he saw my copy of the game and pulled out a copy from under his booth’s desk.  As he explained it: “My son wanted me to bring him home a copy, but I think he’ll have to wait until I’m done with it”.

Rockstar must truly be the kings of the hype machine.  Unsuspecting console gamers (who didn’t even know they liked Westerns) have been either playing this game recently, or broke.  They were apparently the only two options on hand.

So then, for a title that everyone simply must have, how is Red Dead Redemption once the hype wears off?

The answer is a very good game, but that’s all.  There is a certain type of gamer who’s going to love this game for every little thing it does, but it’s certainly not a game for everyone.  Red Dead Redemption is a “spiritual successor” to Red Dead Revolver, another Western game that Rockstar made for the original Xbox.  In other words, other than a few elements that bear a small similarity to their predecessor, Red Dead Redemption is a completely new game that takes the series in a completely new direction.  It doesn’t take Rockstar as a developer in a completely new direction, however, in fact in that regard they seem to have barely moved since GTA IV.  Some witty individual recently referred to it as GTA: Deadwood and, even if it was said in jest, it’s the most accurate summation of Red Dead Redemption that I’ve heard so far.

John shoots first, and asks questions later ... with his gun

Players take the role of John Marston, a reformed bandit forced by the government to track down his old gang.  To guarantee his compliance, his family are being held hostage until the job is completed.  He’s not a particularly interesting character, to be honest.  As one character early in the game puts it he’s “… deliberately obscure in substitute for having a personality”.  This is probably because the game wants the player to decide what kind of man John is morally.  You can choose to help people in need and fight outlaws, or rob, cheat and steal your heart out.  The game leaves this open for the player, although I found Marston’s character to be highly hypocritical if you play him as an outlaw.

It’s probably fair to say that the real star of Red Dead Redemption is the sandbox world that Rockstar have created.  When GTA IV attempted to recreate the hustle and bustle of a major metropolitan city, it left the player feeling a bit pent in.  While Liberty City certainly had a grand scale, constantly driving in street grids, beset on all sides by traffic and unenterable buildings really hampered any feeling of freedom.  New Austin is essentially the polar opposite.  Over 90% of the map is open wilderness, with nothing to stop you from heading off the beaten path at any moment.  In both single player and multiplayer you’ll frequently find yourself galloping across open grassland for no other reason than pure wanderlust.

Finally, a spiritual successor to World Series of Poker!

There are several attractive reasons to simply explore.  Firstly, a lot of effort has clearly been put into the weather system, which constantly delivers picturesque panoramas.  There’s a simple satisfaction of galloping along a ridge with a deep red sunset behind you, or hunting amongst the slender pine trees as snowflakes drop softly around you.  Hunting is the second reason, and this certainly isn’t a game for fervent vegetarians.  Each area has multiple animals that can be scared out of hiding, shot, killed and then skinned or plucked for trophies.  A few animals, like cougars or bears, manage to give their own back against trigger-happy hunters, but for the most part you can consider the wilderness to be a living target range.

You can literally spend hours just roaming the land, which speaks volumes about the quality of the sandboxing, but the lure of the open wild does have something of a negative effect on the singleplayer storyline.  You want to spend so much time exploring that any momentum built by the core story missions is ruined.  John is simply desperate to get back to his family during missions, but then doesn’t seem to mind going bush for days on end searching for beaver to kill and skin.  In this sense, the story doesn’t match the same format as the rest of the game.  In GTA IV, Nico could waste days on end cruising or watching TV because he was simply taking job opportunities as they cropped up.  Marston (for most of the game, at least) knows his mission and where he’s heading next, so the down-time between missions seems out of place.

Get used to this view

Which leads me to my other gripe with Red Dead Redemption.  You may notice that I’m making a fair few comparisons between Red Dead and GTA. That’s because RDR truly is just GTA with horses. Oh sure, aesthetically the two games are vastly different, and Redemption has honed and improved the formula, but the core mechanics are identical.  Partial auto-aim, waypointed mini-map with people’s initials for missions, multiple mini-games … hell, they’ve even managed to translate those annoying car conversations.  They’ve duplicated so much that you’re almost expecting a messenger to ride up at any moment with a telegram reading: COUSIN STOP MEET ME AT THIEVES LANDING COUSIN STOP LET’S SEE SOME BIG AMERICAN TEETEES COUSIN STOP.

It’s not that the gameplay itself is so bad, it’s just that recognising so much from a previous game ruins a certain amount of immersion that the game works so hard to set up.

So while the singleplayer is good, the tale of John Marston is nothing very special, and at points seems to simply be checking boxes for Western movie cliches.  I think the only thing the game failed to provide Western-wise was a train robbery.  But it doesn’t really matter, because Red Dead Redemption is one of those games you’ve got to play for the pure experience, not for it’s narrative.

Which is probably why the multiplayer experience is so brilliant.

I mean face it, what other game lets you knife fight a grizzly?

Pacing is thankfully not an issue in multiplayer, which means you can feel free to waste as much time as you like just roaming the land.  The default “Free Roam” mode just sticks you in a server with several other players, and lets you posse up or go solo.  You’ll find that there’s a general shoot-on-sight policy in regards to other free-roamers, but this is born more from self-preservation than specific douchebaggery.  Occassionally you will have posse members specifically choose to betray you (Egad! Blaggards!) which usually signals the beginning of an hour long vendetta shootout.  The gang hideouts from single player remain in free roam, which offer a good way to gain experience and level up, or you can just spend hours and hours on end fighting it out with the law as public enemies.

You really haven’t played Red Dead Redemption until you’ve played a multiplayer free-roam with an eight player posse.

When you get tired just roaming around (which can take a while) there are a full range of both free-for-all and team matches to enjoy.  Each one of them starts with a stand-off shootout, which is sometimes the highlight of the whole match.  Duking it out in competitive matches or completing free roam objectives will gain you online experience, which is used to unlock better gear and different character models.  Your starter character begins with nothing but a six-shooter and a mule, but levels do unlock quite quickly.

In the end, there’s no denying the fact that Red Dead Redemption is a great game, but I get the feeling that once you’ve had your fill of wandering the wilderness it will be retired to the shelf with all the other good games you fondly remember but don’t really intend on playing again.  It’s certainly Rockstar’s best sandbox title to date, but a lack of any real innovation in regards to the gameplay mechanics holds this game back from the brink of brilliance for me.

The Verdict:

Pros: Possibly the best sandbox world created to date.  The atmosphere is terrific, and really draws the player in.  I don’t think it ever grabbed me “… by the neck and forcing you down, down, down until you simply have no interest in coming up for air“, but it is definitely the true star of the show.  Voice acting is great and the story is well written (if somewhat dull).

Cons: Pacing was the real problem for the single-player, and the interface lifts far too much straight from GTA.  That’s about it.

Overall: This is one of those games where the core experience seems to get outclassed by it’s side missions, but despite these minor qualms this is still nothing short of a must own game.  Be it now, or after the price drops a little, every gamer (and parking attendant) owes it to themselves to check Red Dead Redemption out.  4 out of 5 stars.