Red Dead Redemption. (What the hell does that mean anyway?) The game places you in the role of John Marston, an ex-outlaw and current protagonist of the story. The game takes place pretty much in the early 1900’s and is in the genre of “Western” through and through. Adventure? Check. Drama? Check! Open World? Check. Prostitutes? Kinda. Comedy in a satirical way? All that! Yes, this is Grand Theft Equine and they dressed it up and disguised it with a new name that we’ll refer to as Red Dead Redemption.
Something that I don’t often find in videogames today is an appreciably good story. This has not yet been the issue with the games from Rockstar that I’ve played in recent memory, and RDR is no exception. John Marston is not exactly everything he appears to be when first being introduced to the guy, no he has layers. As the game progresses he learns to shed these layers and allow the characters in the game, and us the players, get some appreciable insight as to what makes this hardened criminal tick. John’s problem is that he misses his wife and kid. They’re not dead, they’re kidnapped! We learn that the government has taken John’s family for ransom and are blackmailing him into capturing members of a gang that he was once a member. This almost sounds like something that can be found in any B movie about redemption of today, and this game uses the outline in a very engaging and entertaining manner.
Now I often wonder if Rockstar makes games that aren’t Grand Theft Auto in order to test out gameplay elements that they want to include in Grand Theft Auto. Pool, Midnight Club, Manhunt and a few other games all had gameplay elements lifted and incorporated into their flagship title. Red Dead Redemption on the other hand seems like a exercise in utilizing everything learned over the last 10yrs and implementing it into something completely unique for them. Red Dead Redemption takes away the cars and contemporary setting and trades it for the wild west with horses and carriages. I think it was a bold and daring move that obviously paid off into millions of sales.
Honestly speaking, this game isn’t a direct translation of GTA in the wild west. Well, it is and it isn’t. Some things just don’t translate into the west. For one, there’s no radio! Nope, there’s no soundtrack made of the biggest stars of music to play while riding shotgun in a carriage. Instead you have the sound of the wilderness to entertain you. This may sound dull, but Rockstar ensured that there’s plenty to want to see in the environment. You will sometimes get that feeling like someone’s watching you, and that’s because there might be. They took the NPC mechanics of GTA and used them to create wildlife that you can hunt. Careful, the wildlife doesn’t just get hunted, they may hunt you! I don’t remember many stray dogs or pigeons that I didn’t shoot in GTA, but RDR brings tons of animals. Eagles, crows, owls, vultures, squirrels, rams, deer, elk, bears, beavers, rabbits, and too many to try to remember in a sentence all make appearances and have a place in the game and in the story. Hunting animals is sadistically fun (for me anyway). The idea is to hunt, kill, skin, and sell your goods that you obtain from the hunt. Beware as the animals often mimic characteristics of their real life counterparts. Wolves and Coyotes tend to run in packs and will track you if you wander too far from groups. Boars and bears are fiercely territorial and will attack you if they feel you are a threat to their area. Horses often run in packs and you can see them majestically traverse the terrain just begging to be lassoed and ridden away. It’s a fun distraction that you can partake in while not completing one of the missions from the storyline. There’s tons of mini-games and side missions, but hunting easily became one of my favorite.
John is not a huge departure from GTA protagonists. Why? Because you can accessorize! You can find all types of outfits and nick nacks to help John along the way. Collecting clothing and outfits for John to wear is an arduous task often involving multiple side missions in order to obtain scraps of clothing to create the outfit. It’s a fun way to introduce the mini-games, locations, and other aspects from the game that veers from the main storyline. I honestly don’t know why, but I think John just looks way more boss when he’s rocking his Mexican poncho. Just sayin.
The game is mesmerizing. I’ve been hooked for weeks now and haven’t even tried to play another game since finally picking up RDR. That said, it must be good to have me miss out on a Halo launch. The story, graphics, and gameplay are examples of Rockstar in their finest form, and it reflects their level of polish and quality in every corner and under every rock. If you like the GTA series, then it would be very difficult to not also like RDR.
