I've never really got on well with previous Rockstar games. I never brought into the "Best game EVER!" hype surrounding the Grand Theft Auto games, and I was never any good at Table Tennis.
But when I heard about Red Dead Redemption, billed quite simply as "GTA with horses", I was intrigued. Having once worn a cowboy hat, I think it's safe to say I'm a fan of the Wild West, so Red Dead Redemption sounded right up my alley.
Commit a crime in front of lawmen, and you'll wind up here for the night
Set in 1911, Red Dead Redemption puts you in the spurred boots of John Marston, a former outlaw sent to New Austin by the Government to hunt down the very men he used to ride with. Unfortunately, his first attempt to take down his former partner Bill Williamson doesn't quite go to plan, and he ends up wounded, being nursed back to health by good Samaritan Bonnie MacFarlane on her family's ranch.
Not wanting to just leave the family with the medical bills, the first few missions see you repaying your debt to the MacFarlanes by helping them out on the ranch, offering a simple introduction to the mechanics of the game. These first missions see you herding cows, taming wild horses, and, unfortunately, shooting wild rabbits that just happened to pick the wrong farm to eat at (you can't just walk away and leave the AI to kill the rabbits, either - they seem to have a habit for shooting their crop), teaching you the basics of horse riding, shooting, and using the lasso, all must-have skills for any budding Cowboy.
Once you've tamed a horse, it'll come running when you whistle.
Like the GTA games before it, and numerous other recent games (Saints Row, Crackdown and Fallout, for example), Red Dead Redemption is a "Sandbox" game, giving you a huge open world to explore straight from the off, instead of dividing the games into levels. But unlike other games, where the huge world is only ever used as a gimmick, adding more hours onto the game simply by the length of time it takes you to get from A to B, in Red Dead Redemption it actually feels like a real, living, breathing world.
Visually, RDR is one of the best games this generation. Just... sublime.
The random encounters help to enhance this feeling, and while riding through the world you'll occasionally come across people who need your help. Lawmen who have lost the criminals they were transporting will ask if you can help nab them, random men at campsites will challenge you to see who can pick the most flowers in a space of time, and you'll sometimes happen across shopkeepers transporting their wares being held up at gunpoint. Successfully diffusing these situations, by simply disarming, killing, or hogtieing (lassoing them and then tying their hands and feet together) the villains will often reap rewards. Winning the challenges will earn you money and fame, and helping the Lawmen will set you on the path to being an honourable cowboy. Of course, there are plenty of other situations you can come across too, but we'll let you find them out for yourself.
As the world you've got to explore is suitably huge, you'll need something to help you get around it. Walking on foot from one end of the map to the other would take forever, but luckily, as Marston is a cowboy born and bred, he's a dab hand at riding a horse. What horse you use is up to you, as you can catch and tame any horse you find in the wilderness, but I'm currently riding a Palomino that I've affectionately nicknamed "Cheesecake". Unfortunately, though, it does seem a little bit too difficult to hold on to the same horse throughout the entire game. Numerous missions start with people giving you a different horse to ride, and should you hitch this horse at your house, it'll overrides the previous horse that you were keeping, which leaves you losing them for good.
One of the few things that lets Red Dead Redemption down is the lack of variety in the missions. A large amount of them follow the "Go Here - Shoot These Chaps" formula, but this is only really a problem when you're purely playing missions for a long period of time - there's more than enough variety in the rest of the world to keep you occupied. In particular, there's one story mission involving your horse and a train that is awesome, if a little too short.
Just like the movies, when someone has a problem with you it's settled with a duel. The only thing missing is the theme from The Good, The Bad and the Ugly
If you do get tired of the same old Go Here - Shoot These missions, you can find "Strangers" dotted around the world, who'll give you other missions to do for them, which can range from bringing the stranger medicine, to convincing the wife of a womanizer to take him back. Or, if you don't want to do any missions at all, you can even relax in the bar with a game of poker, or play horseshoes around the back - there's almost no end to the distractions.
When you've eventually exhausted all the possibilities of the single player, grab a few friends with the game and head online. In the free-roam mode, up to 16 real people can inhabit New Austin along with the numerous computer controlled inhabitants, and set about doing... well, just about anything. Arrange horse races between your friends, start a rivalry with any other posses in the world, or simply hunt down and rid the world of bad guys, one gang hideout at a time. Luckily, most people in Red Dead Redemption online seem to play the game properly, keeping themselves to themselves (or their posse), rather than going around shooting everyone and generally making a nuisance of themselves.
Within a few minutes of picking up the controller, Red Dead Redemption will lasso you into its cowboy world, and with so many cool things to do, and a huge recreation to the Wild West to explore, you'll never want to leave.
A Rockstar game deserving of all the praise it gets? I think so.
Format Reviewed: Xbox 360
