The western genre has seen its fair share of video games, many of which have turned out to be just downright pathetic. In fact, one of the last great western games we saw was Red Dead Revolver in 2004, which, ironically, was also published by Rockstar Games, the same group that brought us Redemption. And so, having already produced a good western, Rockstar had to set the bar pretty high. Luckily, they didn’t just set the bar here; they completely destroyed it. From now on, if you want to develop a western game, this is what you aspire to be.
Redemption is not a direct sequel to Revolver, but instead introduces a whole new cast of characters, the main of which being John Marston. Marston is a former outlaw who is trying to set his life straight and settle down with his family. Unfortunately his past won’t let him, and he now has to hunt down all of his former outlaw friends if he wants to see his family again. It’s not exactly creative, but like many things with the story of Redemption, it is presented extremely well and through a beautiful environment, which more than makes up for the various clichés.
Marston soon finds that he can’t hunt down these bandits by himself, and he has to recruit the assistance of several strange allies. You’ll get help from a gravedigger, a drunken Irishmen (creatively named Irish), and more. This likeable cast of characters all have interesting personalities, and definitely make up for the shortcomings of John Marston’s character, who for whatever reason just isn’t as interesting as he should be.
Enough about the story and onto the gameplay. There is a ton of different western activities to partake in Redemption. You can break mustangs, play poker, horseshoes, and black jack, chase down and hog-tie baddies, assault gang forts, go hunting, and a whole lot more. All of this is presented in a fantastically done game world that takes place around the Mexican border. The world is gigantic, and every inch of it is bursting with beautiful graphics that make it entertaining just to ride your horse throughout the country. It’s easily possible to rack up dozens of hours just exploring things outside of the main quest. Even if you just choose to focus purely on the main quest (though you’ll probably find that impossible once you see everything Redemption has to offer) you will still probably get more than 20 hours of gameplay. This is simply a massive single player experience.
And then we have multiplayer. I truly wasn’t sure what to expect here. Luckily, multiplayer works much better than I expected and then some. You’ve got your standard team gang shootouts and all that, which is all well and good, but not very original. However, this is made up for by free roam, which is like a game lobby in Call of Duty. Except in Call of Duty you simply sit there and wait for the match to start, whereas here you and up to 16 of your friends (or Xbox Live/PSN randoms) can explore the entire single player experience. You can just have fun shooting each other up, assault gang hideouts together, or just wander around aimlessly looking for trouble.
It’s a ton of fun, and gets even better because everything you do earns you XP. Get enough XP, and you’ll go up a level which unlocks new character models and items as well as new weapons which can be used in gang team deathmatch shootouts as well as free roam, which makes it all the more rewarding. However, just the whole concept of being able to explore this entire gigantic world with your buddies is fantastic and gives the game so much more value. Personally, I had a lot of fun going up north with my friends and going bear hunting, knives only. Assaulting gang hideouts is clearly one of the main focuses of free roam though, and that is also a blast. If you’re with others you can come up with unique strategies to easily clear out enemies. Since you have multiple people, you can have two of your buddies assault the hideout from different angles, while others are providing sniper cover. It’s really cool and it’s done very well, as is the whole concept of free roam.
Throughout all that Red Dead Redemption has to offer, there are a few flaws though that I feel inclined to mention. The biggest of them is the horse riding, which just never caught on with me. Some will say that it just takes some getting used to, but I don’t buy that, it just sucks. It certainly doesn’t ruin the experience, but things like horse racing never appealed to me just because I never really felt like I had control of everything. In addition, shooting while on horseback could be frustrating at times. All in all though, having a fast travel system was a much-needed feature, for if there wasn’t I definitely would not have enjoyed the game as much if I had to ride my horse everywhere. It’s not like you have no control, it’s just that you’re turning and direction isn’t very natural.
The other thing I didn’t enjoy was the inability to save everywhere. You can only save in the wild or at bought or rented properties. At times I found myself having to travel into the middle of nowhere for it to be considered the wild, which was obviously annoying. It would have been nice to see Rockstar introduce the ability to just save wherever, but once again, this definitely doesn’t ruin the experience.
Despite a few of its shortcomings, Red Dead Redemption is still a fantastic game deserving of a 9/10 and the Knockout Award. It’s flaws are only amplified by how wonderful nearly every other aspect of its world is, and it’s hard to imagine everyone not being able to find something enjoyable in this. The single player experience definitely justifies its price tag by itself, and the amazing free roam in multiplayer just makes everything better and adds lasting appeal to what should already be deemed a classic.
Graphics: 8/10
Gameplay: 8/10
Replayability: 9/10
Dialogue: 9/10
Story: 9/10
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Originally posted on w3techie.com