BrockTalk

When Rockstar released Grand Theft Auto III for the Playstation 2 back in 2001 they blew open the doors on what was previously thought possible in a video game. They continued to improve on the franchise with various releases, and pushed the open-world sandbox genre even further with the release of GTA IV in 2008. Since the release of GTA III there have been hundreds of games released in the open-world genre that have followed Rockstar's formula, so much so that the genre has, in my opinion, gotten pretty stale over the years. Leave it to Rockstar to show everyone how it's really done. Using the same engine and feeling very similar to GTA IV in many ways, Red Dead Redemption somehow brings a breath of fresh air to the genre even though you can tell it's basically GTA IV re-skinned with a wild west theme.

PRESENTATION

Like it did in both GTA III and even more so in GTA IV, Rockstar has once again created a world that feels more alive than any other setting for a game that I have ever experienced. There are very few times that I can remember playing a video game where I just stopped playing to watch the world moving around me. Red Dead Redemption provides many of these types of experiences. Galloping across the plains of the wild west on a trusty steed and watching the sun come up over the mountains while music straight out of a classic spaghetti-western plays quietly in the background is simply breathtaking. In fact, the entire landscape of this game is just beautiful, and it can change drastically from one region to the next. In the soundtrack department there are a couple of key moments in the game where you finish a certain mission and as you ride to your next destination a song kicks in that just feels so right it's awesome. It's not too often I notice the soundtrack of a video game like I do in a movie, and Red Dead absolutely nails it which just adds to the overall presentation and experience of the game. Graphically RDR is pretty comparable to GTA IV as well. As I mentioned previously, the landscapes in Red Dead are gorgeous, but Rockstar's character modeling and animations, while not bad, have never quite blown me away.

GAMEPLAY

It will take a long time for a player to run out of something to do in Red Dead Redemption. While the main missions would probably take anywhere from 20-25 hours to complete if played straight through, most players will find that they will not complete the game in this amount of time as there is just so many ways to get easily distracted. There are a great amount of fun mini-games including poker, blackjack, horseshoes, liar's dice, five-finger fillet, and even arm wrestling. But that's not all; you can go on  treasure hunts, animal hunts, complete side-quests, break in horses, help out your fellow man, raise havoc causing a bounty to be put on your head, ride a train, and the list just goes on and on.

As you can see there is much fun to be had in the world of Red Dead Redemption,  but that doesn't mean it's without it's problems. While running around in Rockstar's worlds has always been a great experience, much like in GTA IV, the control mechanics are still a little wonky at times and just don't always control as smoothly and intuitively as I feel they should.

RDR keeps the mission structure of the GTA games in place, which has always been one of my major complaints about the GTA series and its' copycats as this structure gets boring after a while. You either drive somewhere, or drive somewhere and shoot some guys, rinse and repeat. Thankfully, RDR seems to vary up the types of missions a little better than GTA has, but this just may be due to the fact that you get to ride a horse rather than drive a care this time and takes running red lights and smashing pedestrians in a hurry to get to the next objective out of the equation, which was always frustrating and took me out the experience of the game. The horseriding can still get a little stale at times, however, but I think it works a lot better as you're not obviously breaking the law with every turn of a corner as there are no traffic rules in the wild west.

STORY

Rockstar has always been pretty good at telling a decent story, but this time they really nailed it. Now, while the story isn't anything too unique to the wild west genre Rockstar's careful pacing of the game and the way they develop their characters is spot on. This is especially true in the final act where the pacing completely changes to focus completely on character development such as I've never seen in a video game before. While this change of pace doesn't provide for the most riveting gameplay missions, what it accomplishes for the plot and characters makes it well worth it.

MULTI-PLAYER

As if the single player campaign wasn't time sucking enough, players are given the entire world of Red Dead in online multi-player form as well. Upon first entering multi-player you're thrown into Free Roam mode where you can posse up with up to 8 of your friends and explore the entire map from the single player campaign complete with all new challenges, and gang hideouts to conquer which will aid in leveling up your character and unlock new outfits, guns, horses, etc. While a posse can only hold up to 8 people the Free Roam map allows many more players to be on at the same time, allowing you to work together or duke it out and claim your posse as supreme. The multiplayer experience doesn't end in Free Roam however, as you can jump into the standard deathmatch and capture the flag options at any time as well. These can be fun, but these modes have been done much better in other games, so are really no more than a minor distraction. My major complaint about multiplayer is that all of the mini-games from the single player campaign such as poker, dice, and horseshoes have been stripped from the muliplayer experience. Would these not fit perfectly here? Hopefully Rockstar is planning on opening these up later with DLC, as not doing so would be a major missed opportunity.

SUMMARY

Overall Red Dead Redemption is almost everything you could ask for from a game set in the Wild West, and this new franchise has a lot of future potential. The beautiful landscapes, music, and plot all meld together nicely making for a satisfying single player experience, and the multi-player options provide for hours more of gameplay one can squeeze out of this package.  However, while not game-breaking RDR has had a fair number of bugs reported in the weeks since it's release, and while the mission structure is a little more varied than in GTA, it can still get a tad repetitive at times. I'm very anxious to see what Rockstar can do with the next iteration in the series, but hope they can take it and GTA in slightly different directions so they won't feel so similar next time out. Many critics have praised this game with A ratings, but I'm going to hold out my A for next time. For the reasons stated above, RDR barely misses the A mark for me, but deserves the highest B rating it can get.