Red Dead Redemption – Review

Setting across the old west on horse back. Travel the world alone or with a posse. Is this cowboy adventure worth getting on your horse for…or should it stay in the stables?

RockStar’s back with another open world game. This time your not Niko Bellic. Scrap the cars as its now time to set out on your adventure on horseback.

Story
The game as you would of guest is set in the wild west, Nuevo Parasio. The story is pretty simple and easy to follow. You play as John Marston a man looking to forget all his troubled passed memories of his beloved gang who left him for dead.  As you would of guessed it, It doesn’t go all to plan for poor old John and it seems like all those distant memories are coming back, but Johns ready for revenge. Throughout the game you will deal with the constant conflict of the Old west and the New America. This is mainly what Johns story has been embedded in to whilst it still maintains key to the story.

You will start the game off in Armadillo (not the animal) which you will come to notice as your first home. Its just a town that has everything you want to see. If you always wanted to see spontaneous fights then you will have no difficulty when in the saloon whilst drunken cowboys fight for their life yet are too drunk to do anything. Random prostitutes will be placed around the streets and alleyways and is nice to see that Rockstar will not leave prostitutes behind, no matter the time period.  After doing all you can in the town your adventure will continue into the lawless lands of Red Dead.

Gameplay
The single player alone packs in over 20 hours worth. Many of you would say that Red Dead Redemption is the cowboy version of GTA… Some of your opinions and thoughts are slightly correct but I am going to confirm that it has hundreds of different game play elements that make it unique.  One of the key features that stand out in Red Dead is the “Dead eye” feature which temporally slows time down and allows you to get kills by marking the enemies. This is a great way to get quick kills as long as the enemies are in range.  Playing the game for a few hours already I noticed just how much more variety of missions there are compared to GTAIV. RockStar have really focused on giving the player a different objective each mission, not all the time but the majority of the time you won’t feel so obliged to do it, it feels natural and not like a continuous loop of the same missions over and over again. As i said before though some players will notice some of the GTA IV elements appearing in Red Dead, One of them being mid-mission checkpoints. If you managed to play the Episodes of Liberty City then you would notice its appearing here as well.  If there are missions you don’t like you can actually skip it completely. If you are worried skipping missions would effect your experience then I can simply say it will due to the fact your missing out on Red Dead’s selling point and skipping the game. It’s impossible not to be sidetracked.

As you would of guessed, you can “Time Travel” like back to the future… Well, not in the same sense but you can travel quicker by skipping to destinations. Even though this is possible myself I didn’t choose to this yet due to the fact exploring the open world environment is worth spending countless hours looking at everything there is to see. If you ever want to take a break from doing the missions you can just go off in the open land, find a place to play poker, have a drink , meet a hooker it’s all there for you to explore. Using your lasso to wrap up someone who you dislike and put them on your horse and then placing them on a train track is my biggest highlight ever in a video game.  The game play is so much more bigger than GTA IV in ways that probably players will come to like more and realise how small GTA IV was because this is one serious open world game that does its justice.   The voice over’s and strong script writing are also something key that will make players want to watch the cut scenes and play the game to hear the continuous strong voice acting team, every character has a unique voice which  interacts with the gameplay a lot.

Design

The design of Red Dead is just so well presented its hard to take your eye of everything that is available in the game. The saloons look as realistic as Clint Eastwood films, the buildings are life like, and small details such as scratch marks on the wood make this place seem alive. The use of textures are just so in-depth its like you are actually in the old west. The horses, as strange as it may sound, are the best looking horses ever! The animation used for the horses are just amazing and how they interact with everything is so realistic I wish I was really on the horse. We can definitely give Red Dead the award for best looking horses in a videogame .  The details on all the little things such as the Poker cards, rocks, grass they all just look stunning. The visuals are even worth picking up the game for. RockStar has really taken the graphical detail to the next step. There are minor glitches that do accrue on some of the desert terrain but overall nothing to worry about.

Multiplayer
This is what GTA IV had problems with. Now Rockstar has improved the GTA IV multiplayer and have implemented some of the good aspects into Red Dead.  Multiplayer modes such as death match and capture the flag make and appearance. Capture flag has its own different unique spin of which acquires players to collect bags of gold.  These multiplayer modes are nice to have but their not groundbreaking, but still fun.  Free Roam makes an appearance and you can free roam alongside 16 other players, you can travel and explore the whole map working together or just battling out for a better horse. The multiplayer has improved a lot from GTA IV and it seems like it has the ability to be a very popular online game. There have already been talks about upcoming DLC that will be free to players so this is always something to look out for.

Overall 5/5 A Push-Start Highly Recommended Game!

Red Dead Redemption is the baddest cowboy in the west… The single player is something that players will come to enjoy about Red Dead. Some will say its the cowboy GTA but we strongly disagree, it does have some noticeable elements but its totally a unique and different style of game. The multiplayer is ready and is currently solid but needs the players to support it.  It’s one of the best open world games to date. The visuals are stunning and in terms of  animation, there are simply no words how to describe how well done it is.  The gameplay is truly solid and is worth picking up the game fore alone. There’s so much to do in the game your money will be well spent.  Some graphical hitches but overall is an fantastic package to pick up. Its horsetastic… I need better puns I know.