Red Dead Redemption (2010)

Red Dead Redemption (2010)

Genre: Third Person Shooter / Action / Sandbox | Players: 1 / Online Multi

Developer: Rockstar San Diego

I love a good Western! When I say those words out loud it usually means I'm thinking of a classic genre film, or even a TV show, but not this time - this time it's a PS3 game.

If you were to take all that's good about the film and TV medium and mix it with biting satire and social commentary (Rockstar style), then you'd have the formula for Red Dead Redemption, which is what the acclaimed developers appear to have done.

You've maybe heard it described as Grand Theft Auto: Wild West, and while that's essentially true, they're both sandbox games sharing many features, it's also a disservice to the scope and underlying heart of RDR, which is something that GTA typically lacks.

In-game you control John Marston, a visibly scarred former outlaw who now plays by the rules, mostly. He still carries a gun and can kill a man if the situation absolutely calls for it, but, in truth, Marston is a friendly, politically neutral character - it's up to the player to define his morality and guide his choices much of the time.

The story is carried along by successive events. Missions and tasks are triggered by people you meet. That takes you over a large open-world map that's mostly deserted prairies with the occasional town or community encampment scattered throughout. The game world feels alive. The towns in particular are microcosms of the larger whole. The violence you'll encounter there, the domestic abuse and greed, is something you can actively stop if the notion takes you.

It may seem initially time-consuming to have to travel from town to town on horseback, but it soon becomes apparent that it's the journey, those lengthy moments of solitude, that make the game special. It gives you time to get emotionally attached to Marston and makes it all the more important that tasks are completed successfully. The loneliness becomes the very thing that drives you onward, as weird as that sounds.

To pass the time between missions there are dozens of diverse side-quests and lengthy lists that are waiting to be filled. You'll be herding cattle, hunting bounties, hunting treasure, gambling at saloons, brawling, collecting flowers (really) and much more.

The music is an integral part of the experience and representative of different regions. The voice acting is also top class, full of pathos and wry, sarcastic humour when needed. The varying cast of ranchers, bandits, renegades, law-men and general nut-jobs keep things fresh.

Online multiplayer is another great feature. You'll be traversing the same terrain but there'll be other players. You can team-up for unique co-op missions, or, if you prefer solo gaming like I do, go it alone to clear an area of bandits for some greedy exp points. There are the usual death-match themed games, too, if that kind of thing gives you wood.

If you don't make it to the end of the story, you'll be missing out on perhaps the best part, because the climax is arguably the most emotional that Rockstar have produced, to date.

Red Dead Redemption: Undead Nightmare (2010)

Genre: Third Person Shooter / Action / Sandbox | Players: 1 / Online Multi

Developer: Rockstar North / Rockstar San Diego

Once upon a time Rockstar made DLC that wasn't just new content for the money-spinning GTA Onlne. Once such addition was the Undead Nightmare expansion for RDR.

It was so substantial that it received a disc release of its own, later packaged and sold as a complete edition with the main game.

The easy route to hitting the jackpot twice in one year would've been to give us more of what the original RDR had delivered, but they tried something creatively different, they changed things, forcing us to play the game in a different way, which is a pleasant way of saying that they may have erred.

The premise is that undead hordes have appeared in the Wild West and wasted no time in shitting up everyone's day. You once again play as John Marston; his quiet life has been interrupted, so he sets out with pistols in hand to remedy it. You'll meet some faces from RDR along the way, so it pays to play it first.

The core game mechanic is the same but used in a painfully formulaic way. At a basic level, you ride into a town, kill zombies, ride to the next town, kill zombies, ride to the next town, etc.

Progression involves an endless hunt for ammunition, farmed from felled zombies (a head-shot is required to kill one). Worse still, to save a town from being overrun you have to donate a portion of your precious ammo to the townsfolk, who, in an act of ass-hat economics, will get overrun again about two hours later and they'll all die, probably while you're busy farming ammo at a different town. If the feeling that it's all for naught sinks in, it can be inescapable,

Because ammo is a chore to acquire, I got stuck in a cycle of attempting to set up a one-shot kill by putting distance between myself and a pursuing horde, whereupon my game-play devolved into repeatedly running away, shooting, running away, running away, shooting, then being forced to farm ammo anyhow, over and over. It was the polar opposite of what I consider fun.

For me, Undead Nightmare turned one of the most engaging sandbox games that I've ever played into one of the most repetitive. I struggled on and finished it for the story, but have no desire to replay it. In spite of all that, the original RDR remains a stone-cold classic. ★