Every man wants to be a cowboy. Sure, some of us want to be the kind that wears pink ascots and chaps (not that there’s anything wrong with that), but most men desire to be the burly man of the wilds. Men want to be the tough alpha male, a man who follows his own codes and lives his life against the wants and wishes of others. We dream for a life of freedom and ruggedness that is lacking in our sterile modern metropolises. We all want to, “Be your Huckleberry” as Val Kilmer once so elegantly put it, which believe it or not is a lot cooler than how it sounds.
The west has always been so heavily romanticized because it idolizes a harsh and unforgiving form of heroism that is not seen in most other forms of historical writing. Where the majority of warriors in the past lived by strict codes of conduct and were more interested in tribal superiority and national pride, the old west concerned itself with anarchy; it was a lawless land, the very last frontier of Earth where the very elements of nature from the terrain to the plants and animals posed a serious threat to one’s life expectancy. Sadly, we can’t live our lives by this standard any longer, but Rockstar Games is meaning to change that.
Red Dead Redemption is the latest sandbox title released from the same people who brought you the Grand Theft Auto series and for better or worse it sports the same Euphoria engine that the infamous crime series has used to warp our humble youths into serial rapists for years, so sayeth Jack Thompson. I want to be honest with you for one moment, I was never a fan of the Grand Theft Auto series, and no it has nothing to do with the ultra violent depravity (you should see my Wednesday nights), but with the game play itself. Grand Theft Auto has always been about the money shot, it is an experience where the objective is ultimately to have none. The principle design element of the series ever since the second one came out on PS2 was to hand all the most thrilling and shiny toys to the player and have them go off on some sugar induced joy ride into the very mouth of madness. Once I had blown up several helicopters, murdered some women of the street, gone pugilist on unsuspecting pedestrians, and left a nice flaming bag of dog poo on the front porch of the ATF building I got pretty bored. For whatever reason overstimulation has always been a huge problem for GTA. If you give me the means to do anything I want I’ll go ahead and do everything and end up wanting more. The idea behind clever game design is to slowly funnel the experience to the player and constantly bait them with greater challenges and experiences the deeper they go. There was no reason to engage in the story missions because the overall narrative felt like a content blocker which prohibited the player from all that unchecked carnage. Why would I help out with some drug scheme when I could just cut straight to the chase and mow down an entire squadron of heavily armed troops with automatic weaponry?
Luckily Red Dead Redemption is a game of restraint. Instead of giving you everything, it puts you into a sandbox of severe limitations. These limitations however are not mere invisible walls put into place to prevent the wackiness from spilling over the lip but are instead organic to the environment and story in which they are contained. When you take away cars, rocket launchers, and unprotected sex but leave everything else in tact while simultaneously providing an interesting character driven story, then you are now enticing your audience into a game world that they can fall in love with, a game world they actually want to get to know and eventually take to a movie on the third date before getting to first base.
So what is this phenomenal story you ask? Well, the game throws the player into the year 1911 and things are a changing. Hanging above the game is a theme of defiance, the west is dying and the ever present industrial age of science and order are encroaching into the untamed wilds. You play as the former outlaw John Marston who has been contractually roped into helping the government by tracking down his former gang members and bringing them to justice. There’s a lot of animosity towards the protagonist; to the people of the west he is a government yes man, a tool of the faceless society that threatens their livelihood, a city boy with no knowledge of the western lands. On the surface John fits this description, but beneath his ever calm persona is a dangerous man willing to stop at nothing to protect his family. This is where the game truly shines and coincidentally is also the reason for no prostitute sex in this euphoria outing.
Unlike previous Rockstar games which tried to have you controlling people with very little to no redeemable qualities, Red Dead Redemption wants you to side with a tormented man with a shady past. This combination affords the excellent dichotomy of unquestionable hero and man willing to kill without hesitation.
Strangely, the character of John Marston also happens to be the most glaring problem with this game. Although you are given the opportunity to become an outlaw and rack up a rather impressive bounty on your head by laying waste to entire towns ala Vash the Stampede, there are never any consequences reflected in the main story. When I first started playing the game I was testing out the controls and accidently drew my gun while standing near a citizen. Upon seeing this action the man began firing at me in self defense. Before I knew it the whole village was up in arms trying to paint my wagon red with blood. At first I tried to run away but since I was still acclimating to the controls (I’ll get to that later) I was having some difficulties. Long story short I ended up killing most of the town’s people in order to survive and boasted a mighty impressive $500 bounty on my head. Without skipping a beat I immediately went over to my neighbor’s house, who clearly should have witnessed this massacre, to continue with the main storyline and she spoke with me as if the red on my shirt was raspberry jam.
Consistency much?
This is a serious problem with games today where they give you moral choices but have little to no consequence on the primary plot which the game has been tightly fitted into like a saloon girl’s corset. The game has a grand story in mind and you are along for the ride. Whether you like it or not, John Marston is the immaculate hero and nothing you say or do will deviate the game from this path. Now I understand that this is a minor complaint and I also understand that not everyone is into these things for plot or character; after all, game play trumps all other features of a game. So how is the game? Well, it’s rather good.
As far as sandboxes go, it doesn’t get much better than this. While the story is entertaining enough to make tunnel vision set in, there are plenty of side missions. Want some extra cash? Go collect on a bounty or play a game of dice and cards at a local tavern. How about sitting down for some whiskey? Why not go kill wild animals and skin them for their flesh? If your current horse isn’t doing it for you why not try taming a wild one? And if all of this manliness is too much for your sissy sensibilities to bear you can always escape into the wilderness and pick some flowers – I’m being serious. There are a ton of distractions here and each of them feels just as satisfying as completing the main quest line, yes even the flowers! But the main attraction is of course the gun fights.
Red Dead Redemption handles like most third person shooters, run into battle, take aim and lay waste to your opponents. As is traditional with modern gaming there is a decent cover system in place which allows you to hide from enemy fire and pop up periodically to pick off each opponent. Once the enemies are defeated you can run up to them and take their ammo and any spare cash they have on their corpse. If you don’t want to do any lasting harm so that you can collect that large bounty, shoot them in the legs or lasso and hogtie them and get them back to the sheriff’s office. Since health packs are a thing of the past, surviving in the heat of battle is a matter of hiding while your Uncanny X-men rejuvenation powers get you back up to speed. Still, if you are undergoing severe blood loss there are restorative items that can be used in the thick of battle.
The true ace up John Marston’s sleeve however, is his dead eye gauge. By activating this nifty feature john can slow down time and pick off his enemies in a much easier fashion. Don’t abuse it too much as it has a finite amount of juice which slowly recharges after being depleted.
After battle you can take all of your earnings and buy some nifty things like apples for your horse, maps of local areas, or weapons and ammo. Sadly most of these items can be found while on mission so money ends up being silly and pointless, although there are a few items such as snake oil which will always come in handy even much later in the game.
Aside from gun slinging other core game styles include: a rousing games of chariot racing, going on a “Temple of Doom” style mine cart rides ($8 pass for children and seniors, $12 for adults. Pregnant women and people with heart problems shouldn’t ride), escorting coaches across the wilderness, and saving innocents from ravenous cougars and the occasional bandits. Doing all of these things raises the fame meter and makes people enjoy John’s presence by offering more cash for rewards and forgetting that this supposed “paragon of excellence” put a whole in their pa’s head late last night because he mistook that ladle for a six shooter at the camp site.
Despite all the praise, there are several things about the game play that are excruciating. The controls take a lot of getting used to. After combat your fingers will be ready for high acrobatics at the circus because you’ll have juggled your digits across 5 buttons simultaneously as you try to aim, shoot, dodge, and run. Normally these controls don’t interfere much with the fun but it is a little baffling why holding down the A button to run is perfectly acceptable during regular movement, but once combat begins you have to rapidly jam on the thing to maintain that same sprint. Holding down the A button does not change functionality in combat, in fact it’s not used in combat at all, so why does the player have to suddenly press the button repeatedly to perform the same action they were just doing moments ago when there were no bullets zipping through the air? Also, ever vehicle segment from: mine carts, to chariots, and coaches all handle differently. Most of these things suffer from wonky physics when they suddenly brush up against cacti. Luckily hoses mechanics are spot on. Never has the experience of riding a horse been so entertaining or fluid within a game. No lie, there were moments when I actually devoted time to just riding around the wilds on horseback because the experience was so enriching.
Another complaint I had with the game play is that combat seemed a little too easy. Simply drawing your weapon in the general area of your foe has John lock down on them making aiming a tertiary concern. Add to that the dead eye system and there is almost no marksmanship to speak of. This occurs in other third person shooters like Resident Evil 4 and Mass Effect and I blame the recent rise in this trend on analog controls. They simply don’t offer the precision or quick response of a mouse-keyboard setup. Now before any of you console purists say otherwise let me offer up this infallible refutation to your argument, no, you are wrong. I do not doubt your skill with the analog controls, but if you take the best Xbox controller user in the world and pit them against the best keyboard/mouse user you better prepare yourself for a Rick James bitch slap if you had money on the analog sticks.
There’s also some multiplayer here, but as of this review I haven’t tried any of it out yet. Unless we’re talking about a game built exclusively around online play, I like to base games on their single-player experience as I’m not at all interested in reviewing that portion of the game anyways. So Meh.
The last bit of the game that demands some focus is the presentation. The vistas are epic and sweeping the music sounds like it was ripped right from a Sergio Leone film, and most importantly everything feels authentic and gritty. Most of the characters are absolutely hideous with their scars, heat blistered skin, and bourbon stained teeth. The very ugly nature of the landscape and its people compliments the feeling of the harsh dessert landscape. Similar to most games that have been coming out this generation there is a terribly abusive amount of the color brown, although I’m willing to give this game a pass since it sits well with the territory. Can’t say for certain if this was an artistic choice or an accidental blessing (leaning towards the latter), but is seamless.
Interestingly, there are a lot of bugs in the game as well, but none that make it unplayable or frustrating. My horse once inexplicably fell on its rear and activated the turbo rocket it had stored up its bum until it gracefully collided into the side of a saloon, instantly killing itself while leaving me unscathed, how considerate. Several NPCs also need to learn to embrace modern science a bit more since they appear to be carrying some sort of lycanthropic disease that turns them into donkeys and coyotes. Again, this is more entertaining than game breaking as these problems only occur with minor characters and are never present during the incredibly polished cinematic sequences.
Red Dead Redemption is the sandbox game that you’ve been waiting for. By dispelling all the juvenile hat tricks of the tradition Rockstar formula, keeping all the great game play elements that make the euphoria engine worth a damn, and distilling the mess down to the most positive elements placed neatly into a compelling western story, they’ve really crafted a winner. This is a true gem of interactive storytelling and while the game suffers from poor controls, a lack of difficulty, and a slightly blemished presentation, the weaknesses are absolutely buried beneath the hail storm of greatness that leaks from every square inch of the shiny disc the game image has been burned on. If you’re looking for the next great western, don’t expect to find it in your local theaters or the DVD section of your video store, because its waiting for you to pick up the controller and live out that cowboy fantasy you’ve been dreaming of since you were six years old and wielding your plastic gun with the orange tipped barrel.
