That's 'critique' as in 'bitches about' really, but I ran out of room in the title.
 
I'll start by saying that I loved this game... but I really didn't like the ending all that much.  John's death just felt cheap and pointless to me, rather than 'shocking' - I'd just killed about 50 soldiers and now all of a sudden I'm being forced to die in a cutscene to about 10 guys who I knew were there?  After his family had already escaped?  If I was trying to buy them time I must have bought them about 4 seconsd.  If Rockstar had to go that route, it could have been handled better I think.  This just felt forced, and that bit right before John died just confused the hell out of me; instead of thinking about how powerful the scene was (wasn't), I was wondering whether the game had frozen or if I was supposed to be doing something.  
 
A 'shock' ending was unnecessary for this story, and it wasn't even that shocking in truth, because Rockstar overuses 'shock' to the point where you are always expecting it (they are guilty of this with their 'zany' characters as well).  Once you start doing mundane farm shit it's entirely obvious that either John or his family is going to be killed, and then the kid flat out tells you that it's going to be John when he's reading his book.
 
By the end of the story it was just feeling aimless to me.  The whole thing was a tale of redemption -it's right there in the title and John says so at every opportunity- as opposed to Niko's tale of revenge in GTA 4.  They're both "looking for somebody", but with very different motivations:  redemption and revenge.  Then at the last possible moment they snatch an (entirely unearned) revenge story from the jaws of the redemption story.  So what is the point?  Redemption is impossible after all?  Everything was pointless?  That's kinda the exact same thing that GTA 4 was about - and for most of the game it was looking like they had managed to avoid that trap.
 
Also, given that they eventually fleshed out Abigail and Jack so well and made them really solid characters, I feel like it would have made a lot more sense to introduce them to us and have most of the 'husband and father' missions at the start of the game.  It's a slightly more conventional structure perhaps, but there's good reason for that - it's because John's motivation to save Abigail and Jack would have felt a lot stronger to the player than his motivation of saving nameless and faceless wife and child.  Actually I kinda got the impression that this order was perhaps chopped and changed late in development, just by the way it was handled - a lot of the end game felt like textbook tutorial content which had just been repurposed to me, whilst the whole Bonnie McFarlane section (whilst still enjoyable) felt largely superfluous in the scheme of things.  It was a duplication of everything you end up doing at the end, except it doesn't really have any bearing on John or the story as a whole.  The main theme of that section seems to be Bonnie's unrequited love, which goes precisely nowhere and doesn't really affect John one bit.  Ditto the scene at the start where you get shot - pointless.  Well, it introduces Bill Williamson I suppose, but the story doesn't really benefit from introducing him at that point - he's a dick, sure, but that isn't why you're doing this, you're there to save your family, yet they go unintroduced. 
 
I'd have preferred they stick to the slightly more conventional order.  Finishing up the tutorial stuff around the farm, before having Abi and Jack snatched from you by the Agents in the dead of night (stormy, natch... then a late title card).  This would have been no less powerful an opening imo.  The ending could have played out roughly the same as it does, but after the failed military attack at the end, Ross could have Abi in a Gun-To-Head scenario or some such and straight up offer the player a choice (a little like the 'stop the outlaws or save the herd' choice, which could have been at the start instead, as foreshadowing), with you choosing between:  
 

• Sacrificing yourself to save Abigail and Jack, meaning Jack grows up with a mother and ends up becoming a writer or something at the end, but Agent Ross escapes unpunished.  John's redemption is complete, but he has to forfeit revenge.

• Trying to kill Agent Ross, which results in Abi and Ross being killed.  You have your revenge but it is deeply unsatisfying.  Jack runs away and grows up to be a POS outlaw just like his father, so there is no redemption for anybody.  Instead of becoming a writer, Jack could later hunt down and kill John , who he blames for his mother's death.

I wasn't as annoyed as you, but I very much felt that it was not all that well thought out and I agree with a lot of your criticisms. I personally found a lot of the cynical downer stuff really really aggravating, and not at all funny as I assume they were supposed to be, loads of the stranger tasks have a absurdly unbelievable ending which left me rolling my eyes, almost everyone ends up dead, so by the end I felt like I pretty much knew it would do a dumb 'sad' turn, and as steeped in ( the glorious) Western cliches the game is, it was fairly obvious it would go the way it did. Though when it reveals that you're Jack initially I thought I was in High Plains Drifter territory, I thought I was the undead bad ass revenge hunting bastard, which made me well exited, then I found out I was Jack...  
 
God I fucking hate Jack, it utterly breaks the story, the implication is that redemption is impossible, the cycle of violence hurtles on, all the murderous stuff it makes us do as Jack to save our family was futile, people cannot change etc as someone who loves good Western stories, the Hotchpotch way this has been chucked together annoys me. All the implications of playing as outlaw Jack (rather than intellectual writer Jack as we would have wanted) just shatters everything. 
 
How I wish Video games could tell a story in at least half as good the way a film does, if this game ended like Josey Wales I would have been really really exited put my pad down and reveled in the best game I had ever experienced, and they were so close, having the military coming and attacking his family on his ranch, that they went all Butch Cassidy (which is great of course) pisses me off.

I really liked the ending but I can understand some of your fustrations. Getting to know his family before the start of the game would of made alot of sense, even if it was only brief you would know what he was fighting for. Having said that, finally meeting his family after everything was really great, nearing the end of Mexico I was getting abit fed up of the constant "go here, kill him" missions and going back to the ranch was a good way to end it.
 
As for his death... I don't believe it was mean't to be "shocking". If you thought they would make a western without it ending like Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, you were kidding yourself.  It was meant to be sad, John had done so much to try and redeem his past and he had succeded, he got his Ranch up and running, he was mending things with his boy, then Ross takes it all away.
 
Of course he could of got out of the barn alive, he knew that. But he also knew that it would solve nothing, him and his family would be forever hunted by the army, his family would be better off without him. They were just there for John and in his eyes he had redeemed himself, fleeing would just mean returning to his old life, that's why he doesn't try to run.
 
Personally I hated the ending of GTA4, having to choose between 2 terrible endings, I wasn't happy with the one I choose so I reloaded and did the other one, which totally killed the game for me. RDR has done something no other game has done before in the ending, letting your get revenge as the son of the main character and that's why it will most likly be remembered (even if Jack is annoying...).

I felt that Marston giving up was logical - throughout the game, the only thing he does is helping his family survive. So he does in the final showdown, if he ran away or killed everyone, they'd just send more. He was the biggest threat to his family's safety. While redemption is the game's theme, none of the characters that try to redeem themselves survive. Redemption costs, often a hefty price. Escaping the past is impossible, even Ross doesn't manage to run away.

And no, I don't want to see multiple endings, seeing how awful GTA4's were. Bad writing, barely a conclusion, not a damn afterthought. That plot had many bad points, but the half-assed ending choices were probably the most striking ones.

I have mix feelings, Jimbo. On one hand, the fact that a character I grew to care for, to respect as a person dies an honorable death was nice, but then being forced to play as his son was the biggest bummer in a long time. I had no connection to Jack, he was just the song. The annoying, difficult to love son.
 
On the other hand, I like the message the game gives. I don't think it's a story about actual Redemption, I think it's a story of fatalism. You can run from your past, but you can never escape it. It's the same story Mafia told us, and the same story most of the characters in The Godfather (movie/novel) taught us. It's a story I really like. 
 
Take that however you will.

I didn't like having to play as a new character, but I don't hate Jack specifically. People are complaining about his personality, but seriously, he was a good kid. Way better behaved than most teens today. It sure would sure to be judged based on our behavior as teenagers. 
 
As for the structure, I definitely would have appreciated knowing Abigail and Jack earlier into the game, but I agree with their decision to place their missions at the end of the game.
 
If you know Abigail and Jack, then you have opportunity to not like them. Instead you're given the idea of having a wife and son. You have a purer ideal to seek after. And after pushing through those "Getting to know you" missions at the beginning, there's no buffer room between coming home and then getting shot. You just arrive on the doorstep and then turn around and get shot in the very next scene, because they can't double the amount of "getting to know you" missions.

My biggest gripe about the ending was the hour or so of farm missions. They were so boring and unnecessary. As much as i love this game, GTA IV was better IMO.

A lot of what I disliked about the ending has been mentioned, but here's what I disliked:
 

• The missions leading up to the end. I know that it is Rockstar's style to make the player involved in every aspect of the story, but I felt like all the farming and tutorial stuff that we had already done at the beginning of the game could have been done in a cutscene at the end; it really messed up the pacing of the game for me.

• Too many characters are dead or missing by the end of the game. I'd love to go see some of the main characters as Jack and hear stories about my dad. Unfortunately if you read the paper at the end of the game, the majority of the characters are dead, and those that aren't are nowhere to be found.

• I have no attachment with Jack. I don't mind that I have a new character to play with after the game is over, but I wish that I actually gave a damn about that character.

The last mission should have been more fleshed out. I don't even understand why it was even a stranger mission in the first place.

honestly to me, John getting killed and you playing as Jack to take revenge years later felt right to me, John getting killed hit me hard, and as soon as i got to control Jack i went right to the mission to find Ross, needless to say i did bad things to his brother and wife

I thought he realized that they would keep coming for him and would use his family as ransom for his life, so he might as well die thus saving his family. Another reason may be for future DLC, they may want missions involving Jack killing a bunch of people, this would look out of place if John did it because he had given up on that kind of life by the end of the game.

I thought the ending was perfectly fitting. I don't understand why anyone thinks that his redemption is lessened by his death. I thought that the missions with his family showed that he redeemed himself in their eyes and that was what mattered to him. Rockstar isn't about to offer any clear-cut answers, so it isn't as simple as "redemption is impossible" or something like that. The ending is what you make of it.  
 
Westerns are like that. If you've seen the film The Proposition, which Rockstars credits as one of the biggest influences for this game, the ending is similarly messy and inconclusive. 

I don't know what you're all complaining about. Let me psychoanalyze things really quickly here.
 
John was a murderous outlaw throughout most of his life. Throughout the game, you think you're redeeming John so he may live a peaceful life. While this is somewhat the case, what he's really redeeming is his family. He's giving them a chance to live, and giving his son the chance he never had. However, in doing so, he creates Jack Marston, another Marston that wants redemption, this time in a different way. Jack, while his voice doesn't fit an 18-19 year old boy (only gripe with him) is a good boy. I felt an attachment very quickly with him, and I greatly enjoyed the last few missions. After all the fighting and hate that went on throughout the journey, it was a relief to finally live a normal life with John's family. It felt good to take Jack out and teach him how to hunt, it felt good going to help out Bonnie by bringing her corn, and it felt good defending my barn from crows. Are these all things that are adrenaline packed activities? No, but I just got done with a lifetimes worth of action. I didn't even want to touch my gun for any other reason than to protect the herd and my family at that point. They effectively made me feel like I was an old outlaw that truly was ready to start a new life.
 
Deep down, though, you know this won't be the case. You know that the fact your family and you are alive is going to be a short lived miracle. When the government attacks, you're aware that this is it. One way or another, you, your family or both are about to die. If you're assuming this, then John is assuming this, and he has to make a choice. If he keeps fighting, if he goes around the side, or takes cover and kills Edgar Ross and his military goons, he and by extension his family will never be able to come back to the farm. He will force Jack to live the life that he lived, and will cause destruction and hatred wherever he goes. He was already sick of that life of being an outlaw, long before having to kill the remainder of the van der Linde gang. He went out those doors at last knowing that his family finally would be left alone, that with his death, he will protect his family far more effectively than he ever could in life. 
 
You could say this was redemption for him, in some way, and I think it was part of it. However, redemption can come in different flavors. When you use Jack (which I personally loved, I think you're all insane :3), he has one mission: To redeem his father. His goal isn't to overthrow the government, or to become a revolutionary and attack whoever supports the United States. By John letting himself die, he focused the hatred that Jack would inevitably have towards the government. Instead of holding a resentment towards a government that chased John, Jack and Abigail across the country for their entire life, he resented Edgar Ross, and only him. Once he got his revenge, he redeemed his family, and he can move on with his life. The old west is dead, there's no life left for those like John Marston. Jack has a farm, and plenty of assets thanks to his father. He can live a normal life if he wants, and like a great book, his end is truly up for your imagination to decide. All in all, there was red, there was dead, and there was redemption (IT'S FUNNY BECAUSE IT'S THE NAME OF THE GAME). Or perhaps like GTA IV's expansions, we'll get to see what happens to this apparently hated hero of ours. 
 
Personally, I'd love to see this world during the late 20's or early 30's, during the formation of organized crime and the changing world of the west. It could even bridge LA Noire to Red Dead a bit, if Rockstar wants to build continuity between their games, as I personally would love to see them do.
 
At any rate, that's my forty five cents worth of how I perceive the ending. You all percieve differently I'm sure, but personally I find it to be a very poetic and sad ending. I would have preferred a longer funeral scene, though. The song they use gets more haunting the longer it goes on.

(One last thing:  Wtf happens to Abigail to die so young?  I felt that probably deserved at least some explanation.) "

As to Abigail's seemingly unnecessarily early death. Her past was often hinted at as being morally 'questionable', along the line of John's, so it wouldn't surprise me if we're supposed to think she was killed by the law. 
 
As to playing as Jack. At first I was a little annoyed tbh. I loved that John died, thought the end of that story (before the final revenge mission), was done amazingly well. I guess I just didn't fancy the prospect of playing as Jack after investing so many hours into John's story. But strangely, I now completely love it.
 
When playing as John I was always the good guy, going for the hero status and all that, plus his story was so inclined to the morally upstanding side i felt I had to. Now, playing as Jack, the bitterness I feel can be projected onto him and his hate for the law/pride in his dad.
 
What i first thought was a horrible gameplay decision on Rockstar's part i now love. I think the change in character perfectly represents the player's change in heart, or at least, development in feeling. Jack encapsulates everything i felt for John, and everything i felt for the law.

I personally think its Rockstar's greatest ending so far.

" John's death just felt cheap and pointless to me, rather than 'shocking' - I'd just killed about 50 soldiers and now all of a sudden I'm being forced to die in a cutscene to about 10 guys who I knew were there?  After his family had already escaped?  If I was trying to buy them time I must have bought them about 4 seconsd. "

john knew that the government would keep chasing him forever, so in order to save his family the trouble, he just gave them what they wanted. it's as simple as that. in that particular shoot out, when you get right out the door, you never get to face that many enemies at once during the game, so that's why john dies. i don't see the problem, it is the perfect ending for a game that clearly shows throughout the story-line that it is not some romanticized cowboy-tale, but a somewhat realistic observation of life.

I don't like how you keep taking parts of the story and saying they are pointless, at the start Bonnie saved John and you got to repay her by buying her cows there was an arc it came back around, yea I just have to disagree I loved the story and the ending was fantastic.

The game should have ended when they killed Dutch. And as for Abi's death. Rockstar never gave her age explicitly (nor should they have) But they did have a 15 or 16 year old son so she must have been at the very least 45. She probally died of pneumonia or some other infectious disease.

I was a little frustrated at the end, then it grew on me and now I think the ending is perfect. 
 
 I felt like John's death was essentially an inevitability. I don't really think the ending was unconventional, I think it was very conventional, and it was well done. The theme of the game was running, and how running causes damage. John was running from his past, the west was running from civilization. John had to die just like the west had to die. He realized that he couldn't run, and he went out as the west went out; guns blazing. In his shoes steps the modernized west, a man who has lost some of the romance of the doomed past, but retains some of its qualities while mixing in qualities of progress. 

First, I'm surprised that nobody has mentioned the deadeye you get in John's last moments. For me this is a really good example of the still under-used "use of gameplay to convey a message/feeling".  When you burst out of the doors, the deadeye slow motion really gives you a chance to realize 'I can't run from these guys.' Any targets you paint still won't be enough to save you; even though I shot 8 in the head, there was still no other possible outcome. 
 
As far as killing John goes, it had to happen. This game is a tragedy (in the drama sense) in many ways. I think the best way to see the "Redemption" aspect of the game is to see it from the perspective of humanity as a whole. Though John is portrayed as doing the right thing, he still has a dark past that he cannot atone for. He, like his former buddies, must get what's coming to him; he HAS to die for the world to right itself, for justice to work. The same goes for Ross, who is constantly made out to be just another form of criminals. This is why Jack isn't necessarily going to be just like his father: Ross also had it coming, in the eyes of the world. Ross too represents an old, violent, despicable side of humanity, and he must be purged. Jack's final actions, if you read the game as a tragedy, set everything right.  This sort of story and world view would make much more sense to, say, the ancient Greeks, than modern society.
 
All that said, there are some issues with the writing and, while I like Jack, the whole "AND NOW EVERYTHING HAS CHANGED" aspect of playing as him is really undermined by the fact that NOTHING HAS CHANGED AT ALL. I had the same problem with Fable II, when the ending gives you a big, important, world-afffecting choice, and then, when you get back to the world, it's the same--your choice really didn't matter. 
 
Overall, I like the story aspects of the ending a lot, and would like to see more of Jack (DLC? Sequel?), but you've got to suspend some disbelief to be able to play after John dies.

John did have redemption, he died an honest Rancher defending his family from a corrupt government. The only flaw I saw with the ending is that at that point I had my dead eye up so high that I could have easily killed them all with my Evan's Repeater before they got a shot off. But that's just the growing pains of a medium that is kind of new at this. Overall I felt the game approached beauty. It wasn't about being shocking, it was about being true to the genre. A cliche happy ending just wouldn't have worked, instead we get to see John have his brief time of peace and die as his own man. No longer a lawless gang member, and no longer the errand boy of the government. 
 
This game got closer to the heights of movies and books than any other game I've seen. The use of music alone deserves mountains of praise. It has it's flaws, but the whole of this experience is something to be proud of and is something I'd point towards as an example for where games are headed towards as a story telling medium. Moreover it did it while still being a game, not some bullshit art installation like most of the game journalists point at as being profound or some such nonsense.

I disagree on almost every point.

The writers at Rockstar clearly studied the Western film genre in depth. I just finished a class on American film genre (which was actually just studying Westerns and Gangsters). I was incredibly surprised at how this lived up to just about every classic and even post-modern western film theme. I think why people have such a large problem with the ending is that they're applying modern story telling ideas to it, but a western has it's own set of laws and ideas. I mean some films will intentionally disregard these Western themes, but overall they're in nearly every movie.  This game obviously was heavily influenced by multiple Western films, and it was obvious that it's goal was to re-capture that feeling, in doing so the folks at Rockstar obviously felt compelled to stick with the themes of the Western. Probably the movies this most aspired to be like were those of Sergio Leone, Sergio was notorious for bending and playing with the Western themes, sometimes he'd use them in odd ways but they'd be always present. 
 
  Johns death was necessary as far as the Western film universe is concerned, while reformed he still is a former man of corruption, to allow him to live means his past never really had consequences (despite what anyone may argue). It contradicts a lot of ideas of Western. The reformed outlaw, or the successful bandit can never live in the end (or so goes the typical theme), even if he has good intentions or changes his ways. (See Once Upon a TIme in the West, My Darling Clementine, Wild Bunch, etc). John's death even shocked me, but only because I didn't believe Rockstar would be so dedicated to the lore of the Western myth.   

John's idea of redemption isn't that they live some fairyale life on the ranch - and I'm not suggesting that as an ending - it's merely that Jack doesn't grow up to be like him.  I'd be cool with the 'sacrifice for the sake of his family' as the redemption angle, but that doesn't happen either.  About 2 scenes later Abi is dead, Jack has become his father (literally) and he's setting out for revenge.  John's actions at the end (letting himself be killed by Ross and his men) are the trigger for Jack becoming the man that John once was anyway, which undermines everything John was trying to achieve.  That's not an arc, that's a circle.
 
I still do not see any redemption in this story for anybody.  They simply revert to type and turn it into another revenge tale.

That fact that there is no redemption does not take away from the intent of the story. The redemption of John and his family was the goal of the game, and having it ultimately taken away from you may leave a bitter taste in your mouth, but the ending is what it is.  
The issues that you mention with pacing were far more glaring in my opinion. That and the insistence of Rockstar to continue using jokey characters in an otherwise serious story. Rockstar loses my interest every time. Their games start out with such promise, but eventually devolve into high school humour. Games for adults my ass.

The way I see it is John knew the goverment was never going to stop coming after him and his family until he was dead, so he went out and tried to kill as many of those bastards as he could before thay killed him. Plus its a western and that is the only way it could end. Thats just my opion though.

" It is like when Sayid redeems himself in the submarine episode of LOST by killing himself to save the others.  kind of. "

" Once he got his revenge, he redeemed his family, and he can move on with his life. The old west is dead, there's no life left for those like John Marston. Jack has a farm, and plenty of assets thanks to his father. He can live a normal life if he wants, and like a great book, his end is truly up for your imagination to decide. "

Maybe the search for something you can never really get is what we're missing. So many of the strangers we meet are all on a search for something that is impossible to attain. Isnt that what  John was trying to do? And in that search, he died like so many others had died in their quests before him. The game isnt about revenge or killing some "boss" or main "bad guy", its about the search for redemption even when the search turns up nothing. It fucking sucks that he had to die. But rockstar did tell us from the beginning that this shit was about "outlaws to the end" and fuck, they weren't lying. 
 
And another point i'd like to bring is how rockstar managed to spin a story that's gotten so many people talking and blogging about. Its getting people to talk about themes and foreshadowing... the kind of shit that most people wouldn't expect when it comes to talking about games.  The kind of shit you'd only hear in a movie review or a book club. I think thats a good accomplishment for Rockstar.

I think the Giant Bomb community have nailed it. I found the ending like many others to be very powerful and thought provoking i'm loving the interpetations that many of you guys are giving. @Luck3ySe7en: Yes i like what you said it makes a lot of sense. 

" John's idea of redemption isn't that they live some fairyale life on the ranch - and I'm not suggesting that as an ending - it's merely that Jack doesn't grow up to be like him.  I'd be cool with the 'sacrifice for the sake of his family' as the redemption angle, but that doesn't happen either.  About 2 scenes later Abi is dead, Jack has become his father (literally) and he's setting out for revenge.  John's actions at the end (letting himself be killed by Ross and his men) are the trigger for Jack becoming the man that John once was anyway, which undermines everything John was trying to achieve.  That's not an arc, that's a circle. I still do not see any redemption in this story for anybody.  They simply revert to type and turn it into another revenge tale. "

The ending was amazing, this game was amazing.

I understand your point of view on the ending but I do find that you're taking the ending too literally... 
 
First, at the start of the game, you didn't even know John Marston's reason for finding Bill Williamson, you'd initially think that it was for revenge.  Then it turned out, it wasn't, John was being forced to find his fellow outlaws because of blackmail.  Then eventually, you'd find out that John's blackmailers were the government and the FBI and they were forcing him by kidnapping his family.  There at that moment, you would see that John Marston wasn't the outlaw seeking for revenge, but a father who was doing what he could to save his family and live a life of his own, away from his past, his redemption part was his actions towards that goal of peace.  His actions were violent, but he was willing to take extreme measures for the sake of his family and that chance to have a peaceful life. 
 
If you already knew his family at the start of the game, then John's character wouldn't be that interesting coz you would already know that he was doing all of the things for his family; thus, he's an immediate hero.  Throughout the game, it was a play of John's character as being an outlaw to the end and a father to his family, trying to redeem for his past; a play of being good or being bad (a choice actually given to the player).  Rockstar actually did a good job of letting you appreciate John's character and his conflict of how much he really wanted to change, but at the same time, he still had that outlaw aspect in him.
 
At the end, everybody already knows why there were missions for John and his family, it was his reward of redemption.  And then he was killed, damn.  But take note of the sequences involved in those missions, it was also a premonition of John's fate.  It was like the belief where when someone died, there would be stories that he lived out the most of the last days of his life "as if he knew he was going to die".  And what Dutch said, the FBI would just look for another monster to hunt so that they could get paid and that they could not change who they were, outlaws.  And John surrendered to the FBI and the army because it was part of his redemption, that sacrifice for his family to live normally.  Coz if he escaped with his family, John knew they would be hunted down again and again.  Right then when the army came, John knew his only redemption and escape from being an outlaw was through death, but at least he died for the sake of his family's chance to live peacefully.
 
However, the epilogue of the story then became a story of revenge, but it was open for interpretation.  From what I understood, John's family did somewhat live without persecution from the government (although I don't know how Abi died), but they did live with trauma from John's death; thus Jack's revenge on Ross.  And it was left for the player to live out that revenge for Jack and the missions given were all related to Ross since you would meet his wife and his brother and his fellow agent.  For some, they massacred Ross' family; thus a revengeful life of violence for Jack.  For me, I just killed Ross (but I also immediately got eaten by wolves after the credits lol), a single goal of revenge for his murdered father.  As for after that, it's open to interpretation for Jack's future. 
 
I think the whole Red Dead Redemption was very well told.  It showed a lot of social issues, corruption, history and tons of insights. :)

All in all, there was red, there was dead, and there was redemption (IT'S FUNNY BECAUSE IT'S THE NAME OF THE GAME).

I have to say this may have been the best ending to a video game story ever. It almost reminded me of the old Pacino flick Carlito's Way. You just knew that the protagonist was doomed to be swallowed up by his past sins and the fact he got so close to getting out just made the ending more excruciating. A lot of people criticize the Jack missions, calling them boring but as a father myself I loved 'em. Marston had everything he ever wanted for just a little while and once it was gone I couldn't wait to take over as Jack and set things straight. Helluva story and almost certainly Game of the Year.

" First, I'm surprised that nobody has mentioned the deadeye you get in John's last moments. For me this is a really good example of the still under-used "use of gameplay to convey a message/feeling".  When you burst out of the doors, the deadeye slow motion really gives you a chance to realize 'I can't run from these guys.' Any targets you paint still won't be enough to save you; even though I shot 8 in the head, there was still no other possible outcome.