Red Dead Redux.

 

Red Dead Rediculous

I rented this game, around the time it first came out. See that's when I was first getting into video games, if I wouldn't have been playing stuff like Red Dead that was blowing my mind I probably wouldn't be the gamer I am today, and worse yet I probably couldn't even know what the hell Giantbomb.com is. Thevfirst game I ever got with my PS2, was Max Payne so I already knew who Rockstar were, and all my friends ever did then was talk about GTA and occasionally Rockstar would come up, so naturally I rented this at the video store. I played it for about a week, took it back, went to buy it, and never found it. Well, maybe 6 or 7 months ago my friend had the game in this box when we were moving, so we went to play it to kill some down time. I instantly  remembered the game. I ended up borrowing it, and wasting about a straight couple days beating it. I loved everything about it, the Spaghetti Western Style, the gunplay, the Ennio Morricione sounding soundtrack, the story, it was just an all around great game. I was baffled I never heard anything about it from really any media. So I beat it twice, and whoa. I got on Kotaku, and check this out: "Red Dead Redemption Screenshots". I couldnt believe it, I couldnt believe it warranted a sequel period. But nonetheless, Red Dead is a great game. 

Story, or at least where I start drifting towards it.

The central character is Red, who lives with his "Ma and Pa" but one day a gang shows up, kills his Dad, and trying to shoot at the fleeing attackers, Red picks up a red-hot pistol and burns the hell out of his hand. The game flash-forwards to Red as an adult, drifiting into town ala High Plains Drifter sorta. He fights off a gang, collects bounty, and hitches a ride to a town called Brimstone. Through bounty missions, its discovered that Red is trying to get revenge on those who wronged him, people like General Diego and Colonel Darren, who is directly responsible for Red's dad's death. Occasionally you switch characters every couple missions, for characterization purpose and otherwise, but I don't wanna give too much of the story away. 
 

Gameplay, Otherwise, and Conclusion.

Its a 3rd person shooter with cover mechanics, however don't expect much because this was before cover-mechanics were popularized. The aiming is pretty good, and you'll get plenty of headshots. The game can get frusturating, but never gets "Demon's Souls" hard where its just ragequitting-stupid-impossible. One of the main gimmicks of the game is "Deadeye" which slows down time, and allows you to target any spot on your enemy until your Deadeye meter runs out, or until you have every bullet in your chamber set to fly into somebody, and time resumes and the player shoots in rapid succession in all the spots he aimed, which is a pretty cool effect. Their is some horseriding, and its nothing spectacular but none of those sections are long enough to warrant complaint. You can upgrade, repair, and buy new weapons and other items that can be purchased to unlock journal pages, multiplayer maps, or showdown characters although all of this is pretty optional. The game is one of the PS2's finest, and very much underappreciated. If you can find it cheap (and you will) pick it up, because Red Dead Revolver is Awesome.

Buy it if you get the chance.