Red Dead Redemption Redefines

 Red Dead Redemption is one of the few games that I knew next to nothing about upon its release.  All I knew going in was that it was developed by Rockstar's San Diego team, it was a spiritual successor to Red Dead Revolver, and it would be using open world mechanics more akin to the Grand Theft Auto series.  When I started playing it and reading the early reviews, I was upset about all the comparisons the media was making between it and GTA.  Red Dead Redemption felt like a game that could stand on its own without the constant ties to the GTA franchise.  However, after spending more than fifty hours with the game, I can say that the similarities are completely unavoidable.  Thankfully, Red Dead Redemption is completely able to stand on its own.

 

The game opens up with you as John Marsten, standard-looking cowboy aboard a train to New Austin, a generic south-western area of the United States in the year 1911.  This is the time where the government was trying to gain more control during the surge of the industrial revolution.  I was immediately drawn in with Rockstar's not-so-subtle way of reminding me that this is definitely the "Wild West" and people are generally not kind.  Racist comments and violent actions are abound which are not so much vulgar and offensive as they are there to simply remind the player what time in history we're playing through.  As John makes his way to Armadillo, the starting "hub" for the game, we learn that his family has been taken by the "law" and he must confront a certain Bill Williamson, which I immediately deduced had been born as William Williamson.  Brilliant.


All of this setup is simply to get you going on "Grand Theft Stagecoach" and the player doesn't really get too deep into the story until much later in the game.  However, we are certainly introduced to what kind of character John Marsten is.  I have to say, he's one of the more interesting, sympathetic, and honorable protagonists I've had the pleasure of knowing in any Rockstar developed game.  He treats women with respect, won't lay with a whore because he's a married man, but still won't take any crap if he doesn't have to.  He'll try to stave off the violence, talking people down until he ultimately has to take down the dirty punks.  


He's one of the finer points during my first impression.  Stepping into the world of New Austin, I was immediately drawn in by the gorgeous environments, beautiful textures and creative modeling.  Rockstar loves using sweeping pans at the beginning of a game, which is no different here.  I was amazed at how this open world could look so breathtaking.  While the game pressed on, I noticed the detailed weather effects and the dazzling night sky.  It's 1911, no big cities causing light pollution, so a black sky literally filled with sparkling stars is a sight to behold.

Once I was immersed into the open world, I began to slowly notice how amazing the characters and performances were.  Rob Wiethoff, a relative no-name, helped craft John Marsten into one of the most enjoyable and stand out characters this year.  His performance was so great, I genuinely thought they cast Josh Brolin for a few moments before deciding that this was completely ridiculous.  The man is far too busy making other strange career choices.  Bonnie, an early character the Marsten meets, really provides a center of reality into the world.  Her interactions with the protagonist are few are far between, but the chemistry is sudden and refreshingly grounded.  As the game progresses, these performances and characters help craft what is one of the most human stories in video games.


Unfortunately, there are some hitches along the way that break through so strongly that I'm reminded this is still a video game.  As John Marsten hunts down the people he is assigned to hunt down, he is constantly and seemingly unwittingly double crossed time and time again by people who either don't have the means to help him or simply don't want to.  Soon after the second time Marsten demands the information promised to him, it's clear that this is breaking character for Marsten to continue playing fetch or grinding away in hopes that he'll get his man.  Obviously if Marsten walked into town, got his information and killed his targets all in one go that would be an incredibly unsatisfactory turn.  It just seems that the only padding between said goal wears thin too quickly, nearly to the point of de-fanging Marsten.

While I'm talking about the world, I should note that this is the most open of worlds in any open world game.  Straight off the train, you can partake in several activities, most of which you're simply unaware of.  In fact, some of the game's mechanics you may simply stumble upon if you haven't been digging through forums on the internets.  While you still have your standard quest hub where you can get missions to progress the main story, you also have strangers who need help with simple quests or people straight up immediately needing your assistance.  For example, while you're on your way to the next town, you might run into a sheriff who is trying to capture two criminals who have escaped his stagecoach.  There are several different ways you can deal with it.  Either kill the criminals by shooting them in the back while they're running away, lasso them and drag them behind your horse so the sheriff can kill them, or lasso and hogtie them before returning them alive to the sheriff, who them kills them immediately.


Simply put, there is a ton of stuff to do in this game when you aren't progressing the story.  You can play poker, blackjack, liar's dice, five finger filet or horseshoes.  Freaking horseshoes!!  Getting a ringer is an achievement for crying out loud!  If you don't want to futs around with that, you can partake in side quests for strangers which provide some of the most surreal, thought-provoking or straight up laugh-out-loud moments.  Some of these stranger missions really showcase Rockstar's focus on gothic America.  If you'd rather check the local bulletin board for bounties to collect and become the Wild West Boba Fett, that's available as well.  You even get a different reward alive or dead.  

One of the more interesting aspects of the open world is the ambient challenges, which act like GTA IV's shooting pigeons or Crackdown's orbs.  Rather than force you to open up your nearest FAQ after you've realized that you've only collected 98 feathers and can't find the last two for the life of you, Red Dead Redemption offers a simpler, more addictive approach.  There are several different challenges that open up in the menu, asking you to shoot X number of X animal or disarm X amount of enemies.  It's all really great but it isn't nearly as streamlined as it could be.  The menus are sort of disjointed and messy and it just feels like gaming has gotten past jumbled inventory or progress screens.  


This goes into my complaint about the strange control choices that the developers decided on, starting with the map.  I believe that the universal "open map" button was set as Back a while ago, so whenever I needed to open up my map, I would accidentally open up the inventory.  And you know what?  I believe that the universal "open inventory" button was set as Start a while ago, so whenever I needed to open up my inventory, I would accidentally open up my map.  This happened pervasively throughout every hour of the game until the credits scrolled and beyond.  I don't mind the horse controls so much, where the player taps the A button to gain speed and hold it down to maintain and uses the RB button to brake.  This seems tangential to riding a horse, where the A button is like your spurs and RB is your reins.  However, early on I would be riding into town and pulling the LT as my brake, which consequently made me aim my gun at random people a lot.


There's also plenty of complaints about the technical side of things.  While the world is rich and deep, it is not without its share of problems.  I don't mean the simple "whoops, I fell through the ground again" problem in previous games.  I'm talking bugs so incredible that they feel like they were left in intentionally.  From donkey face lady to carts and wagons flying through the air to people flying backwards to horses spawning in water when you call them, there is a certain amount of charm to all of the hilarious goings on.  No matter how quickly it breaks any slight amount of immersion.

 While all of this is amazing, it all relates to the extensive single player campaign.  Red Dead Redemption also features a robust multiplayer experience that starts you off in the fully unlocked game world to roam free with several other people.  There are plenty of game modes to explore for competitive play, but the main draw seems to be rustling up a posse to take control of towns, building up bounty or taking out gang hideouts.  If that's not your thing, you can stick to yourself, checking out all the ambient challenges just like the single-player.  It all leads up to progressing your game level though a Modern Warfare-esque set of unlocks.  Level up enough and you'll get better weapons, more character models and more mounts to play around with.  It's fun and creative without sticking to the standard "go kill people" mechanics of modern multiplayer.  I plan on playing much, much more.


Ever since Outlaw, I've always been intrigued by the concept of the wild west in video games. Gun.Smoke, Sunset Riders, Red Dead Revolver, and Gun were examples that constantly stand out to me but never really grasped the notion of how wild the West truly was. I'm fairly confident in saying that Rockstar has nailed every aspect I had been hoping for and, on top of that, once again raised the bar for video games in general.  The comparisons to Grand Theft Auto are not without merit, but I'll take the next step and say that Red Dead Redemption is better than any entry in the GTA series.  I'll take it another step further and say that Red Dead Redemption is better than anything Rockstar Games has ever made.