I picked up Red Dead Redemption shortly after I heard it was playable through backwards compatibility on the Xbox One. It was one of those games that I had seen my brother play a lot growing up, and even tried myself, but never found myself fully invested in it. Maybe finishing Grand Theft Auto V finally taught me how to play and enjoy a Rockstar title. I never really played the GTA games as a kid and didn’t enjoy Grand Theft Auto IV–I was too bewildered and overwhelmed by the sheer amount of stuff going on, I couldn’t figure out what to do or where to go to advance the story.
But I had been hankering for a big, open-world game to play, and something with cowboys sounded cool after I had been disappointed by my last excursion into Western-inspired titles, Hard West. I decided it was time to give this game another shot.
When I booted up the game, I was surprised to see that I had the option to continue an old save. Apparently a save of mine from 2013 had been uploaded to the cloud, which was a neat surprise! I loaded it up to find that I had only played for about three hours, just enough time to get past the tutorial and first few expository missions. Nice!
The story centers around John Marston, a former outlaw trying his best to go straight and live a quiet life on the farm with his wife and son. Government agents catch up with Marston, kidnap his family, and give him the chance to get the government off his tail for past crimes if he can take out his former gang buddies. If he succeeds, he can go back to his farm and his family will be safe. Story is delivered through relatively short cutscenes throughout missions, as well as walk-and-talk sessions on horseback when traveling between story beats. While this is a good way to have characters dialogue without taking control from the player, the riding generally feels one of two ways: dull when nothing happens or obnoxious when you’re interrupted by bandits. There is a convenient feature that allows you to hold down a button to match the speed of anyone you may be accompanying. I found myself using the stagecoach taxis to fast travel around the world whenever possible rather than ride through the bleak desert and risk the possibility of being taken out by a random event.
The game takes place in the Old West, presumably on the border of Texas and Mexico. You travel across a wide expanse of desert, encountering many Rockstar-signature weirdos along the way. The desert feels hostile, but looks a little flat thanks to a color palate of dull browns and tans. Music is minimal and fits perfectly–especially in Mexico.
Combat is cover-based, with weapons ranging from revolvers to rifles to snipers to shotguns. You can even get creative and use your lasso to wrangle and hogtie enemies–throw them on the back of your horse, trot to the nearest train tracks, lay down the bad guy, and let the Pacific Union Railroad do the rest. Aiming with the left trigger will snap the reticle to the nearest target and keep it there for a few seconds, taking at least a bit of the challenge out of the combat. The biggest consideration is making sure that your cover is adequate and that you aren’t being flanked by enemies–most deaths come from behind. Clicking in the right thumbstick while aiming allows the player to enter Dead Eye Mode, which slows the world down to a crawl while the player paints targets with their crosshair. Once they pull the trigger, the world goes back to normal speed and all planned shots are executed in rapid succession. It’s a good way to clear out a large group of enemies, and is used in some really cool story-related ways later in the game.
Despite some jank that tends to accompany open world games (weird animations, people walking into walls, unusual pathfinding, etc.), I had an excellent time playing Red Dead Redemption and am really excited that we haven’t seen the last of the Marstons. I would consider this a must-play game for any fans of story-driven open world games.