Red Dead Redemption is a western sandbox style game developed by Rockstar San Diego. While Rockstar tries to avoid comparing it to GTA it is essentially, like everyone else says, Grand Theft Horse. It’s a wonderful game, with a strong story, good (and improved) gameplay and great graphics.
Red Dead Redemption has the player playing as John Marston. In the intro scene all we know is that he is being forced to find old friends of his to save his family. We never know what they did (we just know it’s bad things), how the met up or why they did it. It would have helped solidify what we need to do if we had this back story but the game is solid enough to keep us going. While I have heard some people not like the ending, I found the ending to be amazing and probably one of the best endings in all of Rockstar's games.
More than the main storyline it is the characters John Marston meets that makes the game so engaging. I found myself really enjoying all the characters. It also helps that while going to mission points there are conversations between the characters which really helps fill the gaps. Although like all Rockstar games, the protagonist usually does a bunch of missions for a certain person before he gets what he needs to progress the story forward. Luckily the gameplay and mission types are solid enough to make you go through all of this.
The gameplay has been revamped from Rockstar's previous title, GTA4. Keeping up with all the other third person games, the cover based shooting mechanic feels up to par with games like Gears of War and Uncharted 2. They have also added dead eye which slows down time and lets you target enemies allowing you to shoot multiple enemies with ease. There are also duels which are an extremely fun shooting mini game but the game doesn't explain the concept well. I had to watch youtube videos to understand what everything meant but once I did, it was extremely satisfying. Even though much hasn't changed from GTA4, it felt significantly better and I felt really satisfied with the gunplay. (It could be the sound of guns, they sound awesome)
The horse controlling is also pretty good. To maneuver the horse you use the left stick and to make them gallop faster you repeatedly tap the X button (or A button on xbox360) and holding that button maintains the speed. (It plays out much like riding a bike in GTA san Andreas). Horses have a certain amount of stamina so you can't just keep sprinting everywhere. You need to find a rhythmic balance in which you have good speed but are not losing stamina. I didn't like this concept that much and I would have preferred if just holding the button down would maintain the current speed no matter what terrain you were riding on.
There is also a multiplayer game on top of this single player. Essentially its plays much like GTA4 multiplayer but with a RPG level system in places much like modern warfare 2. The multiplayer is fun and joining a posse makes it cooler but there just wasn't enough of a hook to keep playing the multiplayer since I usually play Rockstar games for their stories.
I must say one thing since the Giantbomb crew has expressed this, but there is a lack of explaining how many things work. I found the tutorials for some things were lacking (the dueling was my biggest problem). There are also some aspects of the game I didn't know until a couple of days later after looking through the menus like the challenges. The minigames were also confusing due to lack of explanation. But I would say this is a small issue since it doesn't affect the core gameplay and many of the things you eventually learn as you play along.
The graphics are amazing. Rockstar knows how to build worlds and this world looks amazing. They state that this place is 3x bigger than gta4 but I felt it wasn't that big. But it’s an impressive feat to make something like the open desert look so beautiful to travel by horse. The characters are not as beautiful as the world and wouldn't mind if Rockstar took some time to make the characters look better but I’ll give them the benefit of the doubt that they have to create multiple instance of characters in the world.
The sound also keeps up with the graphics. The guns are loud, horses sound real and it really brings the ambience to the world. The character voices are top notch but I expect nothing less from Rockstar. The music is the biggest surprise especially coming from Rockstar who don't make much music since they just get licensed tracks. But Rockstar proved everyone wrong with a great western soundtrack that really brings color to the game.
Red Dead Redemption is a great game and if you like open sandbox games like GTA or love westerns this is the game to play. If you didn't like the gunplay in GTA4 some people found red dead redemption to be better. Sure it may have trouble explaining what to do but it’s just one of the best games out there and you shouldn't miss out on this beautiful wild west adventure.