Hijinks Reviews: Red Dead Redemption

Red Dead Redemption is Rockstar’s new (I say new layered heavily in italicized sarcasm because the game was actually released way back on May 18th) open ended, Western themed action adventure game that was released to raving reviews from just about everybody. This is the part where you say, ‘Hey, Rockstar, I recognize that name, didn’t they make the Grand Theft Auto games? I love killing prostitutes and running policemen over in stolen cars!’, but before you get all gung-ho about the mayhem you can create in the wild wild west, let me help you by more accurately describing what you can expect after the jump.

Red Dead Redemption’s (from now on referred to as RDR because I don’t want to keep typing it out) best qualities are also many of the things that contribute to it’s downfalls. This is the quick blurb Rockstar left for us on their website for the game:

America, early 1900’s. The era of the cowboy is coming to an end.

When federal agents threaten his family, former outlaw John Marston is sent across the American frontier to help bring the rule of law. Experience intense gun battles, dramatic train robberies, bounty hunting and duels during a time of violent change.

Red Dead Redemption is an epic battle for survival in a beautiful open world as John Marston struggles to bury his blood-stained past, one man at a time.

First off, let me start by  saying that this game is gorgeous. The landscapes  are stunning and really make for an engrossing experience as you run from checkpoint to checkpoint. It’s tempting at times to just forget  about your current mission and to instead just ride off into the sunset. It’s also nice that it’s based in the Old West because you have a whole different set of  mischief and shenanigans to get into than what you  might be accustomed to in the recent GTA games.

However, I feel the Old West also is a big reason why this game feels so lacking. Let’s be honest, who wants to play a video game about roping cattle and helping out as a farmhand on the local ranch? The game started out a bit on the slow side because so much of the tutorial was based in doing basic chores around a farm. Things pick up a bit in town, where you’ve got the saloon, the sheriff’s office, and random civilians milling about. There’s plenty of random missions to do to keep yourself occupied in the single player game that it’s easy to find something new to do if you get tired of the regular grind.

Where this game hit the wall for me was during the multiplayer online. As you can imagine, my buddies and I would get tired of the missions and just started shooting anything and anybody that moved, which was a great time. But when you partake in these activities in the GTA games, you start by having the local police chase you, and then helicopters, the SWAT team, and eventually the army. Eluding these top units can become quite difficult, although it can be done with the right setup. In RDR, when the po-po start coming after you, eventually they get horses… and that’s about it. I was able to fairly easily find a spot to crouch down and shoot down everything that came charging after me for a good 45 minutes until I succumbed to boredom. So the difficulty just isn’t there, and that’s mostly attributed to the time period.

Another facet of game play that was kind of a turnoff for me was the Good/Bad system. You get a chance to be a good guy or bad guy in this game, if you play as a hero the civilians will like you and you’ll have access to certain missions. However, if you join the dark side, people will run in terror at the very sight of you. It’s fairly easy to get the “good” points, pretty much any mission gives you a varying amount based on the difficulty (10-50 for some side missions, 200+ for others that really push the story forward, you get the idea), but I found it FAR too easy to do bad things, and the penalty was too hefty for my liking.

For instance, I was trying to take a carriage ride back to the ranch from the little town and ran around to the side door to get in, then pushed the button. However, I happened to be a little too close to the front of the buggy, and instead jumping in the back, I pulled the driver off and stole the whole thing, costing myself over 500 points! I think that maybe the first time you do these bad deeds, some sort of warning should have come up, letting you know what bad deed you were about to do. But I suppose that’s a small gripe in the grand scheme of things.

Fred is also playing RDR, so he might be able to give you a different take on the game than what I came away with (on top of that, they just released an online co-op for the game which I’d love to try, maybe I need to go out an pick this game up again!), but I have a hard time giving this game over a 7 or 8. Games like this in general are only slightly appealing to me because I can only run from one spot to another and back so many times until I start getting bored. However, I must admit, RDR gives you plenty of things to do in the single player game to help combat that. There’s a handful of mini-games you can play, including Texas Hold ‘Em. There’s treasure to hunt down, people out in the wilderness to save, bad guys to capture, gun fights to win, and plenty more. I definitely recommend it as a renter but I wouldn’t rush out and buy it without trying it out first.

Rating: 7.5 out of 10

Publisher: Rockstar Games
Platform: Xbox 360 and PS3
Cost: Varies [Amazon Link]
Release date: May 18th, 2010