Red Dead Redemption. Wow. THIS GAME IS A-W-E-S-O-M-E! Well, kinda. Its AWESOME for about 75% of the game but I'll get into that: a few problems aside, Red Dead Redemption is THE Western video-game of all time. I find it hard for any other game to match the feel and setting that this game puts forward. Rockstar has overdone itself into creating an entire world based around the Western genre. From the snowy mountains of Tall Trees to the gigantic, beautiful plains of Gaptooth Ridge, from the city of Blackwater to the desert, lone cowboy feel of Mexico, its world will just sweep you into one of the best open-world games ever made. Describing it does it no justice, you can't describe the feeling you get when you see the yellow sun peeking over the horizon when riding your horse through a field of orange sand, casting shadows over the great, sculptured mountains and sizzling the green grass, making moles and nightime creatures scurry back into your burrows. It feels like your in the Wild West, immersing you in all its glory. You just feel so...free when playing it. This first struck me when I was riding on a path near a field of Cactii that seemed to just go on forever but at the horizon a small shack was visible, smock billowing out into the nightime sky. I was curious so I rode into this vast field to check out the hut. I thought that perhaps I was going to hit an invisible wall at some point, but to my surprise I could actually ride up to this shack and talk to the person that lived there in a cutscene. What I love is that if I can see it, I can go there: same thing when you manage to get to the peak of Tall Trees (the highest spot in the game) and you can see all of Mexico, the great plains and it hits you on just how MASSIVE and VASTE this games World is. And the sun illuminating this vaste world in a sea of colour makes it just look so gorgeous. A lot of gamers argue about what game has the best graphics (everything from Crysis to Call Of Duty), but to me, this game is by far the most Visually spectactular of them all. But aside from the stunning Visuals, how good is the Story?
The Story of RDR revolves around John Marston, a guy with a past that just won't seem to leave him. John spent his younger years in the company of a group of bandits: Bill Williamson, Dutch van der Linde, Javier Escuella, and Abigail Marston (later to become his wife). Together they robbed banks, stole from rich people and murdered many people. However, it all came to an end when John was wounded and left to die after a botched robbery attempt. After barely escaping with his life, he ran away with Abigail to start a new life and putting behind him any misdeeds of his bloodshed past. Several Years later he now has a ranch and a son (Jack) and everything seems to be going well...except when the goverment turns up, taking his Family away from him and ordering him to hunt down and kill his old gang members (if he doesn't they'll murder his family, so really a bunch of %^*%$£). After Years of putting it behind him, John Marston ultimately understands that he can never escape his past.
Well the Single Campaign will take about about 30-40 Hours to complete (one of the longest campaigns in a game I've ever seen) and it sorta plays out like a Western movie that never ends. Which is great content wise as it will take you ages to complete it but it really is just TOO LONG. Sure, the dialogue is great, the Story is great, the Characters are great but 40 Hours? And half of it feels like you're getting NOWHERE, and some serious pacing issues towards the middle. So at times the game can really drag, but then this cool setpiece comes along (like wiping out an entire Fort with a gatling gun) that just totally invigorates the whole thing again. But apart from the pacing issues, the Story is really fantastic, John Marston is now heralded as one of the best Video Game Characters of all time (heck out of 40 Hours BEING him you kinda know him inside out by the end!) in the Video game community.
As far as gameplay goes, its pretty flawless and really puts you into the shoes of a Cowboy gunslinger. The Weapons look and sound fantastic, but the Horse riding controls do take a few hours for you to master it ("No, I said this way you stupid Horse, NOT THAT WAY!"). Being able to cut-up animals for money (so you can buy weapons and such in a shop) is a cool if morally disturbing practise and the games random encounters while you're riding about do make it all seem THAT much more believable as a World. So in summary, the game is perfect (apart from a few minor glitches, and some pacing issues): Story is top notch, Gameplay is stunning and the Visuals (in my opinion) groundbreaking not to mention the sheer amount of value that this game provides. The best thing this game has going for it though is the World of the dying Wild West, such beauty and sheer realism has never been matched: from the tons of different animals/wildlife, to the plants that grow from the ground or even the awesome sky above you, it immerses you into that Western feel. For those of you that don't see Video Games as Art first of all: SHAME ON YOU! And second: LOOK AT IT! A lot of people see games as just a distraction to kids that don't want to do their Homework, or some silly shooting game that adores violence and makes kids insensitive to all kinds of things. Well, although some games are that (Dead Rising 2, Black Ops I'm looking at you), they can also be intellectual, imagnitive and immersing all at the same time (See this and Mass Effect 2) just like Movies and T.V. Sure gaming hasn't yet reached its true potential, we're a long way off from that but just the fact alone that you can control the characters actions and mouvements makes it much, much more attachable to any other form of entertainment (which is just you staring at a screen for two hours and a half). I think these games should be seen as a benchmark for the future of gaming, the few examples of Class A entertainment.
After the success of RDR, Rockstar put out a DLC add-on pack called Undead Nightmare for Xbox-Live. And, thankfully for me, they also released it into stores a while later for us gamers with NO Xbox-Live. Despite only costing $10 on Live, I bought it for £30 in Leclerc and I am more than happy with my purchase. Despite being an add-on pack, this is like another game altogether, packing in another Story, more weapons and yes, you guessed it: Zombies. The 'Undead' of the title. As all gamers know, Zombies and Jetpacks are the things that you add to a game to make it even more A-W-E-S-O-M-E (gosh I use that word alot)! And not just Zombies, but Zombie animals, like the Horses of the apocalypse: War, Famine, Death and Pestilence (pictured below), Unicorns, Bigfoots and even a few Chupacabra's! So plenty of supernatural then! More of an ode to old horror movies, the game blends horror with the Western genre perfectly, and is no doubt a great addition to the RDR lore. Also, Zombies in this game are fast as hell, quite smart and can only be killed by a gunshot to the head, which makes things quite tense at times, as an army of accumulated Zombies WILL catch you and rip you limb from limb. To make matters worse, there are three types of Zombies: the Regular, fast moving ones, the big, fat Brawlers that charge and knock you over like a pack of cards, the Crawlers, a super-fast moving Zombie that runs on all fours and the Retchers, that spit green bile at you and explode when shot in the head.
After his son and Wife gets bitten (and turned) into Zombies, John Marston locks them inside their house and is tasked with finding a cure to the undead illness. Unfortunately for him, the Undead now roam the world in their hordes and superstitions about what caused the Undead Plague are numerous: Basically thats the entire plot for RDR: UN and it will take you a good 10-15 hours to complete the Story mode. But pack in all the side-quests and just pure fun Zombie killing this game becomes far longer. Its fun to see characters show up from RDR that you know well from the main campaign and either get eaten by Zombies or just turn bat-shit insane (Seth especially). More fun than heartbraking this time, although there are a few sad moments packed in (i.e Bigfoot mission). Again Rockstar really overdid themselves with the look of the World, which is essentially the same but a lot more spookier looking.
The gameplay is the same but with a few new mechanics thrown in. The fact that ammo is now scarce (and you'll need it to take down those Zombies) and the new weapons that can eradicate the adversary is really cool and fun to use. The Undead animals are also a cool addition (Death is my favorite horse, although Undead wolves are a pain in the ass) and really freshens things up alot. Its a massive amount of new material/content and is just as good, if not equal to the original game in my opinion.
All in all these are some truly great, great games that deserve to be in everyones collection. Some truly AWESOME moments (there's that word again!), riding into Mexico on RDR with that song was awe-inspiring and made me really well-up with emotion for some reason (the second time I almost cried last year, the first being the end of Toy Story 3. And the I say nearly very lightly). I found this video on YouTube which basically sums up the whole experience in one go and I strongly advise that you watch it (you might want to turn the pixel count for the video up to HD first though):
