Making an open-world wild west game with the same action-adventure level as Rockstar's other open-world title seemed to be a very hard task indeed. Even though the game was originally delayed and had a few problems, it's finally here and has definitely started something new - maybe to even rival GTA?
Red Dead Redemption's basic storyline follows John Marston, a former gang member, across the wild west to track down his past gang-mates with the guarantee from the federal government that his wife and child will be freed if he does so. Marston has a simple background of being an ex-outlaw, but after playing the game for an hour or two you find he is a much more complicated and intriguing individual than that. The other characters in the game are a mixed bag, from ranch girls to men talking to corpses, you'll find it all in Red Dead Redemption, but overall it has an absolutely fantastic range of characters and voice acting to match.
During Marston's story he has some sidetracks on the way, and other things stopping him from reaching his final goal. The story does at times sway a little too far off path during the middle section for me, especially in Mexico, but it comes alive again near the end with some especially moving sequences. Like so many open-world games, you can get sidetracked from the story and start doing something completely different for hours, whether that be hunting or a sidequest, bounty hunting or playing poker Red Dead Redemption has it all and this adds to the hours of fun you'll have during your time with the game. There is always something to do in Red Dead Redemption, even if you have finished the quests.
The world in the game looks fantastic, even if slightly barron at times. The sheer amount of detail that has gone into the environments and what goes on in them is second to none. Graphically it looks absolutely amazing, the fact that as your riding along you'll see vultures flying over dead people, outlaws attacking innocent men and even wolves attacking stagecoaches, it really makes you feel like you're in a real living breathing world. Just make sure when you're exploring the world looking for awesome things to do, don't go in the water; like older Rockstar titles Marston cannot swim!
With any Rockstar title like this your imagination works fantastically well. Even though there is a very good and moving storyline to the game, the fun really starts when you begin to think of hilarious and fun things to do. As you explore you will find stranger missions, whores trying to seduce you and outlaws stealing horses. There is also a wide variety of mini games like Blackjack, Poker, Liar's Dice, Horseshoe Tossing and arm wrestling. You can also undertake bounty hunter contracts to complete where you have to catch a criminal dead or alive. The game allows you to do it how you want to do it allowing you to think of what will be the most enjoyable, most efficient or funniest way to do something.
One thing missing from this wild-west experience is the western cliche of bank jobs and train robberies, outside of main missions. Even adding them as side missions or a form of hideout missions like in the multiplayer (which i will talk about later) would have been good, but it seems to have just been ignored. Another little niggle I have with the game is the insanely long openings to missions. Hold A to stay with your posse, however at the slow speed they ride at you'll spend more time riding to the mission talking a load of nonsense than doing the mission itself. They were nice to have to get some background information but I felt they should have been half the length. Largely for this reason the missions in the game do not seem very memorable, there are a handful that play really well and get the story going but most of them just seem to drag on. That said if you enjoy discussions between characters, much like in GTA IV, and learning more about them then you may find this to be of no issue to yourself.
Game controls seem very similar to GTA IV, it's all the standard you would expect. The only little difference is driving or riding in the case of Red Dead - your horse has a stamina bar where you can keep tapping A to go faster but when the bar gets too low you simply hold A to go at a constant slower speed and wait for the bar to replenish. I found the fastest way to get around riding was to try and keep the stamina bar somewhere in the middle at all times, but it really is just personal preference. If you spam the A button too much your horse will actually kick you off, but if you time the presses just right you can maintain a constant fast speed with no stamina loss whatsoever. The cover system is ok, it does its job but certainly could have been abit tighter. Aiming is the main gameplay problem for me, especially in multiplayer. If you're anything like me and you don't like the game holding your hand you willl have turned the aiming to expert, which means no auto aim. Irritatingly people in multiplayer free roam can still use the snap-to auto aim, putting you at a huge disadvantage. That said Rockstar have since implemented a Hardcore Free Roam playlist allowing you to play the Free Roam mode with the aim assist forced off for everyone.
Red Dead Redemption's ultimate downfall is not the easy aiming system or not being able to swim. It is how the game seems to be so un-polished at times. I know they have patched out alot of things now and hats off to Rockstar for doing that. But whilst playing the game when the patch was not out it was extremely buggy. You would fail missions due to there being an invisible soldier or one inside a wall which you cannot shoot through. Your companions may just stop and glitch or even fall through the earth beneath you, or sometimes just nothing happens. Even though installing the game onto your hard drive helps a little bit, it still did not save me from having a glitchy experience. That said your experience may differ, many others have had no major issues whatsoever.
As you'd expect after the success of GTA IV's Multiplayer, RDR comes back with an even better online experience. A proper free roam where you can posse up to do challenges together and take on gang hideouts, posse's are up to 8 players so there is plenty of room for everyone. Also the competitive modes are a ton of fun to play with friends even though the auto-aim can ruin it somewhat. However once you get to rank 15 you can enter hardcore playlists which forces the aim assist to be off for everyone, but it simply shouldn't be on multiplayer in the first place. Also the multiplayer does have some connection issues where you will just randomly drop or not be able to get into a free roaming lobby, however they did patch this as I mentioned earlier and it certainly seems to be much better now, but there are still a few issues left to address. Overall the multiplayer is a very fun experience and is a good laugh with some mates, especially throwing knifes or fire bottles at each other!
Red Dead Redemption is one of the best open-world games you will find on the market to date, and is hands down the best ever western gaming experience you will find. Even though at first glance it does seem to be the perfect game, it is pulled back by its lack of polish and glitches you may encounter during the game. If you can see through these occasional glitches then this is your game. Rockstar have simply come damn close to making the perfect game. Red Dead Redemption is a title which should be in absolutely every gamers collection.
Red Dead Redemption gets an official Game-Pad 9.6/10
Average Press Score according to TestFreaks: 10/10
Review by Michael Menzel
Comments
Yeah absolutely amazing game, fully agree with the score etc.
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