Better Late Than Never Review: Red Dead Redemption
I was dreading the day I would start working on this review. It meant I had finally completed the single player game and spent some time in multiplayer. Red Dead Redemption was like my favorite movie, show or book. You fear that something great is coming to an end and look for something to fill that void.
Let's get it out of the way right now.
This game is 5 out of 5 stars
No doubt about it. This is my Game of the Year, and easily one of my all time favorites.
Unless you were living under a rock, RDR was an eagerly anticipated game. We just knew Rockstar (San Diego and North) would give us a western epic along the lines of their Grand Theft Auto series. GTA IV is an outstanding game, no doubt. The stories have all been top notch, especially with the superstar voice actors. The gameplay and relative freedom to do what you like in a sandbox world is fascinating. But, for some reason, the GTA games have never really held my interest beyond just running around performing random acts of violence. RDR has alleviated that disinterest 100%. There is so much to do in this game, it will keep you busy for a long time if you're the completionist, missions, challenges, random encounters, and of course, the plethora of multiplayer modes and options.
I must tell you, I love westerns. Clint Eastwood spaghetti westerns, Unforgiven, Tombstone, 3:10 to Yuma, and of course, Deadwood (R.I.P.) This game was right up my alley and it doesn’t disappoint in the least. The story won’t break any new ground, but I’ve always believed that if a story is done right, it doesn’t need to be the most innovative if it’s entertaining. The story is broken up into four distinct chapters. It is 1911 and the Wild West is coming to its end. The government and its bureau agents want to tame the frontier. The time for lawlessness is over and they will do whatever it takes to ensure it stays that way. John Marston is a tool used by government agents to hunt down his old gang and to make sure that happens, they’ve taken his wife and son. He will go to hell and back in both the US (New Austin) and Mexico. He will do whatever it takes to get back the retired life he really wants with his family. And that’s where you come in. Good or evil, honorable or dastardly, maybe somewhere in the middle, you can save every helpless soul that approaches you or you can shoot who or what you want, drive up your bounty and hope the marshals don’t catch you. Though your decisions don’t affect the main storyline, you are free to do practically anything you like. All of this takes place while the extinction of the New Frontier ominously looms in the shadows.
I’ll admit there’s times where you are being forced to do missions that are there to move the story along. Certain missions I thought to myself, why are you taking this shit from this guy and running his errands when you could just give him a dirt nap and move on? But I loved the bizarre and insane individuals who help or hinder you through your quest to get revenge on the “friends” who wronged you and without those colorful individuals; you’d have a cowboy story just going through the motions. They are brought to life so brilliantly that you’ll love or hate them. I’m of the opinion that an actor has done their job if you can love or hate their character. My personal favorite has to be Nigel West Dickens. The man is the ultimate American salesman, and early drug dealer. He speaks and dresses affluently. He is a fast talker and he manages to find himself trouble at every turn. Good thing he’s bailed out by John Marston, who eventually becomes a begrudging friend.
Rockstar did a fantastic job of putting together voice acting and cut scenes that aid in telling John Marston’s epic tale. Just seeing the “magnificent” seven you put together sent chills down my spine. As I got into the last chapter, my fears of the end were becoming a reality. It was all winding down for the storybook happy ending. You’re no longer doing missions fighting bandits (or banditos). You’re spending time with your wife and son. You’re trying to be the loving husband and father that you’ve wanted to be for so long. Then the betrayal happens. If the end doesn’t get you, then you are a ruthless, cold hearted, son of a bitch.
I can’t help but be impressed at out how well paced the entire game is. I mean, especially considering you could just go off the main storyline and complete side missions, challenges, hunt, do jobs, play minigames, gamble, or just ride through the countryside causing a ruckus. There is no shortage of things to do and no shortage of places to do them. The landscape of this game is massive. If you don’t take the stagecoach quick travel shortcuts, you can literally travel from one corner of New Austin to the opposite corner of Mexico in just short of an in game day. And I can tell you, I rarely took the quick travel shortcuts because I just loved riding through the countryside. I never felt overwhelmed or lost and it seemed like I would see something new every day for the first couple of weeks. In fact, most impressive to me was the details, the little things.
Soak it all in, seriously. The art direction is kick ass. Graphically, this game is breathtaking. The landscapes are populated with plants and animals of all sorts. I’ll never forget staring in awe at the river up in north in the Tall Trees region. I’ve never, EVER, seen water affects look that good. On a sunny day, you can see the heat waves on the horizon. On a rainy day, mud puddles dot the landscape. NPC’s can be seen riding horses or wagons to various destinations or you’ll come across them at a campsite and they’ll invite you to sit down and share stories. The towns aren’t very big, but the differences in each are significant. Armadillo is your typical dusty western town. Blackwater is the modern city with brick buildings and paved streets.
Don’t take your eyes off those wolves, bears, or cougars. They’ll take down you and your horse down if you aren’t paying attention. And they’ll look fantastic doing it. If you get the best of them, or any other animal, including horses and dogs, you can skin them and sell their hides and meat. Hell, one day I was gathering some flowers in the desert and a rattlesnake bit me, knocking me to the ground. I jumped up wondering who the hell shot me then heard that distinct rattling sound. The best moment in the game though, hands down? I watched a cowboy jump off his horse, run over to a rock, and take a piss. You see the arc and everything. I laughed for a good long time, again, details.
If you’re into soundtracks of games, hell if you just like good music, I would advise either paying attention to the in game music or getting the soundtrack. This has to be my new favorite soundtrack. Far Away, the song playing as you enter Mexico at the beginning of the second chapter is eerie and unforgettable. The sound of galloping horses will become second nature. Coyotes and wolves will alert you to their presence. Cougars will too, but when you hear their growl, it might be too late.
Does it play as good as it looks? 99% yes. I have a few quibbles that are so minor in the grand scheme of the RDR experience. If you’ve played GTAIV, you should be familiar with the play style. That floaty momentum is still present. The controls could just be a tad more responsive. I promise you, this is such a minor grievance. I’d be inclined the controls are the way they are by design. I understand the physics of say, riding a horse, controlling a stagecoach, or even sprinting around corners, but there are times where you have issues with getting through a door or past an obstacle because of the floatiness.
You might wear out your A button also. Your character doesn’t run unless you constantly mash A. Your horse will not sprint unless you continuously mash A. You can’t overwork the horse, especially if it’s a horse you recently acquired as their endurance builds the longer you have it. You can hold A down for your horse to maintain a constant pace, but if you time your mashing with your meter regeneration, you can keep it sprinting at a pretty good pace the whole time. I thought Star Ocean: The Last Hope would destroy my A button, but it has nothing on RDR.
In multiplayer, your character is always running. Because of your momentum, you might have a hell of a time getting through doors or up a small set of steps, especially if you are diving for cover from someone trying to give you a dirt nap. Too many times I’m stuck up against a wall trying to dash into a building or room only to be gunned down.
So that’s about all the bad I have on the core game. How much bad can there be in my vote for Game of the Year anyway?
There are no difficulty settings per se. You can choose between normal and expert aiming. The difference being, with a tap of the aim button, your reticule will snap to the nearest enemy within reason. On expert, you’re on your own buddy. I played through mostly on normal on my initial playthrough. I will admit, at times I felt like I was almost cheating and it was too easy. Then I recall the cougar that leaps out at me while I’m picking flowers or riding on a stagecoach on certain missions and having to pick moving targets and realizing its damn hard to hit anything on expert! If you ever really find yourself in a bind, you’ve got Dead Eye. A red meter that fills up as you get kills. Tap your Dead Eye button and you go into slow mo that allows you to select targets anywhere on the body of man or beast up to however many bullets your gun carries. It's great for disarming and duels, tough to employ in multiplayer because it’s you or them first.
However you choose to play your character; your decisions affect your Fame and Honor. Again, this has no bearing on the main storyline whatsoever. What it does affect is how the inhabitants of New Austin and Mexico will treat you. If your honor is high, they will respect you. If your fame is high, they will know you. I can walk around the town of Armadillo and my name rings out. I haven’t exactly done an “evil” playthrough at this time, but no doubt, I can guess how they’ll fear me when I’m the baddest outlaw west of the Mississippi.
In between being the pillar of society, I worked on challenges. This is a fantastic idea for beefing up the content in a single player game. Challenges run in numerous categories including hunting, survivalist, sharpshooting, and treasure hunting. The challenges start out easy enough, but become progressively more difficult. If you do them, you unlock special outfits and weapons. Get yourself a Buffalo Rifle and you can take out grizzly bears in one shot. The outfits serve varying purposes such as getting the elegant suit that allows you to cheat at poker or the Bollard Gang outfit that will prevent you from being attacked by members of the Bollard Gang. One interesting mode they implemented is the Social Club. By registering at the Rockstar Games website, you can complete special social club challenges that are updated and give various rewards.
As you’re riding along you may run into random encounters with someone who’s had their wagon or horse stolen, or is being held up by a gang of thieves, or my personal favorite, a man rides up to you begging for help rescuing his kidnapped wife. As you approach the scene, his wife is strung up to a tree and the honorable thing to do would be to shoot the kidnappers and the rope she is hanging from before she dies. Dead eye is your friend. If you’re successful, you’ll earn Fame, and of course, cash. Money is used to buy your essentials; you should accumulate a lot by the end of the game, so it isn’t something that you should fret over. If you really want, you can even go work some Night watch or Horse breaking jobs in certain towns.
Tired of the open road? Want to kick back and play some minigames? Try your hand at Texas Hold Em, Liars Dice, Five Finger Fillet, or even Arm wrestling. With the Liars and Cheats DLC, you can even play some of the mini games online with other people via Free Roam or Matchmaking.
When you’re done in for the night, you simply go to one of your purchased or rented room to save which turns your clock ahead six hours you can even change your outfits in your room to suit your needs or look. You can also use a camping kit from your inventory if you are out in the open, which provides some convenience while attempting aspects of the game that do not auto save.
So I’ve covered how massive and fantastic the single player is, what about the multiplayer? I’ve already touched on a couple points, I can assure you, if you like playing online, RDR has a solid multiplayer going for it. When entering multiplayer, you join a Free Roam game. Essentially you can go where you want on the map. You will not be able to do story mode but you can kill other players, earn a bounty on your head by killing NPC’s, and do quick missions on your own or with other players. If getting into some Free For All or team based games is your thing, there are plenty of options. You can join Normal or Expert games (referring to the aiming style). There are Capture the Bag (IE flag) games or deathmatch style Shootout. I love the Shootout games because they’ll start you in a circle or a line if you’re playing teams and you have a shootout that leads right into the beginning of the game.
The games can be fun, but because of the nature of the controls as mentioned earlier, I prefer to do the co-op missions or posse up and do gang hideout missions. Outlaws to the End added co-op missions to the game. You’ll need a decent team for even the basic co-op missions. Running in blindly will get you and your teammates in trouble if they try to revive you. There are advanced missions that open up once you’re a high enough rank. They’re much more difficult and lame teammates need not apply. As of this writing, I believe I got it for free even though I bought the game used, so I’m not entirely sure why that is. Sure, there are times when I just want to ride around and kill folks, but unfortunately, like many multiplayer games, that can be tough to do when people are higher level and have much better weapons than you start out with. Either way, missions seem like the best way to rank up as you’ll get loads of XP.
Everything results in XP which levels up your ranks, which open up more character skins, mounts, weapons, and titles. You’ll need those weapons if you plan on Free Roam killing. There are numerous skins in the game ranging from the different gangs in the game to lawmen to the main characters. Yes, I get to run around as Nigel West Dickens, stove pipe hat and all. The different multiplayer modes typically assign you a skin and certain weapons related to the game type, so your character settings from Free Roam won’t carry over to FFA or Shootout games. When it comes to the mounts, you start out on a donkey. You’ll want to upgrade to a better horse quick. Eventually you can even ride bulls or buffaloes. There are plenty of weapons to choose from, but once you get your hands on semi automatic weapons, you’ll not likely drop those any time soon.
Similar to the Modern Warfare games, multiplayer has challenges that will give you XP as reward for completing them. Everything from hunting and gathering flowers to various guns and kills challenges in the FFA and Shootout games. More stuff to keep the game interesting, but not necessary.
Again, if you can find people to play with, you can play poker, Liar’s Dice, or even race with the Liars and Cheats DLC.
I haven’t even spoken of the achievements yet. Don’t worry. As lists go, I think the achievement hunter will find this game a solid challenge. It’s not a pushover and it will take some time to get the 100% completion needed for the full Gamerscore. My first playthrough had me sitting at about 92%. You can continue to play once you complete the single player campaign. RDR also gave me my new all time favorite achievement, Dastardly. Hogtie a woman, place her on train tracks, and watch a train run her over. That is just too damn cool. Don’t worry; I rescued some damsels in distress to make up for being an evil bastard for just a moment.
So I wind this review down, ready to take on a second playthrough and more multiplayer. It is the first game I’ve truly had fun with in a long time. It’s the total package, looks, sounds, plays near perfectly. It has an engaging story with sensational atmosphere featuring memorable characters brought to life by first-class voice acting (except maybe Bonnie MacFarlane...) I’m not sure I’ll tire of all it has to offer any time soon, if ever. It is extremely well supported by Rockstar with new content. Three DLC’s are available with a fourth, Undead Nightmare, coming soon. I’m not into the whole zombie thing, but with a game as good as this, how can I turn my nose up to that?
5.0