Reviews// Red Dead Redemption

Frankly, this review is now getting too long. It could, like the game itself, keep going. Try satire? Well, the place you land to begin your quest against Bill and the people who have sent you to take him down is called Blackwater Port. Blackwater is also the name of the CIA funded private army beloved of Dick Cheney and the Bush family (and let's face it, Clinton). The first person you overhear on the train? A Mrs Bush. This level of subtle commentary is retained throughout the game. This intertwines with the often horsebacked debates between John Martson and the characters he meets along the way.

Those characters – including our hero – are brilliantly formed and, often due to remarkably good voice acting to a well paced script, easy to empathise with. I say this having recently had to meander and thump my way through the derivative durge that is Alan Wake. Where Wake starred a character so unpleasant that I wanted him dead from the outset, RDR's star is well realised from start to finish.

His friends and foes are equally superbly realised and include one of my favourite game people of all time in Seth. A half-mad man who on first meeting is going through corpses because people are less cold and heartless when dead than when alive. Seth is a terrible human being with weird ideas... but some excellent contacts. Seth should get his own game.

As I said, this review is growing too long. So, now to wind it down.

Red Dead Redemption should suffer from its flaws in gaming mechanics. It really should. The reasons its does not are, however, more numerous than those flaws. The plot keeps you guessing despite its initially simple premise. I was going to compare it to many Western movies. However, I'm not. This is a video game for the industry to be proud of. It takes mythic times and places and it uses them in such a detailed, well-paced, efficient and elegant set of ways as to sidestep cliché.

The actual gameplay moves on even as you meander the big country in search of new clothes, allies, meanings, minigames, side quests and money. It moves on at your speed. In doing so it challenges you without trying to patronise or humiliate you: no daftly Byzantine puzzles which were more fun to design than take on. No illogical twists purely because Rockstar got some new middleware to play with. Plenty of action, and the kind of action that makes sense but does not make you feel the inevitable “Oh, here comes the by-rote shoot-out... again”.

Right, that's enough.

Conclusion
Flaws in the cover system, targeting that is a tad easy, plus the auto-targeting Dead Eye that is plain good fun plus, movement glitches, plus a melee system that's frankly laughable will irk the true hardcore gamer for good reason. That said, taken as a whole, the utterly compelling and fully realised game world is a joy to play in. The marvellous main narrative combines with truly memorable characters and a more than halfway decent script (with some of the best voice-acting ever to appear in video games) to produce a hugely enjoyable game. Actual game playing aspects (combat, cards and even cattle wrangling) introduce a video game with genuine appeal to a wide range of gamers. RDR is a game with plenty to build on. For the person who loves the interactive core of video games, and is prepared to genuinely enjoy a real achievement, this is a must-have.

SPOnG Score: 98%