Red Dead Ridiculously Great
I love me some westerns. There's just something about seeing the awkward teenage years of a fledgling country. The term wild west may or may not be accurate, but our imagination is alive with the idea a desert filled with insane criminals, crooked law enforcement, and untold fortunes deep in the ground all over the place. Both modern westerns and older spaghetti westerns have created this wild and dirty vision of the west, and now with Red Dead Redemption, we can not only observe the wild west, but interact with it.
Red Dead Redemption, the latest entry added to the underused western game genre is as close to a perfect game that I have seen in recent years. The game is the latest offering from Rockstar, and it is evident in its open world design, but in the same way that Grand Theft Auto Vice City redefined the GTA series into a legitimate piece of story telling, Red Dead Redemption has redefined what the open world game can be.
The basic, mission-giver process open world action games are known for is still present, but in addition, many random encounters will force the player into making hasty decisions that will ultimately define the player's place within the game world. The more heroically you settle these encounters will carve you into a target for would-be famous gunslingers. The more dastardly you handle them, the more you will become a target for law enforcement. These decisions boil down to meters which show how honorable and how famous you are. This addition alone allows for a level of automatic player customization not seen before.
In addition to game play mechanics which redefine the open world genre, Red Dead Redemption provides players with a large cast of well written and amazingly voiced characters. These characters seem to be lifted right out of your favorite western films and television series and will provide the player with a wide range of people to respect and despise. Characters are nothing without a story to tie them together, and Red Dead Redemption certainly delivers. The main storyline provides an excellent backdrop for your actions, and the various side missions add so much additional color to the story and setting that your expectations for games like this going forward will change for the better.
All in all, Red Dead Redemption provides gamers with an experience that simply shouldn't be missed.
