Red Dead Redemption

Oh my god. Rockstar have done it again. How could anyone ever have doubted them? 
From the developers of Grand Theft Auto and Bully comes Red Dead Redemption. This game may well be their finest creation yet. 
Red Dead Redemption is not so much a sequel, more a spiritual successor to Rockstar's previous wild west game: Red Dead Revolver. In Red Dead Redemption's single-player portion, you play as John Marston, a former outlaw trying to make a normal life for him and his family. But when federal agents kidnap and threaten to kill his family, Marston is forced to take up his guns once more and hunt down the members of his former gang. 
The single-player campaign is ground-breaking, addictive, funny and heart-wrenching. You become extremely attached to Rockstar's cast of crazies, which makes the controller almost impossible to put down while you're playing through. The game's ending is also incredible, there's no chance I'd spoil anything in a review, and It's almost certain to be a talking point among gamers for years to come. 
 While Red Dead borrows heavily from the GTA formula, It also differentiates from It.  The Wanted system has been given something of an overhaul. Now, when you commit a crime, you'll have to deal with the immediate consequences but you'll also have a bounty placed on your head. The bounty will force bounty hunters to track you down in the wild and will increase with each crime you commit until you pay it off or use a letter of pardon at a telegraph station. 
There is also a unique new honour system. This means that If you save a stagecoach from being robbed you will gain honour, but if you rob a stagecoach you will lose honour. Having high honour will allow you discounts at stores but people are more  likely to ask for your help. Having low honour will make people afraid of you and shopkeepers will be less willing to do business with you.  
Throughout the game you'll need money. This can be gained by doing jobs like nightwatching and horse-breaking, hunting for animals in the wild or just robbing somebody. You can also gamble your money over an assortment of games such as Poker, Liar's Dice, Arm-wrestling and five-finger fillet. 
If you think getting headshots on horseback sounds or shooting birds out of the sky sounds hard, Dead Eye makes it a whole lot easier. This is a feature that allows you to slow down time while you weapon is drawn and pick off you enemies. Of course Dead Eye is a limited ability. You can use It about twice before you need to leave It to recharge, so save It up for when you need It. It's a really awesome feature that got me out of certain death a couple of times.  As you can see, this isn't just GTA with horses as some people seem to think. With all this plus more to do, the single-player could squeeze out a lot of you spare time. I've played for about twenty-two and a half hours and I'm yet to complete half the stuff that the single-player has to offer, not to mention I've barely done anything in the multiplayer. 
Oh, I almost forgot. The multiplayer... 
When you've had enough of being a lone ranger, you can form a posse with seven other friends or strangers and ride into the west.  
And believe me, with a good posse, multiplayer can be a LOT of fun. There's plenty to do, from seperate missions to clearing out gang hideouts. There are also a whole bunch of playlists from a simple deathmatch to capture the flag variants and so on. 
Each playlist begins with a unique twist. Everybody in the game squares off in a Mexican standoff  . A message flashes on your screen before the game begins telling you that If you're going down, then take, for example, CODn00bpwnr down with you.  
The last man standing after the standoff will have a limited time to get a vantage positon before everybody respawns and chaos ensues. 
You'll also get your own character in multiplayer and by completing missions and gang hideouts, doing well in games and getting kills, your character will level up and unlock better guns and horses. It's a nice feature which gives you an extra incentive to keep coming back once you're long finished with John Marston. 
Red Dead isn't without it's flaws though. Sometimes you'll try and get on your horse and your character will end up standing on It or something. There are other bugs too. Once, during a mission, a character riding with me went quiet towards the end of the mission while they were meant to be talking. They stayed silent for the remainder of the mission while my character talked to them the whole time. That was really annoying. 
It's stuff like this that can annoy you but It's not such a big deal as It doesn't happen too often. 
Overall, the pluses in this game far outweigh the minuses and Red Dead Redemption is one of the best games of the year, if not one of the best of all time. 
I didn't think this would happen, but in my first review for Giant Bomb, I've given out a perfect score. Ah well. It definitely deserves It. 
 
The Good: 
+ Incredible storyline 
+ Engaging characters 
+ Cheating at Poker 
+ Dead Eye. 
 
The Bad: 
- Some bugs and glitches 
 
The Ugly: 
Seth Briars!