Red Dead Redemption

  Ok, so quite honestly, this week I haven’t been playing much of anything. But that’s because a few days ago I went and fractured a bone in my hand. This sucks for many reasons, but the most prominent one is that it seriously hinders my gaming ability. I don’t know about you guys, but I find it incredibly hard to thrash people at Burnout or pump bullets into zombies with only one hand. (It might just be because I’m not leet enough, or something, but still)

However, before I went and got all gimped up, I managed to get a fair bit of play out of the new Red Dead Redemption dlc Undead Nightmare and today I’m slowly typing out what I thought of it.

Zombies are scary. Zombies are really, really scary. They’re pretty much my number one fear in the whole wide world.

And so normally, you’d think I’d stay away from anything zombie related. If I was normal, or sane, or had a brain inside my skull. Unfortunately, none of those things apply to me. I surround myself with zombie movies, always try and play zombie games and read stories about the (inevitable) zombie apocalypse.
Sometimes I try to rationalise my strange obsession and tell myself I’m simply overcoming my fears, but that’s just a lie. After countless hours filled with being terrified, I haven’t come any closer to conquering my fear. In fact, I think I’ve just made it a whole lot worse. And Undead Nightmare really hasn't helped.

What it’s about:  The beautiful old West is tainted. A plague has hit this land, and there’s no explanation why, or how we get rid of it. All we know is that there are zombies everywhere, and in true old fashioned cowboy style we’re gonna go pump them full of bullets.  Along the way we might get lucky enough to see a mythical creature, or meet some old favourites from our previous travels. Or we might just have our faces eaten off. Either way.

What I like:

• Rockstar have a notable reputation for never taking themselves too seriously, and their newly released dlc showcases that perfectly. Right from the very beginning the corny, creepy narrator creates an atmosphere reminiscent of a cheesy horror flick. Rockstar realise that the very idea of zombies invading the old west is ridiculous, and poke fun at this fact right from the start.
• “It’s not how you’re going to die, but when,” are the comforting words spoken to you at the beginning of online mode. And they’re correct. The mode consists of you and a group of other unfortunates fighting off wave after wave of zombies. There are more undead than there are people to fight them off and bullets to take them down. The mode only ends with your demise.
  
  I like to think I’m brave, but when hordes of undead are chasing after me bravery tends to fly out the window. I’m the girl who runs at the first sight of danger. I’ll be the one who climbs up onto the roof to pick off zombies from a place where they can’t get me. I sit on my couch and squeal like a little girl every time a zombie gets anywhere near me, and if I’m thrown into the heat of battle without any other option, I’ll be the one turning around in circles with a machine gun screaming at the top of my lungs. And that’s one of the reasons I enjoyed online mode so much… because I wasn’t the only one who did that.
  


I was grouped with a wide variety of people in my online escapades, but I found that they all belong to one of three very distinct categories.
Category One:  People just like me. I got grouped with a bunch of people, men and women, girls and boys, who were just as scared as I am. Everytime a new wave of zombies appeared they would run screaming as far as they could get, which made me happy because I got to act like the big strong tough guy and blow some shit up. Plus there’s nothing funnier than hearing a man scream in terror while zombies try and eat his limbs.
Category Two:  The tough guys. The tough guys are the ones you wanna be paired with every time. They’re the ones who realise that this is just a game, and the point of a game is to win. They blast everything that gets in their way, they revive you when you die, they pick up new weapons and rack up high scores. They are not afraid, and they will protect you if you are (although they probably won’t like it very much).
Category Three:  The noobs. The noobs are great to play with, because like the tough guys they have no fear. Except they don’t quite have the skills to back them up. They fly in blind with guns blazing, killing everything that gets in their way… and everything that doesn’t. They dream of high scores and are fuelled by stupidity. They’re awesome

• In a time where everything is topsy turvy and people are dropping dead then coming back to life all around you, it’s always nice to see a friendly face. If you played Red Dead Redemption originally then you’re going to recognise a lot of people on your travels. Some have gotten themselves into humorous scenarios, others you have to save from certain death. They may not be the best people to see in a situation like this, but I know I’d rather spend a day with them than play a game of poker with a bunch of zombies.
  

What I don’t like:

• I like a challenge, even a scary challenge that’s going to give me nightmares for months on end. However I didn’t really find that with this game. Even though everybody is dead, I still found weapons and bullets to be in abundance. And I was in no way careful with my bullets. I shot everything.Although, I don’t know why I was hoping to find any realism in a Western game where everybody had turned into zombies.
• Zombies sometimes seem to spawn out of nowhere, which not only takes about ten years off my lifespan due to fright, but also kind of annoys me. Getting off my steed, for any reason, at any given point in time always seemed like a pretty dumb idea to me, but there are some points in your travels that you don’t really have a choice. Before I would jump to the ground, I’d turn in circles about a thousand times to make sure there was nothing sneaking up on me. But of course, as soon as I hop down to pick my flowers or whatever stupid thing has me getting off my horse, there they are. Creeping up on me trying to gnaw my ears straight off my face.

So by now it is no secret that zombies scare the shit out of me. If, nay, when we get hit by the zombie apocalypse, I have my plan all sorted out… Kind of. Not that it really matters because I’m going to be far too scared for my brain to work anyway. But that’s besides the point. The point is, that zombies terrify me, and yet I kept finding myself coming back to play Undead Nightmare over and over again. Admittedly I only played it for short bursts at a time, but those brief hours (or minutes) were always enjoyable in a cripplingly scary sort of way. Normal people with normal fears probably won’t be nearly as freaked out, but they’ll definitely still be entertained by this interesting add-on to an already awesome game.

Will I still be playing it next week:  Yes, because I'm an idiot. Or really brave. (Probably just an idiot)