Red Dead Redemption Review
Come to the lawless West as John Marston, a man with a shadowy pasted that has been sent by the government, well more like forced, to go find an old riding partner of yours. Right off the bat you'll see how much that partner of your's likes you and there is where the story begins. You'll have to take on a mountain of quests to get what you want, to get back to your "friend". There is a lot of desert to explore, and many hidden quests to discover.
Graphically this game is top notch right in line with the latest Grand Theft Auto. The character design doesn't make anyone overly attractive looking but definitely gets the grit of the west down to a tee. One thing that I have to say that I was impressed with was the feel that you could see from miles around, and the graphics really didn't show that big of a letdown. There are way too many games that try to get away with it, but this game did it right.
The must feels like its a compilation of a ton of old western tunes with a little bit of updating. Its definitely something that doesn't intrude upon your experience, but gives the game some spice. Then there's the voices, and I have to say that I was very impressed that there was voices for basically everything, be it random people you accidentally stumble into or the sounds of animals running around or screaming their last breath.
The controls at first seemed completely solid, but I did notice that there were some times later in the game when I'm trying to make sure I have a gun, and I select it from the radial display where that gun wasn't selected and I ended up having to start over again and hoping that this time around the game would see that I don't want to bare knuckle fight and I actually want a gun while riding in a wagon.
This was a very ambitious game, and for those who don't know this game was also declared game of the year at the VGA (Video Game Awards). To be completely honest this is Grand Theft Auto in the west. Instead of cars you have horses, buggies, and wagons. You can be a complete ass and be constantly hunted or you can save the lands with the power of your guns. You'll have this interesting ability called Dead Eye which slows everything down and allows you to aim your gun and go for multiple shots on a moving target. I do have a word of caution you'll get to a point in the game where it will no longer automatically pick the shots you'll have to do that yourself.
There is a lot to this game, especially when it comes to story, or at least that's what it looks like on first glance. What it really boils down to is a lot of filler, and a story that gets drown from time to time with the amount of twists that the developers felt needed to be thrown in there. Yes I liked early on that I was hunting wild animals and taking on random quests but when you get to a certain part in the game you kind of just want to finish it, and the carrot on a stick routine becomes plain as day, and I found it beyond frustrating. Once it was done one too many times I found myself trying to find loopholes. I skipped entire cutscenes because I didn't care any more I just wanted to find the man I came there to find. At the end of missions when I needed to go to the next place to get a quest you could find me running for the nearest cliff and taking a swan dive so that I could respawn in a safe house closer to where I need to go next.
This game has a lot of power behind it, and I can see that there's a lot to like in this game, but if there could have been a way to peel off a good chunk of the filler and fluff, this game would have been amazing. There's also the fact that some of the twists that are thrown at you, if you're paying attention, can be figured out about 4 quests before it comes.
Red Dead Redemption might be the Game of the Year, but personally I don't think it completely matches up with the high expectations that a title like that gives a game. This game gets an 8.1 out of 10.
