Red Dead Redemption

System: PS3
IGN Score: 9.7
Release Year: 2010


The wild west and cowboys and Indians not only play a big part in American history but also in our pop culture. However, for whatever reason I have never been terribly interested in this time period of our history. Honestly I am more interested in European civilization, stuff like the crusades and the medieval times. As far as American history is concerned, I am more into 20th century history, with the world wars and space exploration and more modern stuff. Western expansion and Lewis & Clark and Sam Houston and the Alamo are just not my cup of tea. With that being said, I had my eye on Red Dead Redemption for several months before it was released. This is mostly because it is a game made by Rockstar, the same company responsible for the Grand Theft Auto games. The video game industry has made few attempts at portraying this time period and most of these games haven't been too good. The Grand Theft Auto games are so darn good, I knew if anyone could make a good western game it would be Rockstar. I was wrong about one thing - this game isn't good, it is fantastic.

I almost didn't buy this game. In the days leading up to its release, I told myself I wasn't going to get it unless it had great ratings. Then IGN gave it a 9.7. Then X-play gave it a 5/5. Then Kevin Pereira raved about it on AOTS. The final straw was when my brother told me how good it was, I decided to take the plunge. I have a fair amount of free time right now anyway so it was a good time to play.

I was not disappointed. I was actually a little shocked at how well I enjoyed this game. John Marston, the main protagonist, is a bad ass from the moment he is introduced. He reminds me a lot of Tommy Vercetti from Vice City with the way he handles himself. John is a former outlaw turned family man after his gang left him for dead during one of their raids. We first meet John on a train on his way to the western city of Armadillo. Government agents have taken his wife and son hostage and in order for John to save his family he must capture his former gang leader Bill Williamson, dead or alive. You meet Bill early in the game, but you quickly learn that capturing him is going to be much more difficult than imagined. What ensues is a wild chase through a huge map of western United States, where you meet tons of interesting characters who help you on your way. You eventually make your way into Mexico where you take part in battles from the 1910 Mexican Revolution, both on the army and rebel side. If you make it through the game you eventually return to the large eastern city of Blackwater (they actually have paved roads there!) after capturing the former gang members. You retire with your wife and son to your ranch northwest of the city to live as a rancher. What happens next is a little surprising and unexpected so I won't go into it, but this is the basic premise of the game.

Yes, this game is basically a Grand Theft Auto game with a different setting, but Rockstar did this western so, so well. The map is huge, similar to San Andreas. The characters and voice acting are excellent. The characters you meet along the way are interesting and all of the little towns are unique and interesting as well. The gunfights are awesome, including the dead eye feature where time temporarily slows down allowing John to shoot multiple things in a quick time span. It sounded dumb to me on paper but in practice it is awesome. You gain fame as you make it through the game and pretty soon people will call out your name asking for help for various stuff, usually when they have something stolen from them. You can choose to help them or not - it's up to you. If you do something illegal, a bounty will be placed on your head and the locals will come after you. You participate in horse and carriage races. You hunt all types of animals, and sometimes they hunt you back. Everything about this game is done so well, it is one of the few games I have ever played where I am not ready to put the controller down and move on once I finished. I don't want this experience to end. I am actually going around and doing the side missions on this game, something rare for me. Currently I am on a quest to find a white stallion, which I must return to a Mexican farm owner in return for the freedom of a Chinese peasant who works on his farm. This has nothing to do with the main story, I just happened to run into these characters in one of the villages I was visiting and decided to help this Chinese man out because I am a nice guy. You don't have to help him, it is totally up to you. And you run into stuff like this all of the time.

I said everything about this game is done so well, but that is kind of a lie. First the small things that bother me about this game. The stages are pretty repetitive. It seems like you do the same stage over and over again for about 80% of the game. Some of the stages are unique but you spend a lot of time fighting villages filled with outlaws. This really is pretty minor as the gunfights are so fun that I don't get tired of doing them. Also there are some graphics hiccups I will call them, but you come across them pretty infrequently and otherwise the game and environments look amazing so this too is pretty minor. However, the major, major issue this game has is that it is buggy as hell. Every review you read mentions this and everyone I've talked to who has played the game has encountered problems. If you play this game long enough, your system will freeze on you. There is no avoiding it. During the course of my game, my system locked up approximately 6 times, including 4 or 5 during the exact same cut scene. I actually thought I was going to have to quit the game because I could not get the game to advance past this cut scene. I kept playing, and it kept locking up. This is all pretty surprising to me. You don't see stuff like this in games all that often, especially not on console games from major game developers. Especially not in games that are ranked 9.7. With the problem so widely reported, I really don't know how this got past their quality control measures before game release.

Despite the bugs, this game is fantastic and I would recommend it to all PS3 owners, especially if you liked Grand Theft Auto (who doesn't?). The game play is great, the sound is great, the characters and environments are great, everything about this game minus the lock-ups are great. The main story takes around 20 hours to complete, and of interest is that I think this game has a high replay value, something Heavy Rain did not feature, so you will get a lot of play for your buck with this one. Play this game. You won't be disappointed.