14 DAY TRIAL // 
If there's one thing I deeply hate in Red Dead Redemption, it is the dark. Consider that in the first decade of the XX century, there was precious little public lightning in the West and not even the East Coast did much better.
When it’s dark, wolves have a way of getting close fast and nipping at my heels while posses of outlaws tend to ride through the quiet towns, shooting wildly and lassoing anyone who gets in their way behind a horse until they no longer move or breathe. Night is a trying time in the West, best spent, even by the most experienced Red Dead Redemption player, in the comfort of a rented bed.
The feeling of dread you get once the sun begins to dim is a testament to the care Rockstar took to create a believable world in their most recent open world game. In many ways, it is a better experience than any of the Grand Theft Auto games. Liberty City offered streets, carjacking, complex characters, some silly missions and grand set pieces.
Red Dead Redemption replaces the streets with open vistas, keeps the characterization for supporting cast, throws in some human warmth and a main protagonist who is actually likeable and infuses it all with both the beauty of the West and the freedom it allows as the frontier and the ruthlessness that made life there short and often miserable.
Story
John Marston is quite a likeable character. He shoots people and even loots their dead bodies for currency but, deep inside, he is just searching for a way out of the rat race of the Wild West, for a way to reunite with his son and wife in order to live out the rest of his days doing ultimately boring things like riding around and herding cattle. The entire game is infused with a frontier spirit, which emphasizes self-reliance and freedom, and tends to see any authority, be it coming from marauding gang members or the Federal government, as ultimately threatening and a reason for resistance.
In order for John to succeed, he needs to find and take down old gang members. To get to them, he requires the assistance of a very diverse cast of characters, including an old sheriff, Bonnie (the best built female character in a Rockstar game), a drunk weapons dealer, an old grave robber, Mexican revolutionaries and colonels, old capable gun fighters and more. Most of the characters have soul even if they play small parts and the developers are quite fond of introducing long back stories and commentaries about the game world while the main protagonist and others ride along dusty trails for what can feel like a long time. The dialog can be interesting but there are times when it feels like too long, an excuse for not using the fast travel system. There's also a section of the story set in Mexico too long for its own good, the characters being closer to cartoons than real people.
There are very nice emotional scenes toward the end of the game, where the ranching staff available at the beginning of the experience makes a return and where the game actually managed to trick me that it was ending on a high note, with Marston finding the peace that he had been looking for since we first met him. It all comes crashing down a short while after, but Rockstar manages to infuse more emotion in those scenes than it does in all the Grand Theft Auto up until now. There's sadness at the end that can make it really difficult to return to the game and which will probably color how every player will look at the Western setting from now on.
Gameplay
Most of the time a player spends in the Wild West will be used for two actions: riding and shooting. Sometimes, the two actions will be combined and drive by shooting will take place. Other times, races will break the monotony. Cutscenes will be played to advance the story and establish the tone of the story and the way other people you meet behave. It's pretty standard for open world action titles, whether set in Liberty City or in the American West. As always, Rockstar succeeds in impressing with the range of activities the player can tackle but some of them could use another layer of polish when it comes to how they actually play out.
Riding is simple and engaging, although moving the horse around at low speeds in close quarters can be tricky. Lassoing animals and people needs a bit of practice but can be pulled off beautifully afterwards (learn to use it on Wanted targets to get more money). Shooting and taking cover is fairly easy, although the rocks in the desert tend to leave Marston much too exposed for my liking. There are problems with some of the minigames, the card games taking far too long in order to get the full experience and five-finger fillers being hard to get right. At times, the game makes it hard to tell friends from enemies and I have been wanted for shooting the wrong people without actually wishing to do it. As the game progresses and the fights toughen out, use of the Dead Eye system, which is kind of a bullet time for the West, becomes more important but there's no point where the battles seem too hard to handle.
The only activity that quickly becomes repetitive is riding your horse, especially when you need to escort a vehicle, be it train or carriage. There's a Mexican-themed mission that I failed more than any other in the game because of the physics of driving a buggy. Shooting while moving can also be a bit of an issue. Herding is one of the most annoying activities ever to be thought up by a game designer and buggy and horse races are not fun in any way. Still, the world is big, interesting, littered with random encounters and side quests, enough to keep a gamer occupied for a good 40 hours.
Graphics and audio Red Dead Redemption manages to use the videogame medium to revive the looks we know from old Western movies and which, as kids, we all imagined while playing with Indians, outlaws and sheriffs. Tearing down the blocks of Liberty City and moving the action back to a time when seeing the horizon from horseback was not a rare occurrence allows Rockstar to build some very impressive vistas. The towns are less appealing, small and sometimes lacking any sort of interesting detail and most scattered structures that the player comes upon are nearly interchangeable. The characters also look well built and real life-like but their movements can be weird at times. Riding horses is especially filled with graphical issues, from necks going through walls to glitches when jumping over obstacles.
The audio is on par, voice acting providing a sense of how the character sees the world around them, although some of the accents that are used for more comedic effects can be painful to hear. The Western style is also used in the soundtrack but I suggest finding your own classic songs from movies and blasting them while shooting outlaws. Anything made by Ennio Morricone will probably work beautifully.
Multiplayer
Rockstar seems to be pretty interested in offering Red Dead Redemption a life beyond the single player campaign, as long and engaging as it can be. There are both competitive and cooperative modes that can be enjoyed and more content, initially in the form of cooperative missions, is promised soon.
One clever bit is how the game takes the player into the competitive modes. Players start in a Mexican stand off, everyone targeting everyone, or in a team battle and the survivors are able to then fight the ones who go down first until everyone gets at least one bullet. Then, Red Dead Redemption moves to the actual game mode that was selected, the simple Shootout being the most engaging of them. Free Roam and assaults on gang hideouts are also interesting, especially for those who want to do the activities with a posse of their friends.
Rockstar has built a rank advancement system into the multiplayer section of the game, with challenges and kills counting towards experience and with unlocks for those who advance. Once Level 50 is reached, the player can go back to one in order to be known as a Legend in the game world. The entire concept is interesting at first but Rockstar will need to deliver missions and new modes in order to keep potential gunslingers interested in the long term.
In order for the player to enjoy the game, they need to love either the Western setting or the way Rockstar creates open worlds. It also requires patience, especially in the first few hours, and perseverance when the narrative starts to drag out a bit later on. The Western genre seems to be dead when it comes to movies. Let's hope that someone takes a look at this title and this is not the last attempt to translate it into the realm of videogames.
The Good
The Bad
Conclusion
