Review of Red Dead Redemption(s game world)

The wait I endured for this game was literally staggering. Time seemed to pass at a slightly slower pace during the months leading up to the games release, and when the seven day mark hit I was almost certain time would punk my bitch ass once again. Towards the final day of the countdown the paranoia set in, and I found myself sitting in my closet clutching both a copy of Sam Peckinpah's "The Wild Bunch" and a copy of GUN, furiously smashing the two together whilst reciting every western movie quote i could fathom in a strange and ultimately sad attempt to assimilate the ingredients into the desired product. And then it was May 18th. I put down my crudely sharpened sticks and second-hand copy of the Necronomicon, relearned both the English Language and the exact skills required to operate a Play Station 3, and sat down with my most anticipated game of 2010.


You play as John Marston, a reformed outlaw who doesn't cheat on his wife, despite my many attempts to get him to fucking do so. I don't want to ruin the story, and with that in mind I will give you an incredibly concise description of the twisting and turning snake of a plot that RDR(Red Dead Redemption) possesses. Abridged plot; John Marston did bad things. Now he has to do more bad things. But its for a good reason, so his actions are justified. And maybe you can expect some redeeming, or even some dying. There, now that that's out of the way I can talk about the star of this game.

The star of the game is this shit you see above. All those miles of lonely terrain, lovingly watched over by a sky box that could only have been created by god. But what is a massive world without anything to do? It is less of a game for that reason. If somebody took the awesome linear experience of Resident Evil 4, and then gave you 50 square miles of realistic Spanish terrain with NOTHING TO DO, it would transform the original stellar game into an episode of frustration. Leon S. Kennedy slowly jogs through a dense Spanish forest, and enters more dense forest. That is Far Cry 2 syndrome. Beautiful expansive world with fuck all to do within it besides killing random large animals and black people. Gamers don't like being bored, so the least you can do is either eliminate the boredom, or trick the gamer into thinking they're not bored. What? Oh ya Morrowind isn't boring. There's so much to do in all that space like... fight Mudcrabs! And Netches, Betty Netches, Guars, Cliff Racers and Kwama Foragers! And maybe when you're not constantly fighting these little bastards, you can get your ass chased from Seyda Neen to Balmora by ten fucking Cliff Racers! Gimme a sec to catch my breath... And fall prey to my trained Cliff Racer army!

Red Dead Redemption does not have this issue. Yes the world is giant and foreboding, but there's a beautiful random event system at work ensuring that your trip to McFarlane Ranch is sidetracked by a beautiful young lady. Being chased through the desert by a less beautiful and exponentially more hungry group of coyotes. Or perhaps a man's wife is about to be hung by a murderous gang of ne'er-do-wells. Some moments in the game are as satisfying as can be despite only requiring you to sit and listen to a mans stories at a campfire. It's this organic implementation of events that adds to the immersiveness of Red Dead's game world, and consequently it is the living breathing world Rockstar has created for RDR that makes the game what it is. Red Dead Redemption is an experience, and at this point in time it stands to offer you one of the most beautiful game worlds you can find coupled with perhaps the most intuitive random event management system that i've ever seen. If I can give any advice to you, it is to buy this game if you have the option.