Red Dead Redemption Review

(Xbox, PS3; $59.99; Rated M for Blood/Intense Violence/Nudity/Strong Language/Sexual Content/Use of Drugs; www.rockstargames.com)

(five stars)

For whatever reason, despite the ubiquitous amount of bullets, blood, explosions, action, and adventure that permeates video game consoles these days, one period of history that has seen very little screen time in games is the Wild West.  The amount of games taking place in the dusty, big-sky setting have been few and far between and only a few have had the quality to warrant more than a passing glance.  In terms of capturing the feel of Cowboyism, no game has really been a showpiece...

Until now.

Leave it to Rockstar Games, the infamous developer/publisher of the "Grand Theft Auto" series, to bring their strength at creating huge, realistic, violent, open-world games to the home where the Buffalo roam and the skies are not cloudy all day.  "Red Dead Redemption" is pretty much all that I would hope a Cowboy game would be - a story of a reformed criminal-turned-lone-gunman who reluctantly has to hunt down the gang he used to run with in order to finally free himself and his family from the life he wants to leave behind.

If that sounds cliche, it's likely because "Red Dead Redemption" draws on just about every iconic Western troupe in all it's forms: from Spaghetti Westerns to pulp stories to comics to HBO's "Deadwood." If it has been done successfully somewhere else, it has influenced the direction of "Redemption."  And it is all here too: shoot-outs, posses, prospecting, rough-riding, bear hunting, hold-ups, lassoing, locomotive rooftop chases, and the Wilhelm Scream.

Like all open-world games that were pioneered by Rockstar, "Redemption" follows a series of missions that propel the overall story, while giving the player the freedom to complete side missions for more money or respect, explore the vast expanse of the West to collect items or hunt animals, or to just lose oneself in a back-room game of poker.  Whether a player wants to truly play the role of the reformed criminal, or be the most rootinist, tootinist hombre this side of the Missisip', "Redemption" gives the playground to be either Wyatt Earp, or Billy the Kid.

And it does so in majestic beauty: whereas "Grand Theft Auto IV" focused on urban density and the hard-angled architecture of a bustling metropolis, "Redemption" features the picturesque expanse of the Great West, and the colors that Mother Nature used to paint it.  Full day/night cycles occur in "Redemption" and watching the sunset over an orange-rocked canyon is a technical beauty.

Crossing the prairie or wilderness by horse really gives the sense of expanse in "Redemption's" world, and the solitude that pioneers must have felt when in between towns with nothing but the wolves or the bandits to keep them company.

Mechanically, "Redemption" controls and handles similarly to "GTAIV," which is to say that the gun-fighting and cover-system is satisfactory enough, but really should be overhauled to become more in line with the top third-person action games of the day.

Thankfully, the "Dead Eye" slow-motion effect from the original, related-in-name-only "Red Dead Revolver," carries over to "Redemption," which allows the player more time and precision when trying to make a finesse shot - like shooting the rope of an innocent man who just got "strung up," or taking the knee out of a wanted bandit to collect the "Alive" portion of a "Dead or Alive" reward.

I am also glad that the satire and juvenile humor that features so prevalently in the "Grand Theft Auto" series takes a back-seat in "Redemption." That isn't to say that lewd or adult humor and sexual situations aren't present in "Redemption," after all this is the Wild West and brothels are a way of life, but it is to say that those things aren't the type of things that the protagonist is concerned with and so the player doesn't have to be, either.

Consequently, given the setting, the story, the action, and a multiplayer that is worlds better than anything Rockstar has done before, I'd take "Red Dead Redemption" to "Grand Theft Auto IV" any day.