Just in case you were worried about me blogging about something up to date and cool todays blog post will be a review of a game about one year old that I only just got around to finishing.So let me take you back a couple of months. When it came to doing the obligatory "Best of" list for 2010 many a respected gaming publication placed Red Dead Redemption somewhere dangerously close to the top. Now as many of my more avid readers, stalkers and close friends will know my favourite game of 2010 was (by a fucking lot) Bayonetta, which many "respected gaming publications" put on the lower end of said list. In fact as far as I saw the only gaming media to give the GOTY to Bayonetta was the Australian gaming magazine Hyper, which instantly reminded me why I opt to still buy magazine's when the internet is so convenient and cheap. So kudos to you Hyper, because Red Dead Redemption is most certainly not better than Bayonetta.
Let me get one thing clear from the outset. I liked Red Dead Redemption. Just keep this knowledge nestled safely in the deep recesses of your mind as I go forth and tell you exactly what Rockstar did wrong, because despite the massive list of flaws I found in the game the overall experience was a positive one. So let's assume you are extremely out of touch with mainstream gaming and want to know what Red Dead Redemption, one of the most popular titles of 2010, is about. Well then my cave dwelling friend, RDR is best described as a cowboy game in which you, John Marston, must track down and kill all your old lawbreaking buddies in exchange for your families safe return. That's essentially the entirety of the games plot, which is nice and simple with a clear goal but somehow the game managed to make me forget this along the way. There was a point in the game where John was in Mexico working for both the rebels and the oppressive government at the same time and I had completely forgotten why I was doing any of this stuff. The sincerity of your motivations get blurred and muddled somewhat along the way in this story. In cutscenes John is often seen strongly resisting morally dubious missions and questioning the reliablity and integrity of the people who he sides with but at the end of the day he'd just follow orders like an old sheep, completely shedding all doubts and emotion he'd just expressed. It ironically inhibits the feeling of freedom the game is so desperate to give you through the mutiverse of crappy side games you can partake in like blackjack or wild horse taming. This is because you, as the player, are forced to sit back and watch as your character does something you know is incredibly stupid as you remain powerless to help. This is a character you are supposed to have control of, that's why you're called "the player!"
I felt the story itself, although overall pretty good, was told in completely the wrong order. At the start of the game you're more or less dropped into the middle of some mission and it's not for another hour or so that you start to understand just who the fuck you are and what the fuck you're doing. On the other end of the specra, the last couple of hours of the game drag themselves out unneccessarily long in order to hastily develope some of the main characters before the big climax. This might sound reasonable if your were to look at it purely from the storytelling point of view but this affects gameplay too. Essentially it means that having just spent the majority of the game in epic gunfights you are now forced to play through a rather lengthy sequence of cattle round ups and fetch quests which play out exactly the fucking same as the tedious tutorial missions from the start of the game.
This somewhat roughly brings me to my next topic, the gameplay. At best the gameplay is adequet; you aim your gun at things you want to kill and hide behind things when you don't feel like being shot anymore. At worst the gameplay is somewhat sticky and imprecise. Character movement in general is in desperate need of a complete overhaul. Trying to run between cover or indeed run to a ladder and briskly climb it is almost guaranteed to frustrate you. This is because John's reactions feel quite delayed and navigating him into the exact position in which the game will allow him to climb a ladder or take cover can be incredibly frustrating. This aspect of the gameplay is pretty hard to express with words, but if you've played Grand Theft Auto IV you should know exactly what I mean because RDR plays in exactly the same way. What isn't so hard to explain is the day and night mechanic. You see as you play RDR the time actually passes in the game world as well, albeit considerably faster. During the day the world is your oyster for you to skip gayley through shooting outlaws and looting their bodies. But come nightfall the shops shut and most of the missions become unavailable due to plot important characters being asleep. Fair enough you might think, that's certainly more realistic. But what this means is that the game forces you to find something to do while you wait for the next piece of the story to become available. Yeah that's right, while you kill time playing this game your character kills time waiting for the next job. It's totally meta...in a completely retarded sort of way. Granted, you can skip ahead 6 hours or so if you're in a fairly specific location and the game's in a good mood but sometimes getting to these spots puts you considerably out of your way. It's this stupid situation in which I have to make a big journey out of my way just so I can set up camp, skip ahead to daylight hours and go back to where I was in the first place so I can progress in the story. I suppose this is the games way of encouraging me to participate in all the card games and flower picking I had been ignoring all this time. Which brings me to my final, overall criticism of Red Dead Redemption.
In short, this game is way too big. It's not the healthy, physically fit kind of big that makes ladies weak at the knees. It's a flabby, wheezing kind of big that stands behind you in the line at McDonalds breathing heavily and moistly down your neck whilst you try to ignore it and avoid eye contact. My initial statement still stands, I had fun with Red Dead Redemption but the fun is burried and hidden amoungst the over-reaching ambition to create a game with massive scope. I know a lot of people have trouble understanding why a game giving you more stuff to do is a bad thing so let me put it like this. If I were to stuff an entire box of fine Belgian chocolates into my mouth I wouldn't be enjoying it more than if I'd had just the one. This is because I'd be choking, and the negetive feeling of danger coupled with impending death far outweighs the good feelings of tasting something yummy. For me the fun in Red Dead Redemption was there, but it was definately stuggling to breathe.
P.S. welcome to exam time bitches! I daresay posts will be scarce for the next month or so as I desperately try to get all my course work done. I know you guys will be patient. You'd have to be to stick with this shit regularly.
