Red Dead Redemption
PlayStation 3
Nostalgia Factor:
When I first played Red Dead Redemption back in 2010, my only opinion of the game was that it was kind of like Grand Theft Auto, but in the Old West. I liked the game, but it never really stood out to me as something all that original or different.
I recently played Red Dead 2 back in 2019, and that game made me completely change the way I looked at the Red Dead series. Since that game is a prequel to the original Red Dead, I decided to return to the original game to see how the two tied together.
Story:
The main character of the game is John Marston, a former outlaw who is being forced against his will to take down two of his old associates – Bill Williamson and Javier Escuella. Marston is injured after unsuccessfully trying the direct approach with Williamson, who attacks him and leaves him for dead. Marston is taken in and nursed back to health by a local woman named Bonnie MacFarlane. While he is recovering, Marston helps Bonnie and her family with problems on their ranch.
It is from this ranch that the real game begins. Taking control of John Marston, the whole Old West opens up before you. You can take on missions for characters, gamble, hunt, explore the land, go out and interact with strangers, and do random good deeds for the NPCs that inhabit the world of the game.
Red Dead succeeds in its world building. Sure, you can focus solely on the main missions and finish the main quest in a couple of days, but you’d be missing out on half the fun of this game. Encountering random strangers and experiencing unpredictable Wild West related shenanigans are what really makes this game fun.
If you’ve played Red Dead 2, this game feels a lot like a continuation of that game, even though it was created almost 10 years before it. Really, the writing and storytelling from the Red Dead team is top-notch. The characters feel real, the setting is authentic, and there is just enough emotion packed into the game to make it more than just a “GTA clone.”
Gameplay:
The first thing I noticed while playing this game is just how faster paced it is than Red Dead 2. That game tends to focus more on providing a realistic look at the Old West, to the point where it drags and becomes tiresome in parts. That does not happen here. Everything moves along at a very quick pace. The conversations, the missions, the traveling (you can fast travel at will to almost any location in the game), the combat, heck – even the speed at which your character runs and walks. Everything is faster.
Basic gameplay consists of marking a mission on your map, and riding a horse to the mission marker. Along the way you can encounter random events like NPCs getting attacked by wolves, robbers attacking a caravan, or ambushes from bandits set up on the road. The unpredictability of the events in this game is sure to keep you on your toes.
Missions include everything from herding cattle, breaking horses, robbing trains, pursuing outlaws, collecting bounties, and of course – getting into gunfights. Combat in this game is simple to the point of almost being too easy. All you have to do is draw your gun and it immediately locks on to the nearest enemy. My combat strategy involved locking onto an enemy, shooting once or twice, letting go of the draw button so my character would lower his weapon, and then immediately drawing it again so it would lock onto the next nearest enemy. Rinse and repeat.
This game does have a Dead Eye mode, and I found it to be very helpful. What this mode does is slow everything down so that you can lock onto multiple enemies at the same time. Hit the fire button, and down go your enemies. The game insisted that there was a Dead Eye meter, but if there was one I could never find where on the screen it was located. I tended to simply use the Dead Eye over and over again until I couldn’t anymore. Trust me: you can use it a LOT in this game. I’d clear entire areas before my meter (wherever it was) would run out. Dead Eye mode combined with the game’s auto-lock on aiming meant that I was rarely challenged as I played this game.
My main complaint about the game is the same one that I had the first time I played Red Dead back in 2010: the horseback riding! You spend so much time in this game riding from mission to mission on horseback. It gets real tiresome real quick. Fast travel helps with this, but almost every mission starts with you and another character riding horseback next to each other while you head to the next marker. Again, this gets real old real fast. I mean, after playing Red Dead 2 where you ride on horses for hours at a time, this complaint seems minor. But it is something I have to bring up.
Graphics:
I expected this game to have aged poorly, but to my surprise it did not. I mean, of course it isn’t going to look as good as its next-gen sequel, but you can’t really hold that against it. This game was amazing looking back when it first came out, and as it stands it is still very good looking.
Sound:
Red Dead checks all the boxes for sound quality. Good voice acting, good music (in fact, the music seemed more noticeable to me than Red Dead 2’s actually), good atmospheric sounds effects. When you’re on the MacFarlane ranch for example, you hear horses neighing, cattle mooing, crickets chirping, the wind blowing. It all sounds very real.
Overall:
I wasn’t sure what to expect from this game after playing its sequel, but for the most part it delivers! It’s fast paced, fun, humorous, exciting, while also managing to feel very grounded and realistic at the same time.
I definitely didn’t appreciate this game as much as I should have when I first played it in 2010. This game is much more than just Grand Theft Auto in the Old West. This is a very complex and intricate open world game that was well ahead of its time. There is so much more to do than just ride around and do missions and shoot people. There is a whole world out there for you to explore, full of things to do and people to meet.
I’d definitely recommend this game to anyone willing to give it a try. If you’re worried it will feel like taking too many steps back after playing its groundbreaking sequel, you can stop worrying. This game still holds up. It’s still really good. It also gives you closure on what happens to Marston, his son, and all the other characters that were left standing at the end of Red Dead 2.
As a standalone title, Red Dead Redemption is a great game. Combine it with its sequel and you get something iconic. If I were forced at gunpoint to tell you which game is better, I would begrudgingly give that title to Red Dead 2. I felt more of a bond with Arthur Morgan than I did John Marston, and I don't feel as if this game ever quite hit the same emotional chords as its sequel. But the fact that it comes so close, despite its age, should tell you all you need to know about it.
Final Score:
A-
If you liked this review, please check out some of my other video game reviews:
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