Untitled Western Shooter E3 2005 Preshow Impressions

At today's Sony press conference, one of the videos shown during the PlayStation 3 demo reel was a Western-themed piece featuring the Rockstar games logo. Western? Rockstar? Could it be a new Red Dead Revolver game?

The video opens on a barren desert landscape, with the tiny figures of vultures gliding about in the background. As the video moves along, a ghost town is shown in a fast-motion shot, depicting some highly realistic lighting and shadows. You see the shadows of one of the main buildings in the town quickly fade away, with some really dynamic-looking results. The next shot depicts a shadow of a cowboy riding a horse. The man is riding through the town, and his shadow falls across a building as the camera moves with him. Next, there's a panning shot of the rider, with his head down and his hat covering his face, riding through the main square of the town. In the final scene, the Western-themed music featured within the video climaxes, and we are treated to a shot of the cowboy standing on the edge of a cliff overlooking the town, trench coat waving in the wind, shotgun over his shoulder...

So, what does it all mean? Not a whole lot at the moment. Apart from the fact that Rockstar is making a Western-themed action game, the video really didn't give us much besides a nice sense of atmosphere. It's impossible to tell how much, if any, of the footage is in-engine, so we'll have to take a wait-and-see approach with this one. We'll bring you more on this game as it becomes available.