Not only is Red Dead Redemption the best wild west themed game, it could very well be the best game you'll ever play.
RDR takes place in 1911. John Marston, a former outlaw is givin' an ultimatum: hunt down and find 2 outlaws -- who are actually his former friends Bill Williamson and Javier Escuella -- and you'll get your family back who is being held in captivity. That's the main objective of the game. However, there's so much to do in RDR that it might take you anywhere between 20 to 50 hours to finally see the end credits. Hunting bounties, doing jobs for your friends, traveling from town to town, random strangers in need of assistance and even hunting can easily side track you from finishing the game. Hell, there's so much stuff that you can do in RDR that trying to list all of them would take a month to do. The gameplay/gunplay is very well done. Shooting from a horse or wagon is no different than shooting on foot. And the Dead Eye mechanic is totally bad-ass, especially in dueling. There are still similarities to the GTA series like the minimap and some controls, but RDR's story has alot more morals to it and paints John Marston as a good guy. RDR's story is excellent, telling a tale of a man struggling to bury his dark past, once and for all and save his family. The voice-acting and cinematic cutscenes do a fantastic job to tell the story to you, where it can be irritating for JM to bend over backwards and do the dirty work for just about everyone he meets. I will admit, the graphics in RDR are probably the best a game can offer to you. Sure, Resident Evil 5 and Battlefield: Bad Company 2 have excellent graphics as well, but RDR has graphics that are even better than those two put together. Oh, and don't forget the awesome multiplayer.
While you might of thought of Red Dead Redemption as "Grand Theft Auto with horses", just as I did, rest assured, RDR provides an experience like no other. With so much to do in the game (and most of the activites in the game fun), you might spend a lifetime trying to finish Red Dead Redemption. Easily challenges Mass Effect 2 for GOTY 2010. Not only is Red Dead Redemption the best wild west themed game, it could very well be the best game you'll ever play.