The best western since Lonesome Dove.
Red Dead Redemption is about three things - blood, death, and ultimately, redemption. This game is simultaneously my favorite Western, and my favorite single player video game. The cast is incredible, the gameplay is incredible, the soundtrack is unbelievable... this game truly is perfect.
The technical presentation starts off shady. The game starts off in a western Texas-like ranch, with some cattle and a few farm hands, and gradually works itself outward from that point, to the North to a Louisiana like area and a New England like area, and the south to Mexico. The rendering in "New Austin", AKA Texas, isn't very impressive, but it's doable. Moving northwards, the graphics are pristine, on par with Uncharted 2. Moving south, the graphics stay the same, but the audio becomes truly dazzling.
Going into Mexico for the first time, you'll be traveling across the entire New Austin/Texas border, about two miles. It's night time, and a song written by a young man named Jose Gonzales comes on. The song is completely Acoustic, with rich, Hispanic vocals. The sheer beauty of it all caused me to shed a tear. The graphics were gorgeous, the sound was gorgeous, and I was completely lost in the story of Red Dead. From that point on, I was hooked. I spent 10 hours over the next two days finishing the story off, and it only got better. Moving up north, there are gorgeously animated animals, from grizzly bears to beavers to bison to hogs. All of them are rendered using Euphoria, the same technology used for James Cameron's Avatar. As such, they are virtually flawless. Technically, Red Dead Redemption is the Avatar of video games. Absolutely gorgeous.
The storyline starts off slowly, and hastily picks up speed. I can't give up too much, but it is very good. I couldn't help but picture Jeremiah Johnson, Lonesome Dove, Clint Eastwood's bounty hunter movies, and some classic John Wayne here and there. The story is fantastic: as immersive as Lonesome Dove, as emotionally invested as Jeremiah Johnson, and as brutal and gritty as a Clint Eastwood film. Yet, there is redemption, a bit of classic John Wayne. The story had be choked up at four different times - when the main character is killed, when the main character is coming back to his family, when the main character is riding across the Mexican desert, and when the villain dies (who you actually come to love, after a while).
Moving along, the combat system is fluid once you get used to it. It took me a few hours to truly get the hang of it, but I was taking on groups of robbers with no problem.
The final component of the game is the multiplayer, which I found disappointing. I just chose not to play it. However, I got enough joy out of the single player to be happy with laying down $60. You need to go out and buy it if you haven't. The singleplayer is about 20-25 hours long, which is a solid length for a single player story. Just be warned - you will shed tears, you will lose sleep. But it's worth it.