Difficulty:

Just Right

Time Spent:

20 to 40 Hours

The Bottom Line:

"Almost, but not quite"

So once again, in my unfortunate quest to be behind in the world of gaming, I just now got around to playing something that was talked about constantly a year ago. That game would be 'Red Dead Redemption', a western style action-adventure about a former outlaw forced to track down and kill his former friends by government officials who have taken his wife and son. Now that all the hype has died down...along with the price, I decided to pick it up last week.

Going into it I pretty much expected 'Grand Theft Auto: Wild Wild West Edition' and in many ways that is what I got. With its beautiful and expansive world with such great scenery and and ability to travel across the open plans of the west, while also shooting and stealing ca...wagons made it at times a real treat. But as much as I loved those aspects of it they just weren't enough.

The two biggest issues I had were as follows. First would be the lack of any sort of consequences to your actions within the game. Pretty much the only time when something you do effects game play is if you kill someone and are then chased by the law, fun but easy to escape. I personally would have preferred a much greater level of complexity to the story and control over the decisions your character makes. Like when you fight with the rebels and the army in Mexico towards the middle of the game, it would have been better if you could chose a side and which ever you helped would be the victors and drastically change the outcome of that area of the map. I also would have liked smaller decisions available like greater custom choices, the ability to form your own posse and the ability to stage crazy bank robberies. I mean what was there to do outside of the story? Hunt, which got old fast. Play card games which also weren't very satisfying. Kill people? Again, gets old. And a few other things. Given the subject matter, there was just so much opportunity to mix the sandbox world with an RPG-like ability to customize more, have more mini-games, end game consequences, etc....maybe it is just the Bioware fan of me speaking when I say that...please don't be hatin.

The second big issue I had was with the main character. I realize many people seem to really like him but I could not stand him and his warped moral code/personality/double standards. The way he was just so passive about things annoyed the hell out of me. I understand his reluctance to do anything that would jeopardize his chances of helping his wife and son, but having not really known them or knowing anything about his relationship with them I didn't really see why I (the person controlling, playing him) should want to fight to save them. When he got to points in the game when he was helping a group of soldiers kill rebels one minute, then the next minute going and helping the rebels all the while talking about how he didn't care who won and that neither side knew what was good or bad was just ridiculous. I'm sorry John, but the group raping women and killing children are clearly the bad guys, but if you don't want to help them then I really don't care about your stupid wife and child...this issue was just more of a personal thing, most probably looked past it and went with the narrative of the story, but I couldn't help but hate how it progressed and how John handled it all.

Outside of those two things it was fun and the ending was fantastic. Visually it was one of the more beautiful games I have ever played. When it was all over though I definitely regretting having not waited for the price to drop even lower. It is nothing that I would really play through again because of the lack of really anything to do outside of the story and because without any multiple consequences and different outcomes to plot lines (especially end game stuff) then the first play through of the story was good enough.

So in the end, if you like this style of game and if you like the western genre then it is a buy. For anyone else it is surely worth a rental and at least one play through.