Red Dead Revolver Updated Impressions

We recently got a chance to check out a near-final version of Rockstar's Red Dead Revolver, so we put the upcoming game through its paces. While we've tried it out on and off since it was first announced, this last tour through the game let us take a peek at main character Red's troubled start in life, in addition to a few other features. The game appears to be shaping up to offer a pretty appealing arcade-style experience.

The first level of the game lets you experience just enough of young Red's happy childhood to know that it's not going to last. The first level of the game offers a brief tutorial that has Red's pa coming home to give him a gun to play with. (Ahh... The good ol' days, huh?) Shortly after the brief primer on the game's controls, the family homestead is raided, and Red is tapped to defend it--along with his pa. As you'd expect, Red is an orphan by the end of the level, and the game is off and rolling. The ensuing levels of the game follow Red as an angry young man, and they continue the tutorial theme by filling you in on the various gameplay types you'll encounter. You'll get a taste of everything, from standard running-and-gunning to quick-draw sequences, where you'll try to get the draw on your foe.

We also had the chance to take a look around Tombstone, which is the town that acts as a hub for players and offers shops to purchase goods from that unlock features in the game. The town is more than just an assortment of shops, though, thanks to the presence of locals who just mill around it. In many ways, the layout and functionality of Tombstone has a lot in common with the typical settlements you'd find in a traditional RPG.

Our last look at the game focused on the multiplayer mode, which lets you take on up to three other players in four-player split-screen combat. While you'll start with a handful of characters, each with unique abilities, you'll eventually unlock a whole slew of folks, which ultimately presents you with a total of 47 playable characters. The mode is fast-paced and plays well.

Red Dead Revolver is slated to ship on the PlayStation 2 and Xbox later this month.