By Sam Coles:
Westerns have to be one of my favourite film genres,
but that wasn’t always the case because before this game came out I had no
interest in them. It wasn’t until I picked this game up on day one back in 2010
and burned most of my summer away on it, I fell in love with the genre. After
finishing the game I went through my parent’s film collection and started
watching the Dollars Trilogy which are fantastic with good action and tension
which you can tell Red Dead Redemption took a lot of inspiration from.
You play as John Marston a former outlaw who is
being blackmailed by the Federal government to take down his former gang
members in exchange for his wife and son. You’re sent to New Austin as you’ve
got word that one of you former gang members is held up in an abandon fort.
This turns out to be true and Marston confronts Bill Williamson one of his
former fellow gang members and he is then shot and left for dead in the
wilderness. He’s then rescue and nursed backed to health by a female farmer
named Bonnie, he then repays her by helping out on her homestead. After that he
is back on the hunt for Williamson with the help of a US Marshall named
Johnson. The story goes through many twists and turns with engaging characters
especially John as you see him transition from outlaw, mercenary and loving
father.
This is an open world game where you can explore
small towns interact with the residence or shoot them if you get bored like me.
There are huge wide open plains that you can explore on your horse where you
can find treasure or strangers you can help or kill and rob them. The game does
sprinkle a bit morality because it almost tests you as a person because you
could help this person and get a reward, but you also need money and supplies
it puts you in a tough situation. You can partake in many activities such as
throwing horse shoes, getting drunk, braking in horses, hunting down bounties
and main story quests there is so much content that this game offers.
The visuals what can I say about the graphics?
Considering that this game came out six years ago it still holds up visually
with dust drifting under your feet to horse shoe prints left in the sand when
your horse treads in it. The detail is outstanding with fantastic animation
especially with the horses, I haven’t seen great animations with horses since
this game I do believe that they did motion capture horses in order to make
them look believable with their movement. The sound and music are superb with eerie
music tracks that play as you explore empty deserts and ghosts towns it really
makes you feel isolated as the hot sun shines down on you as you watch your
back when you journey through the wilderness. The sound design with the weapons
is fantastic they really have grunt to them and echo when you fire into the
empty wastes from the sharp and short revolvers to the meaty shotguns which
tears enemies apart.
The only annoyance I have with this game is that the
physics can be a pain when you’re in tight spaces because John has a habit of
getting stuck in door frames or starts mating with a wall.
Red Dead Redemption is a beautiful game utilising a
genre that isn’t used often in video games and I don’t understand why. You can
pick this game up for cheap these days and I would recommend getting the Game
of the Year edition as it comes with the Undead Nightmare expansion.
No comments:
Post a Comment