Posts
'Hype' is a word that dominates the game industry and few games have generated so much of it in recent memory as the latest offering from Free-Roam innovators and creators of the GTA series, Rockstar Games. With Red Dead Redemption, the team attempts to bring the thrill of the great Westerns to your living room/bedroom/wherever you happen to stash your console. This is The Good, The Bad and The Ugly and you're The Man With No Name. Well, that's not strictly true, you're John Marston, reformed outlaw attempting to bring his former brother in arms to justice.
The opening cinematic and the mission that follows is worthy of any Western and sets the scene wonderfully. In Exodus in America, Marston arrives in Blackwater on a steamer as melancholic minor chords play out the dying heartbeat of the West and dramatic guitar stings build the tension. A Ford Model T is lowered from the boat by crane and Marston, accompanied by two agents from 'The Bureau' strolls to the station, past streetlights and shop fronts. This is 1911. This is the swansong of the West. This is Red Dead Redemption.
Needless to say, there are plenty of stylistic nods to the greats. The slow-motion 'Dead-Eye' (one of the very few elements retained from its 2003 predecessor 'Red Dead Revolver') gives a Peckinpah-like quality as stylised viscera bursts forth from whichever fools were unlucky enough to cross John Marston, Bill Elm and Woody Jackson do their very best impression of Morricone for the game's excellent original score and the duels and cinematics could be straight from Leone's Spaghetti Westerns. That said, one comparison that I haven't seen drawn so often is with John Ford. Ford understood that it was the West itself that was the star of any picture. When riding on one of the game's specially mo-capped horses to a location like Manteca Falls, one gets the breathtaking, awe-inspiring views that Ford so loved. Every time you decide to break from the trails and have a look around you'll find another picturesque spot. From Ojo del Diablo to Tall Trees, each location could be straight from an Ansel Adams book. In the way that Adams' photography made me hunger for the dusty trails and the whitewashed missions, so Red Dead Redemption's sumptuous landscapes make me wish the scrub of New Austin and the rocks of Nuevo Paraiso were real.
Graphically it is stunning, no doubt about it. The character models themselves suffer a little in comparison to those in exclusive titles such as Uncharted 2 and God of War III but are raised enough from GTA to keep us satisfied. The gunplay is weighty enough to give a sheen of authenticity without hampering its enjoyability, although this leads me to another point. One of the things that sets Rockstar titles apart from the rest of the sandbox market is its dedication to the creation of a fully fleshed-out world. RDR's world is one in which wolves and coyotes howl at night, scampering along the road looking for unwary travellers, in which men bump into each other in the street and a heated exchange follows and in which you're called out in the street to face the challenge of any two-bit bandit who wants you to make 'em famous. You don't have to follow Marston's plotline. Instead you can hunt game for meat and pelts, gamble in a number of inventive and original ways, all with fairly intuitive controls, hunt for treasure or simply explore the vast landscape.
It's the polished free-roam experience that is the Rockstar trademark, I remember purchasing GTAIV and completing the nannying introductory missions and watching the in-game TV channel for a good half an hour, it was that good. Similarly in RDR I played Horseshoes against a ranch-hand for a good 20 minutes and was rewarded with $2. I was ecstatic. Similarly, Rockstar always delivers a cast of colourful characters, here we have everyone from reluctant US Marshal Leigh Johnson to hard-drinking stereotype Irish, via Snake-Oil hucksters, retired gunfighters, shady government agents, feminists and revolutionaries. The script has some clever exchanges and witty dialogue though can on occasion appear a little bloated. It's not Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, but it's pretty good.
In a game like this it is about providing an experience, wish fulfillment, if you will. It certainly fulfilled my wishes. When it hit me was in a mission in the first area which, not to give too much away, involves the use of a gatling gun in a fort. In that moment I was Pike from The Wild Bunch. In fact The Wild Bunch is another excellent point of reference for this game and shares a number of characteristics, not least timeframe but also weaponry and personnel (you'll see what I mean when you reach Mexico).
All in all the experience is nothing short of epic. In fact, it delivers the definitive Western gaming experience and raises the bar for open-world games yet further. Terrific.
No comments:
Post a Comment