Looking Right Purty There, Darlin’:
I’ve always been one to diss the ragged visuals of GTA games. Yes, the developers get a pass for the level of technical ambition–lots of buildings, people and cars– that they’ve generally tried to execute in those titles. But, there’s been no getting around how butt-ugly some of them have looked. That’s not the case with RDR. The non-playable characters don’t feel as robotic in their body language animations and Marston himself looks grizzled yet approachable. The shiniest polish has been applied to the environments themselves, though. The art direction applied to RDR’s untamed wilderness pulls you into the world. Seeing animals run free among the brush, giant craggy rocks jut out of the ground and ramshackle cabins off the side of a dusty trail helps you understand why the myth of the Old West still fascinates.
Ain’t No Trouble of Yours, Mister:
The quiet and beauty in RDR co-exist with a surprising chaos. When riding into town one time, a gang of men stormed past dragging another wretch behind them on a rope. It all happened so quickly that I barely had time to react. Still, when I got what was happening, I whipped out my six-shooter and shot the bastards down. During another mission, I was negotiating with an old coot for a parcel of land. I didn’t have enough cash to seal the deal and had the option to take it by force. “No one would ever know,” I thought, “and I’d save my money and get some property just by pulling the trigger.” It’s stuff like that in the game really drives home how rough justice was at the turn of the last century.
Yet another undertaking has you hunting for missing loved ones of various townsfolk. They all go the same way: hear their sob story, head out to the missing’s last known position and get some evidence, which usually consists of bones, blood and maybe a shoe. It wasn’t until I remembered a line of dialogue from a distraught husband (“Them rumors was true!”) and stared at the title of the mission (“American Appetites”) that I realized that there were cannibals in them thar hills. That macabre twist illustrates how flexible the RDR world is, that it can hold a mission with a horror-movie twist and more expected stuff like patrolling a ranch at night. Red Dead Redemption differs greatly from Rockstar’s past output: it’s quieter, slower, deeper and wider than anything else they’ve done. Those looking for the cheap thrills of GTA may get turned off. But, Redemption shows that Rockstar’s matured, even if they didn’t necessarily need to.
Official Techland Score: 9.0 out of 10