Red Dead Redemption has been out since May 2010. I finished it about a week after its release, and I've yet to play a game quite like it or quite so wonderfully executed since then. Before I go into an analysis of the game, I have to urge anybody who has not played Red Dead Redemption and is capable of doing so to remedy that and do so as soon as possible. The following will only contain establishing story spoilers, but if you haven't played yet you should go procure a copy right now.
I have only one criticism of Read Dead Redemption, and this is that it took me a while to become accustomed to its controls. Over the dozens of hours that the game carried me through, this is honestly my only complaint, and it was only a nuisance for a few hours.
So, why do I feel that Red Dead Redemption was and still is the greatest game I've played in a long while? As should always be, the story comes first. John Marston is a man who wants to leave his past life of crime behind him. But his past chases him, and the story quickly turns towards forcing him to confront that past and become part of it again. The plot of Red Dead Redemption is the most perfectly-executed I've seen in a video game. I know that this feels like a classic story set-up, but it's asking a very relevant question: can we escape the sins of our pasts by repeating them with a different intent?
Helping that plot along are the stories that the world itself tells you. Red Dead Redemption felt and still feels more alive than any digital world I've ever explored, and its characters are broken. During the course of the game you'll come across men trying to murder hookers, thieves making off with horses, lost souls wandering through the desert, men driven to grief by death, and so much more. Red Dead takes place during the end of the Wild West, when modern society is coming to tame the wilderness and the exploitative nature of modern industriousness is ravaging that wilderness. The world that you'll ride through as John Marston is an incredibly racist, sexist, drug-addled, violent, and generally messed-up setting. If you can imagine a sin, it's probably present within Red Dead's characters. There is a great deal going on, and you're not nearly the center of it all. Nor are you the worst of men or the best. You are just one sinner in a living world of sinners, and you're trying to escape those sins unscathed that you might care for your wife and child.
Red Dead Redemption is also a visual wonder. In a game that is so heavily dependent on its living world, that world's visual representation is incredibly important. If you drove out to the Mojave and spent a day exploring (safely, of course... watch out fo mojave greens and cougars), you'd get a good picture of what Red Dead's deserts looks like, because Red Dead's deserts are the most real I've seen in a game. They're barren things in regards to humanity, full of brush and dust and tenacious life. That's not to say that they are photo-realistic, as Red Dead certainly has a solid art style, but within that art style these are the most beautiful and impressive deserts I've explored digitally. In a game that is so heavily dependent on its living world, that world's visual representation is incredibly important. As you travel abroad you run into new scenery, and it's executed just as beautifully as the game's deserts. The characters within the world also look great, whether animal or human. Models are detailed and wonderful, while animations are varied and smooth besides the occasional odd collision, which are apparently inevitable in open-world games.
The game sounds beautiful and alive. Conversations happen without you. Screams of terror and pain sometimes echo across the plains as you ride, and much of the time you'll never figure out whose they were or why they rang out. I dont have an impressive subwoofer, but it works fine, and the first time a thunderstorm rolled through the desert I rode in awe of the way visuals and audio combined to immerse me in that storm. Thunderstorms are still a wonder to behold when I boot the game back up. Much like the characters and the visuals of Red Dead Redemption, the audio helps make its world a living world. Voice acting also keeps to a standard of high quality and realism. Even the conversations that happen on their own sound wonderful and true to life. Music is also beautiful, if more eclectic in range. Of particular note is the track Far Away by Jose Gonzalez, which plays during a particular moment in the game and makes that moment one of its most memorable and beautiful.
Red Dead Redemption is also full of content. I have played the game for over a hundred hours and have yet to find nearly everything there is to find. While much of the game takes place in the desert, that desert is full of secrets and stories. So at current price of $20-$30 you're easily getting your money's worth.
I know that reviews of this game have been floating around for the last two years and many of you have probably already played the game. I'm writing this in the hope that anybody who hasn't yet will do so. Red Dead Redemption is, at the very least, a phenomenal video game, and is definitely worth your time and money. I could not and would not recommend any modern video game more than this one.
If you're not tired of zombies, I'd also highly recommend picking up the Undead Nightmare DLC once you've finished the main game. Rather than adding content to the game's story, Undead Nightmare has its own lengthy story and re-casts the world as a B-movie zombie horror, and it works wonderfully. It's particularly nice for Halloween, but really is fantastic any time you feel like playing Wild West zombies.
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