#0008 - Red Dead Redemption - 2010 - Multiplatform - Rockstar San Diego - Sandbox

I've always had a big affection for video games set in the Old West. I grew up playing Sunset Riders on my Sega Genesis and I got a big kick out of Red Dead Revolver and Gun for the original Xbox. When Redemption first came out I was pretty pumped but not sure if I wanted to drop $60. So I tried to rent it for a while - I say tried, because not a single place in the city had a copy for about a month after release - and eventually gave up on it. In fact, I'd almost forgotten about the game and had just subconciously written off buying it until it saw a price drop. But then GameStop/EBGames did their Power Hour deal that saw Redemption going for $24, and I had to pull the trigger. An hour of crashed servers and phone calls later, I'd gotten my copy ordered.

It showed up in the mail last week and since then I have cast aside all else. Assassin's Creed II will have to wait, as will Halo: Combat Evolved for the NeoGAF playthrough event. I'm too busy enjoying the game that Gun should have been - the game that takes GTAIV, cleans it up, and sticks it in the American West circa 1910 where it belongs. The stupid dating mechanics and tedium of GTAIV have been cut out, and exponentially huge amounts of options and variety have been stacked onto what Gun started back in 2005. I hear the campaign runs upwards of 30 hours on the short end, and I'm about halfway through, but I feel as if I've seen enough to comment on it.

What has really struck me time and time again in the first half of the game is the way the mechanics allow for emergent gameplay. Rockstar has given the player such a large set of tools/methods of interacting with the game world that it enables near-real-world level decision making possible. For instance: one of the side missions involved an NPC dying in the wilderness and refusing to go back to town. Since she wasn't cooperating - and this was after the mission was done and over - I went back to finish up. Using the lasso and hogtie mechanic I was able to throw her on the back of my horse and take her into town to see a doctor. It wasn't what I was supposed to do, and I don't know if Rockstar had provided for it. But the mechanics were just robust enough that it simply...happened.

Clearly these mechanics are only there because of the stupendous amount of attention to detail in the game. The RAGE engine and the art team have crafted a lovingly meticulous world - but you can see that through any trailer or gameplay clip.

I have two gripes - well, three - that I think would have made the game even better if addressed. First, there's no flexibility in the morality system. Sure, you can do horrible things, but it doesn't really matter. The story and cutscenes are all precanned, so even if you just knifed a whore to death in the street, you're going to talk to the shop owner with the same lines, and he's not going to bat an eye at the body in a pool of blood outside his door. Sure there's bounties and warrants and posses, but I wanted my evil actions to have an effect on the game. They didn't, so I didn't bother straying from the heroic line. Second, I think the wilderness and the sense of space would have been more powerful if there was a way to die of hunger or thirst. Make me gear up before I wander into the bowels of southern Mexico! Lastly, the combat was really easy.

Those things aside, I think we're going to be seeing Red Dead Redemption again at the end of the year on a whole bunch of "Game of the Year" awards. It took them way too long to get it out the door, but Rockstar has presented us with a lovingly detailed, revisionist take on America's favorite era. They've further cemented their position as the world leader in sandbox games, and they make me excited to think what their next-gen products will look like. You know at some point these guys are just going to reach critical mass - the games will be so huge they'll just never come out...