Console: Xbox 360 / PlayStation 3
Developers: RockStar
Players – Offline: Single Player Online: Up to 16
Set in 1911, in the county of New Austin, Red Dead Redemption is the story of betrayal, deserts, cowboys and rivals. As the player, you take on the role of John Marston, a former renegade and outlaw of the Dutch van der Linde gang. Once famous for his skills in death dealing, John left the gang to start a family and get away from a life of crime. With his life now almost perfect, everything is turned upside down when the government takes his family away from him until he brings a former outlaw and friend to justice.
John travels to New Austin and confronts his old friend Bill Williamson only to be ambushed and gunned down but on his last breath is rescued by a rancher called Bonnie MacFarlane and now John must enlist the aid of some the West’s most colourful and crazy characters if he is ever going to bring Bill down and get back to the life he spent so much time creating.
Red Dead Redemption has two modes of play, online and offline. In offline mode you will progress through the story, pulling off various missions and quests as they come your way. You also have other various challenges to take on including the survivalist, sharpshooter and treasure hunter – you may increase your rank by completing the challenges, you have to do everything from shoot birds out of the sky, skin yourself some grizzlies and follow cryptic clues and dig up some long lost treasure. While playing in offline mode you can also just roam freely around the county and from time to time you will even encounter smaller tasks, rescuing damsels in distress, stopping hijackers and preventing lynch mobs. As well as all that my cowboys and saloon girls, you have to contend with the issue of right and wrong – Red Dead Redemption brings it all back to morality, sure you can burst into the local pub go mental with your shotgun and loot every single corpse but that doesn’t earn you any points with Johnny Law and the big man upstairs. By committing evil acts your honour goes down but by helping your fellow man you gain honour and more importantly discounts!
Online mode has a couple of various features, including the standard death match and capture the flag modes. You are also able to roam freely throughout the world and if the urge arises you can join or form your own posse and together take on other teams, chase down outlaws and create in-game matches, your posse can have up to 8 players at a time.
If you are looking for something that you can complete in a few hours or some mindless action shoot-em up well then Red Dead Redemption… is for you. If on the other hand you are looking to get your teeth into a decent plot, take on various side quests and tackle challenges and clear every single mission so you can brag about your 100% then… Red Dead Redemption… is also for you! There is so much to this game that it caters to all gaming needs. We tried the mission work, played for a good several hours and when we needed to wind down and take a break, rather than stick on something else we just switched to online mode and found ourself a little posse of our own. Red Dead Redemption isn’t perfect, steering a horse (do you say steering for horses?) isn’t easy, the controls can be a little sloppy (just ask the countless citizens we accidentally ran over), your enemies can be a little slow to react (that was kinda useful in our case considering how long it takes us to react) but you can’t ask everything from a game, and you know what, Red Dead has to make no apologies about it because it the game kicks some serious tail.
Rent or Buy: BUY
Gold Stars: 9/10
