So Rockstar puts us into the wild West in their newest game title, Red Dead Redemption. It is set in the fictional American Old West territory and follows behind the eyes of John Marston, a former outlaw, who tries to save his wife and son, by capturing and killing his former gang members.

Red Dead Redemption’s plot goes out in saying that it’s set in the year 1911, John Marston is taken away from his wife Abigail and his son Jack by government agents, who tell him that they will be returned to him if he hunts down and kills the members of his former gang. Left with no choice, John travels to the county of New Austin to carry out his quest to capture or kill of of his old friends, Bill Williamson, who now runs his own gang of bandits out of Fort Mercer. John confronts Williamson at the fort, only to be shot and left for dead on the road, not before a rancer by the name of Bonnie MacFarlane finds him and brings him to a doctor on her farm to be treated. After John recovers from his wounds several days later, he begins his second quest by repaying back the MacFarlanes for the help.

Red Dead Redemption has incredible gameplay and it will last a very long time. Personally, I’d say that this is a huge improvements over Rockstar’s past video games. Red Dead Redemption gives the player a large, open world environment allowing players to move freely. Players are able to walk on foot, talk shoot, kill, ride, run, interact with the environment, play several games, and more. Different breeds of horses are your main source of transportation. However, swimming is not an option, as John Marston cannot swim and will drown if the player ventures too far into a body of water. The open world environment allows the players to choose how they want to play. Storyline missions are for progress and can be completed at any time, along with side missions and random events that the players will encounter as they explore the West. You can also go as to looping your lasso around horses so you can break them in and have them for purchase at the General Store on your next visit. Hunting is a main project to gain extra loot, because when you kill an animal, you will then be able to skin it, which will give you certain items which you can later sell to the shops in town. There is so much to explore so you will be sure to get a kick out of Red Dead Redemption and it will last on your gaming shelve for a very long time.

Some of these events include public hangings, ambushes, pleas for assistance, stranger encounters, and dangerous animal attacks. Players can take part in optional side activities such as standoffs, gambling, and hunting animals for pelts, claws, meat, and whatever a animal you kill carries. You can then sell these things at stores for profit. Red Dead Redemption makes good use with a morality system where players will have the ability to gain positive or negative honor. Some of the ways of gaining positive honor is to take an outlaw alive instead of killing him, or by saving a kidnapped innocent. Negative honor can be earned by committing crimes including killing and/or robbing civilians. There is also fame, which is another system that shows how people react to you depending on your fame status, along as gaining to items in shops.

Combat and gun blazing are major parts in this game. Gunfights are conducted using a third-person system where the player can take cover, target a specific person, blinefire, and free aim. The players will have access to many different types of weapons throughout their time in the open world of the West. These include but not limited to, revolvers, pistols, rifles, knives, explosives, lassos, mounted gatling guns, shotguns, and cannons.

Red Dead Redemption also has a combat feature called Dead-Eye. Which allows the player to slow down the world to place a precise shot or paint in multiple shots on the body parts of one or multiple enemies. When the targeting sequence ends, the player will fire in extremely quick successions on targeted people, just like the real wild West. If you pre-ordered at Gamestop, you were able to get your hands on the Deadly Assassin outfit, which doubled the recharging time for Dead-Eye.

There are many similar features in Red Dead Redemption as it has been for the Grand Theft Auto series. One feature would be the wanted system. The same wanted system is used in Red Dead Redemption, so when you commit a crime, you will have the posse and local lawmen out to capture you. You have options of paying off witnesses and even surrendering, but most of the time its fun to become the crazy outlaw that you are. Another similar feature would be the use of the in-game mini map and world map. Every storyline mission and side missions show up as letters, just like the past Rockstar games.

As for Downloadable Content (DLC), it was announce that in June 2010, Rockstar will release a free co-op downloadable campaign known as the Outlaws to the End. This DLC will include six new co-op side missions ranging from raiding a mine and stealing gold to riding down a river to secure a town’s weapon cache. This DLC will include new multiplayer rewards and achievements. No word yet on any other future DLCs.

As for multiplayer, there is so much to be done. You can choose to free roam where you are able to take over Gang Hideouts, go hunting, or just do some random shoot-outs, among other things. If free roam isn’t your thing (why else did you get this game?!) take your posse out to some public game type matches, including capture the bag, gold hunt, death-match, and a few others. They’re all very fun and enjoyable to play. Among all of the game types and free roam, you gain experience points (XP) for certain tasks that you complete. These can range from completing challenges, taking over Gang Hideouts, and many other tasks. You can then go over to the Outfitters, from the Multiplayer section of pressing the Start button, to make changes to your online play, such as what horse you will take with you online, what character, what name tags, those sort of things. Once you earn a lot of experience points, you beginning leveling up, and once that begins you start to unlock certain items in the Outfitters. So start your multiplayer gameplay and start ranking up! The multiplayer for Red Dead Redemption is a lot of fun, so it just adds to the replay value that the single player itself has (which can never end). So multiplayer in Red Dead Redemption is no bad turn, it’s the turn for the good!

So with all that in mind, the graphics are simply amazing and are very up to date with the Xbox 360 games of this year (minus Alan Wake). The sounds are very reasonable ranging from wolves howling at night, to birds chirping when flying over head, to cougars growling when fresh meat enters onto their lands. The soundtrack in the game is also very enjoyable and fits the time frame of the game. My personal favorite things to do in Red Dead Redemption is to hunt animals and play either Black Jack or Lair’s Dice. Red Dead Redemption is a must-buy, as you will never want to put it down and if you do decide to, it will always be on your gaming shelf because you will want to play it again, I’m sure of it.

I believe overall this game deserves a 10 out of 10.

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This article was written by Michael Young