Red Dead Redemption

So in my previous blog post I mentioned that one of the reasons I’d been away from my blog for so long was that I had too many other things going on in my life. Well, one of those things (which has sucked up hours and hours of my life) is the video game Red Dead Redemption. This has to be one of the most engrossing and fun games I’ve ever played (a close second would be Borderlands, which is just way more fun than any game has a right to be). Red Dead Redemption (referred to hereafter as RDR for brevity’s sake) is based on the Grand Theft Auto game engine (and made by Rockstar Games, the same creative minds behind the GTA games), so if you’ve ever played any Grand Theft Auto, you’ll have a good idea as to the basic gameplay. The big difference, of course, is that RDR takes place in the Wild West instead of the gritty streets of modern America.

This western setting is a big part of what drew me to this game over the GTA series (which I would like to play at some point, but I’m not as excited to play them as I was RDR). One interesting twist that I hadn’t expected when I first bought the game – it actually takes place in 1911, so it’s a much later western era than I had expected (which is one of the themes of the story – the idea that modern technology/society is bringing the days of the “wild west” to an end).

Here’s the background of the story – you play John Marsten, a former outlaw who walked away from his gang after they left him for dead. He got married, had a son, and started a new life for himself with a small ranch. But his past has come back to haunt him – government agents are holding his family hostage, and will release them on one condition – John must hunt down and kill the three members of his former gang.

We begin our adventure in the territory of New Austin, which is basically a southern US desert environment similar to Texas or New Mexico. In the opening scenes of the game, you are shown the location of one of the men you are supposed to kill – he and his new gang have taken over an abandoned Army fort. His men shoot you, leaving you seriously injured, but you are rescued by a woman named Bonnie who runs a ranch in the area with her father. Your first goal of the game (well, as far as the main storyline of the game anyways) is to figure out how you’re going to get into the fort so you can kill your former friend.

Unlike most games of this sort, which generally feature a linear storyline that you move through with very little deviation, RDR features an open-world concept (inherited from the Grand Theft Auto games) which is pretty unique to Rockstar Games. While I don’t have enough experience with other companies’ games to make a definitive statement, from various reviews I’ve read and comments I’ve gotten from more die-hard gamers than myself, no other company has come close to duplicating the open environment that you find in GTA and RDR.

And so, instead of moving directly from one story point to the next, what you have here is an open map that you can explore at your leisure. And what an amazing map it is! The graphics are fantastic (I was surprised at how much fun I had just riding my horse, randomly exploring the landscape and enjoying the view). But more importantly, the game is rich in gameplay opportunities completely separate from the main storyline. There are all sorts of animals you can hunt and plants you can pick (and there are specific tasks to accomplish that allow you to move up through ten levels of such skills as hunting, survival, and sharpshooting). There is also a “treasure hunter” skill that you advance through by tracking down hidden treasures throughout the map (at each treasure location you find a cache of gold, and a map giving hints to the location of the next treasure).

You can take bounties in town, and then go track down the criminal on the bounty and either kill him or lasso him, hogtie him, and bring him back to the sheriff’s office (you get more money for bringing them back alive). And there are all kinds of people that you’ll encounter as you travel around. Most of them will ignore you as they go about their business, but often they will interact with you in various “world events” (as the game calls them). These are usually quick, simple encounters, such as someone who’s just been robbed, and wants you to chase down the thief and return whatever was stolen (usually their horse or wagon), or saving someone from bandits, or from a pack of wolves. Another common encounter features someone coming up to you asking for help, but then pulling you off your horse and trying to steal it (an obvious nod to the car-jacking that is such a core part of GTA).

Last time I checked my stats, I want to say I’d encountered almost three dozen unique world events (and a total of several hundred world events – most of the events are encountered numerous, numerous times over the course of the game). However, nothing says you have to complete these events, so if someone challenges you to a duel, or tells you his buddy is about to be hanged and he needs your help, and you’re headed in the opposite direction, or in the middle of trying to do something else (or you’ve simply run into that event enough times you have no interest in spending time on it), you are free to just ignore them and continue on with what you were doing.

The game also features longer, more involved side missions called “stranger missions”. These involve more time and effort than the simple “world events”. They also really showcase both the brilliant writing of the game, and the wicked (and very warped) sense of humor of the writers. For example (spoiler alert – skip this and the next paragraph if you’re planning on playing through the game and don’t want to read specifics on the stranger missions), in one mission you meet an old man who asks if you can help him gather flowers for a bouquet for his wife. You then get a mission to gather a certain number of three different types of plants (which are scattered across the map, so there’s a fair bit of travel involved in gathering them all. But that is one of the great parts of the game – nothing says you have to complete the mission right away, so you’re free to travel the map doing other things, and just get the flowers as you run across them, and then when you have them all you can get around to going back to the old man to complete the mission). When you return to the old man with the flowers, he takes you into his house to give them to his wife – at which point you are introduced to her desiccated corpse, which has clearly been dead for a while (but her husband very much interacts with her as if she were still alive).

This sort of dark humor and these kinds of bizarre encounters are very common throughout the game (for example, in another stranger mission – titled “American Appetites” – you’re given the task of trying to find a series of missing persons. What you discover (which shouldn’t come as a surprise, based on the title of the mission), is that the missing people have all been eaten by a cannibal). If you appreciate this sort of humor, you’ll really enjoy the many side stories in the game.

In order to move through the main story of the game, you bring up your map, where you’ll see indicators as to the locations of the main story events. To activate a story event, simply travel to the location shown on the map. Generally there are two or three story threads that run concurrently through sections of the game. You can do all of one then all of another, or you can jump back and forth between them. For example, after Bonnie rescues you at the beginning of the game, she takes you into town to get some medicine for your injuries, and tells you that the local marshal may be able to help you on your mission. From this point there are now two story indicators: one for Bonnie, located at her ranch, and one for the marshal, located at his office in town. Each has several missions that you complete in a set order, moving you forward through the story. Bonnie's missions are all related to ranching activities, and work as nice tutorials to help you learn how to do such things as ride your horse and properly use your lasso, whereas the marshal’s missions are all combat related. But while each person’s missions go in a set, linear order, you can do all of Bonnie's missions, then all the marshal's missions, or vice versa, or you can go back and forth between the two.

When these sets of missions are completed, you then open up access to three new characters. Again, each has a series of missions you complete with them, but you have the option to do all of each person’s missions one after the other, or you can bounce back and forth between the different characters, completing a mission for one, then doing a mission or two for another, then jumping back to the first. And of course as you’re completing these missions you are free to take time out to complete stranger missions, to complete the tasks required for your various skills, or to simply wander the map looking for random encounters.

As the story unfolds, you eventually unlock two other map areas – the first is in Mexico, and the second (called West Elizabeth) features a Great Plains area (complete with a herd of buffalo) and a forest/mountain region resembling the Northwestern US. Each new zone unlocks new stranger missions, new treasure locations, new animals and plants, and new people and places to encounter, as well as new events for the main storyline. There are literally hours and hours and hours of things you can do to occupy yourself, including playing such mini-games as poker, black jack, horseshoes, and arm wrestling. And as I mentioned before, the writing is just incredible. Not only is the main story really engaging and well-written, but the various side stories are also really well done. And the characters you encounter throughout the game are all colorful, well-developed, and for the most part very memorable individuals.

And just when I thought I couldn’t enjoy the game more (and released just before I finished the main storyline, so the timing was perfect), Rockstar released a major new single-player update for the game: Undead Nightmare. As the name implies, this drops your characters right in the middle of a zombie apocalypse. And like the main game, the update is brilliant. The main story is pretty straight-forward: John Marsten's are bitten by a zombie (at which point John is forced to tie them up and board up his house so they can't get out). John then sets out to discover what has happened and how to stop it. Along the way he helps to secure the towns and settlements, while encountering many of the main characters form the original game.

As far as general gameplay goes, Undead Nightmare plays in much the same ways as the original: you have your main story missions, plus various side missions (appropriately called “survivor missions” instead of “stranger missions” like they were in the main game). There are new treasures to go after, and new tasks to accomplish to advance through the levels of your hunting and sharpshooting skills. But instead of the survival skill that you had in the main game (which required you to gather various numbers of different plants), you now have the goal of finding and breaking the Four Horses of the Apocalypse (I first encountered (and consequently broke and rode) Pestilence, and I’m currently riding around the map on War, which is just unbelievably cool).

While I’m not necessarily a huge fan of the zombie genre, it is one I enjoy (I’ve played a number of zombie video games that were lots of fun), and Undead Nightmare really delivers. Zombie encounters are exactly what you’d expect – really easy when there’s only a couple of zombies, but suddenly really, really difficult when you make the mistake of getting in the midst of a large group of them. And I love the wild west setting (which is something I don’t think I’ve ever seen before in a zombie game, movie, etc.). One of the interesting twists that the western setting gives you is zombie animals -- you see undead horses and cattle roaming around, and have to fight off undead grizzlies and mountain lions.

About the only complaint I have with the game overall is some of the controls (this is definitely one area where I would say Borderlands is very much the superior game). There are times that it is difficult to get your horse to do what you want it to, and I find myself way too many times crouching when I triy to run because of how they did the crouch. Now admittedly, I’m sure that many of these problems are as much my lack of hand-eye coordination as they are actual problems with the controls themselves (and I’m sure if I were more of a die-hard gamer I wouldn’t have some of the problems that I do). But that’s still the main thing (really, the only thing) that I find annoying about the game, and the big area where the game could be improved.

I loved the original story, and can’t wait to finish Undead Nightmare to see how it plays out, and I look forward to future expansions to the game (as well as the inevitable Red Dead Redemption 2, although I’m sure that’s a ways away). In conclusion, if you’re a video game player at all, and you like a good western, then this is a must-play game. And even if you’re not, I still cannot recommend this game highly enough.