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Video

Launch Player

Resonance of Fate ³⁶⁰

Brink ³⁶⁰

Preview

Red Dead Redemption

Format Xbox 360

Developer Rockstar San Diego

Publisher Rockstar Games

Genre Action, Adventure, Shoot 'em Up

7-Mar-2010 There's money to be made in a place like this

3 Comments

I rode through the desert, with a horse with no name. And it was good to get out of the rain. But it was even better to lasso someone, drag them out into the bush, rob their corpse and then shoot down the vultures that came to eat it.

Such are the distractions available in Rockstar's newest epic. To describe it as a Wild West GTA sounds lazy, but the similarities are so pronounced it's impossible not to. The basic mechanics are the same and so is the remarkably detailed world: it's just the open spaces of the Old West rather than the dirty streets of Liberty City. Animals hunt each other, people rob each other, and saloon bars ring to the sound of piano music, comely ladies and unbecoming fights. All of them will cheerfully get on with their lives around you. Until you start slaughtering them because you can.

As reformed gang member John Marston, you're riding though the frontier under sufferance from a proto-FBI. They're still in their rebellious teen phase and are going to kill your family unless you bring in your old gang - dead or alive.

This means roping in other Wild West residents to help - our first challenge was to help a sheriff track a local troublemaker from the saloon to his shack and then capture him after a gunfight. Here, too, it's GTA that sets the mould. You dash from cover to cover, picking off gang members one by one in a style familiar to Niko's shootouts. It's not until you pull the trigger that you see the difference: the left-trigger targeting system merely lines up the reticule on a luckless bandito rather than locking on to them, and there's a Dead Eye bullet-time slo-mo you can use for trickier targets. And feeling like Clint Eastwood, of course.

Gun show
Next up was shaking down local alcoholic Irish to find a machine gun, leading to a shootout through a mine full of gun-toting miners. Progress was helped by carelessly placed TNT barrels and the mine's oil lamps, which can be shot out to set fire to those beneath. The climax was a short but exhilarating minecart ride out, picking off goons en route, all set to excellent Moriccone-esque music - all wailing trumpets and rapidly-strummed guitars.

In between, you can summon your horse with a tap of the D-pad and ride off into the sunset, or rain, or night depending on the time of day. You're regularly flagged down with smaller challenges, ranging from simple ("that man stole my wagon!") to complicated ("bandits kidnapped my daughter and all need to be shot in a Clint Eastwood-style showdown!")

How you respond affects how the world responds to you. Helping out boosts your fame, which helps you through the game, and your honour, which boosts your status. This means lower prices in stores, less hassle from gangs, and friendlier police - to the extent where they'll overlook crimes you commit.

Show no mercy
Gleefully slaughter all around you, however, and you'll earn a price on your head that attracts lawmen and bounty hunters alike. While pursuers are easily outrun in the desert, the Wanted rating doesn't fade like GTA's; you've either got to pay the fine or clear it with a pardon letter - stolen, earned, or bought at one of the stores where you can trade items like harvested weapons, items, plants and animal skins.

Wild animal skins are the easiest option for such trading, but there's nothing to stop you scalping the contents of the local stables, guard dog and all - well, apart from the owner who'll come out and shoot you. And the police, after you kill him. Still, if you're fast enough with your six-shooter (and remember to don a face-concealing bandana beforehand) then you can sort all that out without racking up too much of a bounty.

Even the desert is packed with distractions. Predators, human and animal, wander around, needy locals flag you down for help, and distant smoke plumes mark campfires. Sit down and you'll pick up the gossip, in a style akin to GTA's radio stations. Or so we're told - our effort at socialising fared badly, when the guests turned out to be a cannibal and the hog-tied lady he'd lined up for lunch.

It all points to this being a world that's as rewarding to mess around as it is to follow the story, and one that offers a spot more depth than its city-bound sibling. Whisper it, but this looks like the cowboy game we've been waiting for.

Jon Hicks