Red Dead Redemption - Game Review
3Rockstar Games' 2010 Red Dead Redemption is one of the greatest open world and Western games to exist, only being outclassed by it's own sequel. I spent 23 hours in my latest playthrough of the game, but this time I played the controversial 2023 port, which for the record I would give a 2/10 as far as "remasters" go, but this review will be focused on the game itself and not the overpriced lazy port I played.
You play as John Marston, a former outlaw criminal who has been forced into the life of a government bounty hunter. John is tasked with hunting down the remaining members in his former gang, if he wants to see his family and live his life again. The journey is a long and perilous one, taking you as far as the unforgiving desert of Mexico and the slightly more civilized town of Blackwater. The port also includes the Undead Nightmare DLC which is a "canonical nightmare" in which John dreams about his family turning into zombies and he needs to find a cure for them.
Red Dead Redemption is such a nostalgic game for me. I remember begging my parents to buy it year after year, but I had to settle for playing it at a friend's house. The game itself is extremely well made, from the amazing ragdoll physics in combat, to well balanced encounters, to varying missions with interesting characters to learn about. The world of Red Dead is both empty and filled with content simultaneously . . . Which by that I mean the apparent emptiness contributes to the immersive authentic wild west feel of the game, but it's still packed with things to do like random encounters, fun minigames, various strangers to meet and places to conquer.
Now this game is primitive and simplistic, but it does hold up today for sure. It features an addicting gameplay loop which requires you to perform everyday realistic things that you would do in this time period, like sleeping, hunting, setting up campsites, and trading with merchants. I think the horses in this game served as the perfect transportation method and they control far better than something like "The Witcher III: Wild Hunt" where your horse constantly gets caught on random bumps in the ground and is teleporting on top of rooves. While the story in general is quite bare boned and John Marston is not a particularly fleshed out character, I felt his voice actor really elevated the character and made me care for him, and the story was still decent due to it being very gameplay-centric in the sense that you yourself get to do everything you need to do as opposed to just watching it unfold in cutscenes like other games.
The original Red Dead Redemption is only outclassed by games made by this same company, Rockstar. It is an iconic must play game especially if you're feeling too intimidated by it's sequel and want to start somewhere more simple and action focused.
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