Saturday, June 19, 2010

Red Dead Redemption

So I lied.

I figure, since I'm just starting, I may as well start with a game that is relevant. Figure that would be a way to capture potential viewers attention best.

I just beat this game, so its fresh on my mind. Off the bat, my most vivid memory about it is that there is so much empty bullshit in the game. There are 7 towns, all of them are pretty much gayballs. The rest of the space is just that. Space. Cacti, and rocks, and dirt, and sand, and cougars. Unless you are in Mexico, then its bobcats.


I don't really like this game. The story was good, and for the most part it kept me entertained and engaged. However, everyone in this game is pretty damn useless. The exceptions to that are 3 people: Bonnie, Luisa, and Irish. Everyone else lies to you and you end up killing them or some shit.

Now, like I said: 7 towns, everyone is an asshole, and there is so much useless wasted space. Those are the 3 things that irritate me the most about the game, but they are not the only thing. As a matter of fact, when I let myself get absorbed into the context of the time period and location of the game, it made sense and I was fine with it, and quite liked it. What I couldn't get accustomed to, though, was the fact that cougars and bears just randomly eat your ass. Or how, especially in Mexico, you can't tell who you're supposed to kill from who you're not supposed to kill worth shit. So a lot of times I just died because I thought I was shooting a rebel or helping some poor chinese treasure hunter, only to find out I actually killed a mexican soldier or a lawman, so now I have 6 dudes chasing me around the desert. That is without a doubt the most irritating thing about the game.

The rest of the game is pretty good, from a technical standpoint. The game looks amazing, and there is not a single bad thing I can say about it in that regard. The lighting effects, the shadows they cast, the night and day sequencing, the draw distance and field of view the game provides, they are all quite amazing. So, if you are into that kind of thing, take the time to appreciate the detail the developers have put into that aspect.

The world, as I said above, is also quite believable. I could honestly feel like I was in the time period. But enough about all that. You people don't care about that.

What is the game about?

Well, you are a dude, named John Marston. The government is blackmailing you into killing the members of a gang you used to run with, threatening to kill your wife and son if you don't. Oh no. They want you to hunt down your old gang and kill them. You just want to go back to your life of herding cows and picking flowers.

I still don't know why exactly they want you to hunt down your old gang. That's never much explained. Its basically just a "do this cause I say so" kind of thing. The only reason the game gives you is if you don't, you lose your family.

The game follows a pretty standard story: people are blackmailing you, you are helpless against them. Everything that happens in the game is nothing you wouldn't expect. You meet people, help them, get double crossed, dodge a bullet, and you spend a lot of time doing things you keep saying "I left all that behind me" to. You know, things like killing outlaws cause this man told you to, putting down mexican rebellions, and rounding up cattle and keeping them from running off of cliffs. Everything you would expect from a RockStar game.

There are a lot of side missions to do, and a lot of mini-games to play as well. My favorite of each are doing bounty missions and playing Liar's dice. There are also things like cracking safes, doing night security jobs to make ends meet, or breaking horses for riding. All of these things earn you money, but you never really need it unless you are just buying everything you come across for no reason. Honestly, unless you just want a multitude of safe houses, you never NEED to buy anything. Everything is provided for you or you pick it up during the course of the game.

The last thing worth mentioning is the random people who run up to you and ask you to do things for them. These range from people whose horse has been stolen to picking up people stranded in the middle of nowhere. These people pissed me off, because you usually run across them when you are out in the middle of nowhere on your way back to town, and they send you on some wild goose chase that takes you back out to the middle of nowhere. I just stopped helping them.

Overall, I would say the game is just slightly above mediocre. Really, the graphics are the best thing about it, followed by story, then setting, then technical merit, and then replay value.

There is the option to do multiplayer, but stay away from that shit. All there is to do is the gang hideouts you have already beat in the single player game, only in the multiplayer they are a great deal more difficult. The other option is playing capture the flag or the tried and true frag fest type matches. These are even worse. The mechanics of the rules are so easily exploited that its really just an exercise in seeing how long you are willing to deal with it. Just stay away from multiplayer.

I don't think I will ever implement a point system or scoring system for rating games. What I will do though, is say if I think the game is worth buying new, buying when the price has dropped on it, and whether or not this is worth keeping.

For this game, I would say wait until the price drops on it. while its not bad, there isn't really anything here that makes me say "you have got to play this game." Also, there is no reason to keep it. Once you have completed the story, there isn't really much a reason to hold onto the game. Or, if you are one of those people that can beat a game in a few weeks, go ahead and buy it new, and trade it in for the high resell value.

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