Red Dead Redemption
Rockstar heads away from modern day Liberty City, bringing to life the US Wild West at the turn of the 20th century. All in Rockstar’s inimitable style of course.
A very different journey awaits those of us gripped by Grand Theft Auto IV, but one that’s equally epic and sure to be unforgettable. In Red Dead Redemption you’ll saddle up with Wild West outlaw John Marston who looks tougher than Niko Bellic (GTAIV) and Johnny Klebitz (The Lost and Damned) put together. Put it this way, in Marston’s day even the law men hadn’t agreed on what was actually lawful, and even then thought nothing of bending established rules!
We recently sat down with Rockstar at the London office to ride with Marston in a couple of seriously impressive scenarios. We learned little about the plot, but enough to suspect that our new hero is being cruelly blackmailed to uphold the law on behalf of the newly established Bureau later to become the famous FBI.
In the manner of Bellic and Klebitz, Marston looks world weary and unshakably tough. He looks like a guy with the kind of history that brings you to such points of no return. In the first scenario we witness Marston approaching a small frontier town with a captive held at gunpoint. The welcoming party of downtrodden blokes decide to turn this into a fight to the death, threatening to hang an innocent young lady-friend of Marston’s, a girl named Bonnie. This is your first taste of the adrenaline-pumping gun battles on offer, in particular the slow-motion Dead Eye ability available to Marston.
Dead Eye lets Marston slow time for use with all weapons, allowing for accuracy with weapons that would otherwise be quite clumsy – e.g. shotguns and sawn-offs. It also benefits pistols, but in this case you can land multiple hits and watch victims shudder under a hail of hot lead or drop dead several bad guys at once. Marston can shoot from the hip while running, or find cover to take careful aim. He can also ‘blind fire’ from behind cover. All of which adds up to very convincing Wild West shoot outs.
Spectacular as this most certainly is, our initial thoughts were that a game based purely on gun fights could be less than rewarding without a plotline – in other words a reason to keep going along the lines of Grand Theft Auto IV. However the sight of Bonnie dangling from a rope leaving precious minutes in which to rescue her is exactly the kind of reason a man like Marston needs to see things through. It’s also a clever gameplay mechanic that puts pressure on the player to act fast.
Although Red Dead Redemption is an open world experience that takes its lead from GTAIV, Rockstar is having fun with so-called ‘on rails’ sections. The example we saw involves Marston protecting a shady merchant, literally riding shotgun on his Stage Coach pursued by angry customers. The only thing you need to worry about here is picking off targets, watching their horses buckle beneath them just like the movies.
A brief but necessary word about horses: Marston has a trusty steed as you would hope, but doesn’t need to stick with the same one. He can ride any horse he’s prepared to run the risk of owning with or without permission. Only thing is he’ll need to spend a while breaking in those that are unfamiliar or are just plain feisty. The animation for the horses is pure poetry and might even make you weep. Though it isn’t necessary to feed and water them, they will tire if spurred along without rest and won’t like you much either. Horses are also scared of snakes.
Snakes, rabbits, grizzlies, cougars, armadillos and who knows what else inhabit the untamed wilderness. They have no set routines apart from to behave snake-like or coyote-esque. They’ll eat each other if they can, and they’ll eat you too if you’re not careful. Packs of coyotes have been seen to chase down wounded men for example. Rockstar claims that the relationship between man and beast is so realistic that Red Dead Revolver basically has its own ecology system.
Similarly there are randomly generated, unscripted events to keep Marston on his toes. Horse-jacking bandits wander the plains, pretending they just need a helping hand; unscrupulous thieves offer scantily clad women as bait by the roadside. Every journey will be different and in our demo we saw things that the guys at Rockstar hadn’t encountered yet. Or they did a very good job of acting surprised.
Our final mission for the day was to help the Mexican military protect a noisy locomotive from bandits, allowing us to appreciate the change in landscape and architectural differences between towns further north. Whereas Frontier settlements are made of wood, with classic swing-door saloons, the Mexican towns are made from stone and painted white. As for the train, it chuffed along at a historically accurate slow pace, allowing Marston’s posse to ride alongside dealing with the bandits from horseback. With all the engine smoke, dust from the horse’s hooves, and gunpowder in the air, the setting sun looked wonderfully atmospheric. The sound of the locomotive was similarly emotive, replicating wholeheartedly the thunder of the iconic Wild West mail train.
We came away deeply impressed by Red Dead Redemption. Rockstar says this is the vision originally intended for its Xbox prequel Red Dead Revolver (2004) but after five years in development – involving a sneak peak at ‘Old West Project’ in 2005 – the differences are abundantly clear. We’re more than happy to find that Marston is essentially a lone ranger, having no ongoing ties to other characters in the game along the lines of Niko and his cousin Roman in GTAIV. It’s tantalising to know what kind of deal Marston has struck with the Bureau that’s causing him such a dilemma. Even so there are GTA-style mini games to enjoy such as Five Finger Fillet and no doubt Poker in the steamy saloons. Here’s hoping there will be good old fashioned bar brawls too!
Red Dead Redemption is scheduled for release this autumn.
