Hey, Rockstar, everyone likes them. Red Dead Redemption 2 was nominated for the best game of 2018, I mean, it lost to God of War but that is to be expected. However, I did not play Red Dead Redemption 2, so that is not on the list. But that’s fine, cause I did play the real classic, and the best game Rockstar made, aside from Skate and Destroy, the original, Red Dead Redemption.
Red Dead Redemption is set in the good old 1910s, and nearing the end of the wild west, as John Marston, a simple young man, is tasked by the government to go on a mission to hunt down his old gang, along with their leader and his old mentor, Dutch, so that he can go back to his life as a family man. And oh boy, do things work out well for John Marston, with absolutely nothing bad ever happening to him. The game, being set in the old west, is not very different with it’s environments aside from a desert and a few towns. It’s not a giant city with a ton to see like say Los Santos in GTA V, but it doesn’t need to be that. Just going down a trail in the dead of night as you make your way to the next town as you listen to the old acoustic guitar and chimes that sound like an old western movie is all you need to get invested in this games world. It’s kinda like how Bully has the Harry Potter esque music when you walk around town. It doesn’t need anything more than a good score and a fun world to explore, and boy is Red Dead got a pretty fun world. Sure, there’s just miles and miles of sand, but you also have a ton to do. You can go and hunt animals for their pelts, help out random encounters (Or kill them), and help out strangers in side quests, which will usually lead to you questioning how fucked up the wild west is with how far some of these people do things. Like a man heading to California will go crazy and just up and die out of nowhere, and a man collecting flowers for his wife. Nothing weird there, until you see that his wife is just a corpse. Okay, fuck this, this is getting to some fucking Norman Bates Psycho shit and I want no part of it. There’s also a ton of mini games to play, like bird shooting, card games, horseshoes, and challenges to take out special foes in a shootout minigame. But how’s the real part of the game, the shooting part? Aside from having a plethora of weapons to use on attacking soldiers, angry Native Americans and your usual crooks, you also have the ability of the Dead Eye, which unlike Max Payne’s Bullet Time, gives you a chance to slow down time to a stop and aim your gun, before locking on to a number of multiple targets. Using it correctly will allow you to take out a bunch of enemies at once without you taking damage. Uh, just don’t try it on that one mission, cause it doesn’t work. Anyone who plays the game knows which mission. And let me tell you, that story is so damn good, and real sad. Why is Rockstar trying to make people sad? I thought they were the funny edgy kind of company that liked to poke fun at people. Why do they gotta make people feel bad?
When I was a kid, my dad would always watch western movies, and I never understood the appeal. But when I played Red Dead Redemption, saw the world, experienced the story, and got to know John Marston as a character, I understood what the appeal was. Red Dead Redemption is an amazing western tale that mixes all the best of Rockstar’s games, from the fun gameplay to the huge world to explore to the great soundtrack (Yes, I have to talk about that again). I still haven’t played 2 yet, but I am expecting as much great moments and as much broken hearts as I got from the first one.