[036]

Released: May 2010
Platforms: Xbox 360, Playstation 3, PC
Modes: Single-player, multi-player
Developer: Rockstar

Let’s get one thing straight. I didn’t like Grand Theft Auto IV. It’s not so much that it’s a bad game, because it isn’t, it’s the fact that I wasn’t very good at it. At all. You know that mission at the beginning where you go to a park and beat up that guy? Yes the practise one. I died. No I don’t know how or why, I’m that bad at it that I died at the practise fight, the fight that lets you get used to the combat system. I also cannot control those damn cars. And racing with them ? Don’t even get me started, I don’t stand a chance. I stopped playing that game after a few hours. I was absolutely rubbish.

So when another game comes out by Rockstar that follows the same kind of model, only mixed with cowboys, I was sceptical. I wasn’t keen on Rockstar’s previous games (apart from Bully) and I’m not fond of cowboys. I held out on buying it for quite some time and bought it just to have a go and maybe give it the boyfriend after I had been beaten senseless by it.

I do love a surprise though. Turns out I wasn’t as appalling at Red Dead as I was at GTA, and I had a damn fun time doing it too. I’m not saying it’s easy, because it’s not, but it didn’t make me want to smash my head against my Xbox and using my imminent brain damage as an excuse to not play video games anymore. Unlike GTA.

You play John Marston, a retired outlaw who’s just started to enjoy life on the right side of the law, when his family are taken as a sort of ransom by the government. The only way to get them back, he is told, is by hunting down the remnants of his former gang. So you’re basically going around southern America and Mexico tracking down these men, doing random side missions and shooting a whole lot of animals and bad people. Which is lots of fun. The story is better than it sounds. I felt myself caring a lot about John and his family, especially near the end of the game, where you’re just egging for everything to turn out okay. The very end left me a little heartbroken, but in a good way. If that makes any sort of sense.

The combat system is only slightly different from GTA. You eventually get this mode that enables you to slow down time and choose multiple targets to shoot at. Which is lovely and useful if you’re rubbish at aiming like me. You get to hide behind things like in GTA which is useful when twenty pissed off Mexicans are shooting at you. I do keep comparing this game to GTA, but when a new game is so similar to such an important and popular game, it cannot be helped. Most of Red Dead’s sales can be down to people knowing this was by GTA’s creators and thinking that it would be similar. Which it is in a way, but takes the best aspects of the game and makes them less annoying. Which works for me.

The only thing that may annoy GTA fans is that being bad in Red Dead is a bit lame. You have occasional options to be a badman (this game’s slogan after all is ‘outlaw to the end’, which isn’t exactly accurate, but whatever) but it doesn’t really pay. Getting away from the ‘cops’ is far too easy, and they just seem to forget that you need to a pay a bounty. Also if you’re accidentally bad, you may have a whole town hating your guts for no reason. Which is also annoying, especially when you need to do a damn important mission in that town.

I won’t talk about the multiplayer, mostly because I only played it for about ten minutes. I think it’s one of those multiplayers where it’s only really fun if you’re playing with your friends. It’s really hard to get into when you’re only level one, riding a poor donkey and you’re so worn out by playing the main missions and those side things where you have to collect flowers (yes I did enjoy that, yes I’m female) that you can’t really be arsed.

But no, I enjoyed this game. If you like your sandboxes, get it without hesitation, you will not be disappointed. I’m not sure if the GTA fan will appreciate it as much as I did (boyfriend is a hardcore GTA fan and he wasn’t too enthusiastic about Red Dead) but give it a go, it’s old now, it’ll be cheap :D