Red Dead Redemption - Down In Mexico

Sandbox games such as Red Dead Redemption like to start slow. They give you an area to play around in and after a while they give you more. That is what Ft. Mercer is all about in this game. You’ve been playing around in New Austin for a good while now (I’d estimate between 6 – 12 hours depending on how easily distracted you are). Ft. Mercer is the end of chapter 1 and the opening of a new area to play in.

The assault on Ft. Mercer is fun enough, but story wise it’s pretty weak. Let’s talk about the actual assault first. If you’ve been running around you might have actually participated in some of these already. You have to kill everyone in the Fort as quickly as possible. What makes this one a little more fun is the use of the machine-gun. You get to unload hell on the scoundrels in the Fort and the thing has no ammo count. You can merrily fire as much as you want. It doesn’t overheat or jam. It’s pretty darn fancy for a machine-gun from the 1800s (or is it 1900s?).

Once that’s done you actually have to run around and kill the remaining people. Quick and easy. Then reinforcements show up and you get to happily jump back on the machine-gun and plow through these enemies. It’s not really that hard of an assault and it really does feel like a nice payoff action wise. But like I said, story wise is, well, another story.

 You go there in an attempt to finally capture Bill Williamson and that stupid jerk isn’t even there. He left long before Mr. Marston assaulted the Fort. Very lame. Where was the intel on this? After all the work and there guy can’t even bother to be there for the actual attack. I wouldn’t have minded if he had fled at the end of the attack, but no, he’s off in Mexico. Obviously that’s where you need to go next.

Apparently he’s holed down there with another old buddy of Mr. Martson, one Javier Escuella. Go figure.

The trip to Mexico doesn’t really make much sense. You board a raft with Irish with the goal of ferrying yourself across. Once you’re in the middle of the river a lot of Mexicans attack you. The only reason you’re given is that they might not like Irish because he might have slept with their daughters. Eventually he Irish finds the sheer amount of Mexicans trying to stop you ludicrous.

I would have just stood there and killed everyone on the other dock until we made it across. Instead you cut the line and go traveling down river. It seems that all of Mexico wants to prevent you from reaching their country. They’re throwing fire bottles at you and everything. It really is a good bit of overkill and I think Irish died on me twice.

When I finally reached Mexico I had one goal in mind, kill Irish. I’m guess the Rockstar’s QA group already did this because when you gain control of Marston, Irish is halfway up a hill and Marston is being forced on his horse allowing Irish to make a clean getaway. Then a music video plays. Yeah, Mexico leaves a weird first impression.