Red Dead Redemption - Final Thoughts

I think I know where the term “long in the tooth” comes from. The back teeth of a horse will continue to grow until a horse can no longer chew its food. To fix this the teeth must be “floated”. The teeth are ground down until the horse can eat again. In many ways this describes Red Dead Redemption.

Let me start by saying that Red Dead Redemption is a fantastic game. I immensely enjoyed myself, if not always for the intended reasons. The best bug I’ve seen to date happened down in Mexico. A gang came riding through the town and in typical fashion I took them out. Once I started killing the riders the horses took off running over the good townsfolk. When I had finished killing the gang members one of the village people popped back up and yelled “Thank you Senor!” then promptly died. So I looted his corpse, how’s that for gratitude.

The game is full of bugs like that but that is one of the biggest dangers of the Euphoria engine. It needs such precise settings and control that things can easily get away from you. I’ve seen my horses legs stretch out abnormally just so they could reach the ground. The worst of the bugs I encountered was when a bounty would fall into a rock and I couldn’t reach them. I also want to know, what is up with the lasso bug? It was common I would shoot a bounty in the leg and then lasso the guy. Well if I accidently let go of the lasso the guy would fall on his face and never get back up. I lost many live bounties that way.

The game has just so much to do. From bounties, to hunting, to poker, to horse breaking, to picking flowers, to raiding forts, to completing outfits, to dueling, to saving random people, the helping strangers, to locating treasure, to herding cattle. I was beginning to wonder where it would end. There were a few nights where I sat down to play and I accomplished nothing. I would just ride around for 2 hours and see what occurred. This was helped by the fact that world seems like a living breathing place. With random events occurring here are there really fleshed out the world. Sure some of the events repeated more often than others, but at a more believable pace. I can easily believe that someone’s horse was stolen faster then I’ll believe three hangings are occurring in one day.

The atmosphere of the game is also great. You get a good feeling for the old west and how it might have been at the turn of the century. It was a culture that never really got to evolve before it was snuffed out by “progress”.

Of course at the center of this whole mess is one John Marston. Overall he’s a believable character. The biggest issue I has were his morals. He appeared to have some, but then he would randomly throw them aside. I just couldn’t see John Holding people up at gunpoint and robbing them. What I did see was a guy who did what he could to save his family. His tale is a sad one, he tries so hard and he just wants to live out his life. His death is truly tragic.

I would highly recommend Red Dead Redemption to anyone. It tones down the violence, whoring, and drug use of the Grand Theft Auto stories and comes out with stronger tale for it. I liked that John was faithful to his wife the entire time, even if Bonnie McFarlane was ready to throw herself at him.