Red Dead Redemption (Xbox 360 - 1st completion)
I've owned an Xbox 360 console since December 2007 and Red Dead Redemption is the last physical game in my current collection. I've mainly retired my 360 console as the DVD tray is stuck and will no longer open, and my Xbox One X is generally backwards compatible with a lot of 360 games - with some being upscaled and enhanced. As of this review, I've played and reviewed approximately thrity-three Xbox 360 games! I can say good night to my 360 console and put it away while I plan to continue with my Xbox series -including some 360 digital downloads- with the One X and in the future, the Series X. Back in 2010, I remember seeing the TV commercial for Red Dead Redemption. There was a lot of hype and praise for the game upon release given Rockstar Games' excellent track record with the Grand Theft Auto series. Red Dead Redemption does play like a GTA game, though a little more subdued I'd argue. I've thought about giving the game a try, but I have no memory as to how I ended up with the Xbox 360 Platinum Hits version. I'm very sure it was a gift from my younger sister when she worked at our nearby Shopper's Drug Mart years ago. I played the game on my Xbox One X which upscales the resolution to 4K and the game looks beautiful. Besides the main campaign, I bought the DLC Undead Nightmare and will include it as part of the overall review (though it does make for a great standalone game!) I believe I played the game on Normal difficulty and according to my stats: I had 77.4% of the game completed, my total time played was 1 day; 2 hours and 35 minutes, 45 day in-game days have passed, and 57 missions completed. For Undead Nightmare I had 80% of that DLC completed in 11 hours and 10 minutes, 22 in-game days passed with all missions complete, I think. The game was recently remastered for modern consoles, but complaints for the lack of quality in the remaster (the game runs only slightly better) and the high price point for a game over a decade old has soured that release. Playing the cheaper 360 version on current Xbox consoles is perfectly fine. I even included some of my own screenshots in this review! Maybe in a couple years, I'll play and review the next game.
In 1911, the family of former outlaw John Marston is kidnapped by Bureau of Investigation agents, Edgar Ross and Archer Fordham, who force him to hunt down his former gang members in exchange for his family's return. John first goes after former ally Bill Williamson, who now leads his own gang that terrorizes the residents of New Austin. He arrives at Williamson's stronghold at Fort Mercer, but fails to persuade him to surrender, resulting in John being shot and left for dead. Rescued by local rancher Bonnie MacFarlane, he helps her with several jobs around her farm, while formulating a plan to attack Williamson's gang. John makes a number of allies to help him carry out the attack, including U.S. Marshal Leigh Johnson, con artist Nigel West Dickens, treasure hunter Seth Briars, and an arms smuggler known as "Irish". Ultimately, John and his allies storm Fort Mercer and kill all of Williamson's men but learn that Williamson has fled to Mexico to seek help from Javier Escuella, another former ally of John. John parts ways with his allies and travels to Mexico to continue his hunt against his former gang.
To see the full main game, go here or below:
Click to viewTo see all of Undead Nightmare, go here or below:
Graphics/Art-9
+ Great graphics, animation, lighting, and character models. Very good quality of motion capture both in-game and during cutscenes.
+ The long draw distance of the outside environments is very impressive! There are beautiful sunsets and sunrises that are quite realistic and not just to look overly artistic to the player.
- There can be some texture pop-up at times, but it isn't always noticeable.
- While the game looks great on Xbox One X and plays in upscaled 4K (the original Xbox 360 version was 720p), it would have been nice if there was an increase in the framerate.
Sound/Music-10
+ Good sound effects and great voice acting. I'm not that familiar with the voice actors, though.
+ While riding along with NPC's to and from missions, there can be long dialogues between John and the person accompanying him. It's quite impressive and you get to know the characters better.
+ The Western-themed music fits really well, pulling you into the atmosphere of the setting and geography. Depending if you are in the US or Mexico, the minimal background music will reflect where you are. The music in Undead Nightmare is great too!
Control-9
+ The controls are a little complex, but it doesn't take long to get used to them. Thankfully, you get reminders on button prompts for simple actions.
+ Using Dead Eye is fun and will make some shootouts easier. I took more advantage of auto-aiming (as long as your cursor is very close to your target) to pick enemies off from a distance.
Gameplay-10
+ Red Dead Redemption is a Western-themed action adventure game played from a third-person perspective. You control John Marston and completes missions-linear scenarios with set objectives-to progress through the story; in the epilogue, you control John's son Jack. Outside of missions, you may freely roam the open world, consisting of the American states New Austin and West Elizabeth-fictionalized versions of the Western United States-and the fictional Mexican state Nuevo Paraíso.
+ Different breeds of horses are the main forms of transportation, each with different attributes. Horses must be tamed in the wild, stolen, or purchased. You can also utilize trains and carriages for quick travel. Undeveloped land features rugged and vast landscapes with occasional travelers, bandits, and wildlife. Urban settlements range from isolated farmhouses to crowded towns.
+ Players can witness and partake in random events, including public hangings, ambushes, pleas for assistance, encounters with strangers, ride-by shootings, and dangerous animal attacks. Optional side activities include dueling, bounty hunting, herb collecting, gambling, and hunting. Red Dead Redemption uses an Honor system, which is increased by morally positive deeds, such as capturing an outlaw alive or saving a stranger, and decreased by negative choices like murder. The Fame system affects how non-player characters (NPCs) react to players based on Honor. If players have high Honor, NPCs will greet them and they will receive discounts in some stores; if low, NPCs will act insecure and establishments may close their doors. You can disguise yourself by wearing a bandana when performing criminal acts.
+ Gunfights are an essential gameplay mechanic. You can take cover, target a specific person or animal, blindfire, and free aim. Individual body parts can be targeted to take down targets non-lethally. Weapons include revolvers, pistols, rifles, shotguns, knives, explosives, and lassos. Aiming utilizes a gunslinger gameplay mechanic known as Dead Eye, a targeting system allowing you to slow down time and mark targets. Once the targeting sequence ends, you'll fire to all marked locations in quick succession. The Dead Eye system upgrades and grants more abilities as you progress.
+ The game introduces the bounty system, a crime-governing mechanic inspired by Grand Theft Auto's wanted system. When you commit a crime, witnesses run to the nearest police station; you can bribe or kill them before they reach the station, negating consequences. Once the law is alerted, the Wanted meter appears with a bounty set on players' heads. The bounty grows higher as you commit more crimes, and more lawmen will be sent to hunt them; after committing enough crime, the U.S. Marshals or Mexican Army will be sent. To evade law enforcement in pursuit, you must escape a circular zone or kill all lawmen in a town. If you escape, bounty hunters will continue to track them. The bounty will remain on your head until you pay it at a telegraph station or present a pardon letter.
+ The online-multiplayer allows up to 16 players to engage in competitive and cooperative gameplay in a recreation of the single-player setting. Each game begins with a Mexican standoff, of which the survivors move to any part of the battlefield in preparation for respawning enemies. Event types include deathmatch scenarios and capture the flag variants. Crates contain extra weapons, ammo, and other powerups. Players can level up and complete weapon challenges to earn rewards such as new character models, golden weapon skins, new titles, and new breeds of animal mounts. Multiplayer features open-world gameplay, wherein players can form or join a group of up to eight players in a "posse" group and partake in hunting or attack other gangs or posses. In some game modes, players are unable to kill each other.
For the Undead Nightmare DLC expansion:
+ Shortly after being reunited with his family, John is trying to lead a peaceful life with his wife Abigail, son Jack, and friend Uncle on their ranch at Beecher's Hope. One stormy night, however, Uncle is nowhere to be found and the Marstons, assuming he had found shelter elsewhere, go to sleep. In the middle of the night, they are awakened by a zombified Uncle that bites Abigail, who proceeds to bite Jack, also turning them into zombies. After killing Uncle and tying up Abigail and Jack, John sets out to find out what is happening and a cure.
+ Undead Nightmare is an alternate timeline expansion that adds a new full-length story in a zombie horror theme and reworks the base game's environment to appear dark and spooky. As corpses begin to rise from the dead to become flesh-eating zombies, some of the living go into hiding and others become hostile. The game's story lasts about six hours and includes new cutscenes, voice acting, and music. It is accessed separately from the main game menu with its own save files. It does not share play progress and items from the main game, nor does it require the base game in any form.
+ As in Red Dead Redemption, you can diverge from the main story on side quests: requests from strangers, checklist challenges, and other digressions. These missions are similar in format to those of the original but their objectives are replaced to fit the zombie horror theme. For example, you hunt for the missing family members of survivors instead of fugitives or empty graveyards instead of gang hideouts. John is called to liberate towns overrun by the undead, which unlocks ammo, new places to stay, quests, and the assistance of the living townspeople. After John's assistance, the towns remain free of zombies for several in-game days, but will eventually require your assistance when zombies return once again. You decide whether to share ammunition with the townsfolk: ammunition serves as a currency in the game since the shops have closed. You have fewer correctives for immorality, such as helping or killing other survivors, given the dire circumstances. The game puts a greater emphasis on hyperbolic fun.
+ The expansion's zombie enemies are similar to that of other games. "Walker" zombies are slow from afar but run when they near the character. Fat zombies attempt to knock you down and others spew green venom. John has new weapons, including holy water, bait for the undead, and a blunderbuss that uses zombie parts as ammunition. You can use a combination of these skills to defeat hordes of reanimated humans, who stop only once their heads explode. For example, John can bait a group to an area to set off a bomb, use the time-slowing Dead Eye mode to shoot each in the head, or eliminate enemies from a roof because zombies cannot climb. Other non-playable characters who contract the infection turn into the undead in real-time and are likely to attack the player.
+ Undead Nightmare removes the traditional fast travel features of the base game, and this encourages the player to use settlements to store their caravan. John can optionally ride undead horses in Undead Nightmare, which he can summon by whistling. Four mythical horses-the four horses of the apocalypse-with faster abilities are scattered throughout the game for you to find, tame, and ride. Other mythical creatures to hunt include Sasquatch, El Chupacabra, and a unicorn. Also included are two new outfits for John, other cosmetic options for weapons and player horses ("mounts"), and achievements.
+ Apart from the single-player story, Undead Nightmare adds two multiplayer modes: Undead Overrun and Land Grab. The former is a horde mode in which up to four players cooperatively fight off waves of zombies. Players must open coffins between waves to replenish a countdown timer, which discourages players from camping in the same location. It is also designed so as to encourage cooperation such that players can revive each other if nearby. The other mode, Land Grab, is an additional game mode within the main game's multiplayer free roam and otherwise unconnected to the undead theme. In Land Grab, players attempt to secure seven areas across the game's environment. While players with the base game can join in Land Grab games, only Undead Nightmare owners can initiate them.
Fun/Story/Misc-9
+ The game is a lot of fun and I didn't feel too overwhelmed by all the things you can do outside the main missions.
+ The story is very well written though I'm not a fan of injecting "social commentary" on various topics that get in the way of the characters. More subtly would have worked.
+ Probably one of the woofiest characters is con-artist Nigel West Dickens.
+ Undead Nightmare was quite a fun deviation from the main game.
- The game's attempt at modern-day "social commentary" is honestly pathetic and out of place. Even in the game's opening cinematic, John overhears conversations of racism, white-supremacy and the civilizing of Native-Americans, dumbing of religion, and classism. It honestly feels like the writers think this is what life was like back in the early 20th century west and are projecting their distaste of it. The expansion of the American West was complex and still quite young compared to the history of colonial settlement and dealings with the Natives in the east. The writing constantly picks at America and its sins while giving free passes to everyone else. At the very least, John is of good character who keeps an open mind and just wants to get the job done - it's the NPCs who bring up their grievances because... the writers looked at history through a social justice lens and decided to inject their views into the game. It didn't help that SJW journalists put their interpretive spin on the game's themes; dissecting everything from masculinity, the American Dream, classism, economic dispatity, genocide... Sigh.
Total: 47/50 (Grade Level: A)
The main Red Dead Redemption website is here and has been revamped to reflect the current remaster. The old Gametrailers.com is here and the Wikipedia articles for RDR is here and UN here.
Next Game: Rise of the Tomb Raider (PS4)
Currently playing: Legacy of Ys: Books I & II (DS)
