www.TheyCallMePhil.com

Red Dead Redemption: Awesome, Awesome, and Just a Little More Awesome.

Red Dead Redemption

All of my life I have loved video games. From my first touch of an Atari Joy Stick, to the blisters on my thumbs on a Super Nintendo, I’ve enjoyed it. In the past, we were told our minds would melt, or our vision would get blurry the more we played video games or stared at a TV screen. We now know that isn’t true, it’s just a common step in the aging process due to your skull getting bigger and your eyes staying the same size (ask your optometrist).

The point I am trying to make here is, we live in a different world. What used to be common place novel reading has now turned into electronic storytelling. Video games are not just a medium of mind wasting flashes of light, it is storytelling post 1965. It is a medium growing faster than any other, publishing dipped to $23.5 billion dollars, but the gaming industry brought in $19.66 billion last year. Compared to the film industry, $10.6 billion in 2009 (US).

That’s huge. And what’s my point to explaining all of this? Well if you can’t guess by the giant cowboy at the top of this post, I’m writing a review about Red Dead Redemption. Bringing the old west, and a little bit of Clint Eastwood awesome, this has my vote for game of the year so far.

I’ll be honest, in my fight to be something in this world I’ve temporarily sworn off video games, but Red Dead Redemption got me. There are few titles that get me to break my solid drive to be a screenwriter, Assassin’s Creed, and GTA IV did it two years ago, The Force Unleashed got me last year, and this is the title that got me this year.

The story follows John Marsten, a former outlaw in the old west. Times are changing, the FBI is being formed and they are trying to do the job of the old cowboys and gunslingers. With the reach of the government hitting the settlements on the new American frontier, life for old outlaws are changing. In the story, John Marsten’s old gang members are terrorizing the adjacent province of New Austin, and the government thinks John is just the man to fix the problem. They kidnap his family, and force him to chase down his former family. The game starts with you showing up at an abandoned fort over run with one of the gang members. As he approaches and tries to talk him down the gang opens fire, leaving our hero to die.

As John lays there, a group of farmers stumble upon him, heal him and get him back on the road to revenge. The fight now becomes personal as this is the second time that John has been left by his gang with a bullet in him.

The chase begins all over the territory, the Mexican border, and the northern territory. John is forced to team up interesting characters to fulfill his mission and get his family back, including a slick “elixer” salesman, a grave digger, a drunken irishman, a rebel leader, a mexican general, a cocaine addicted scholar from Yale, and even the very lawmen who hold his wife captive.

The scenery is beautiful and dangerous. Coyotes, wolves, bobcats, cougars and even bears roam the land and are willing to kill anything that crosses their path. Learn how to handle your guns, master quick draws, learn to gamble with the best of them and stake your claim at becoming a legend in the Mexican west.

All-in-all, it’s my pick for game of the year. Not sure still? Grab a copy and start playing, you’ll find yourself wanting to steal horses, and shoot anything that moves around you. I know I did (but I didn’t actually do it).