Monday 7 June 2010

Game - Red Dead Redemption. Rockstar Games.

Buy On Amazon.


All the best games tap into the spirit of something and distil a quintessence of it that the collective psyche can sharpen its teeth on. A mighty unenviable task, you might imagine - to anticipate what a generation is thinking and build a hopeful empire around it. But that's what games used to do routinely. And it's not that mighty if you're God. Not too unenviable if you're Rockstar.

What do I mean? Well, how many of you have thought about growing your own veg lately? How about a herb garden, all legal like? A fruit tree or two? (or four, in my case). Fancied seeing a few chickens running around giving authentic soundbites to your sunny side ups?

Well sure, Roger Recession has had a hand in that. But we're all seeing the bigger picture coming into focus here; we're not daft. It's painted in the dying cries of corporate Stegosaurs, who, like their prehistoric parallels, grew to a super-sized mass but whose actual brains got no bigger, at the mortal cost of mobility. It's there too, line-drawn in the gluttony that concretised our cities, and that hinges now on a law of defaults and diminishing returns. The last crumbs of these slobber, as we speak, on the chins of feudal barons, who are managing to appear both servile and hateful as they beg for their livelihoods, promising greater restraint the way a crack addict does to a loved one between highs, or the way an oil company does to a government, while slurping up the last dregs of fossilised goo from the sea bed. Anxious, in the last days of its extinction, to waste not a drop, even if it means taking the world down with it.

We know this organically, instinctively, as one. We are already thinking obscurely of what it feels to live off the land, as our forefathers once did. We are certainly no happier, historians tell us, than they. Their hardships yielded leanness, backbone and long life, our plenitude brings obesity, back pain and early death. Some of us have already pulled soundlessly away from the urban herd and corralled ourselves onto rural plains, eschewing wealth. Growing produce. Keeping bees. Geocaching.

For those of you who haven't, here's a vehicle to act out that dream, pulling up alongside about now, a swarthy stranger at the reins. "Step inside, friend. Name's John Marston."

'Taxi for Sundance?'
Now don't get me wrong, these things still involve  a heroism of skill and imagination, coupled with the single-mindedness of prizefighters. They've usually been in production for a number of years too, so it isn't as though there's necessarily a waiting bandwagon to jump onto. This one has been coming for a while however, so maybe Rockstar have had their thumbs out ever since its so-so precursor, Red Dead Revolver, patiently waiting for the right trailer to hitch their load to.

Nevertheless, and to summarise a lengthy opening (that has said precisely zip about the gameplay yet, sorry) it seems that a mixture of foresight, digital largesse and geopolitical luck delineates certain games as classics. The sort that Deus Ex had, perhaps, or Half-Life. Self-aware riffs on the sum of all fears, exploring them up to and including their logical conclusion. But by taking off some of the rails and putting us at the helm of decision-making, they do so with an equal chance of compassion or dictatorship. And if you mess up, well that's your fault, pardner. Off the back of that acceptable trade, many games today offer the same choice. Fallout 3 does to perfection. Oblivion does, GTA4 does, and Red Dead Redemption does too, because control isn't necessarily just about where you point your spaceship any more.

So Red Dead's additional edge could well lie within the era it represents, a place of history we know is already gone, but one that we perhaps yearn obscurely for. We are, after all, the ultimate 'cake and eat it' generation; taught self-indulgence by parents who gave everything. But what have we missed out on, really - apart from going to war? What can they have possibly kept from us? Because this modern day stuff isn't all that. We've been there, Rockstar - haven't we? - and done that. Another contemporary city to play out a shallow turf war on would have been so passe and they knew it. They're not daft either.

So it's natural to begin with that same romantic view of the West that undoubtedly captivated its pioneers. Casual violence, rape, arson and cattle rustling are but ticks on a horse's hide, a dim awareness that someone, somewhere is getting their arse bitten, but not you, not yet. So you shade your eyes against the hot sun and admire, no - soak up - the view. It's still early days though, and no matter how much you love the vast, arid landscape of desert, punctuated by railroad, monolithic rock and dirt trail, your modern mind can't reference the empty spaces, and tries to fill them with skyscrapers and traffic lights. Coffee shops and Taco Bells.

Grab your theodolite, Marvin, I've found just the spot.

In that cactus-filled gulch, where the bleached skulls of cattle gather is the perfect symbolic spot for a Macdonalds drive-thru, you think, then feel a bit sad about it. This isn't Sim City, you tit. But through some foible of the mind or similarity of game engine there's an afterimage of GTA4 you can't quite blink away, some clingy zeitgeist that needs to soften the desolation with its own superimpose-o-vision. You soon get over it, though, eventually, realising it's probably the lamentable ego crying for its mummy, just like it did when you first detached from the reptile. The last bits of dummy it spat when you gave up BUPA and Costco and the sanctuary of salary. You can never go back, it insists. But you can. You must.

You've an impressive physical scar or two, the sort that might have been symbolised in your other life by redundancy or repossession. A loved one's addiction to tanning booths and iPhones perhaps taking them into the arms of another, more capable supplier. You have known trauma then, but not outright ruin. You have seen hardships, but not starvation. You are self-serving, but altruistic. And so is John Marston.

You are struck by this unexpected resonance, convinced it can't just be coincidence. This has to be an extension of the way your life is unfolding of late, a prophecy of instruction. It nags at you, like deja vu, while you familiarise yourself with your horse, liking the way his flanks ripple and hamstrings tauten as you ride, gently at first, then the glisten and swell of his hide as you guide him - growing quietly confident - with flicks of the wrist, digging your bootheels to ramp up that easy trot into a clompy gallop. Let's see what you've got, Shergar. Then, a spur too far and he throws you off, and in that momentary dust-cloud of rage you draw your gun and shoot him right in his stupid head, then skin him, the tetchy hoofed cunt. No part of the animal is wasted; you can even sell his meat for profit. So once it dawns on you that all this teeming wildlife represents bunce and bounty, the romance kicks up a notch, albeit firmly into Tarantino territory, more steampunk than showboat. Hello, human nature. You took your time.

So your ride is dead and you're in the middle of nowhere but no matter, there's plenty of wild horses to be tamed and even a lasso to do it with, once you progress a little.

Must remember to keep hold of the rope this time.
Slicing up the wildlife proves enticing and fun and it trades up nicely for food and bullets. Cowboy's got to live, right? This is how they did it in the West, and I ain't no hippy yet.

John, you find, is even more like you than you ever hoped or imagined. Time after time the bullets fly and the rabbit or the skunk or the deer or the crow or the dog or the chicken or the showgirl (oops, sorry Ma'am, done thought your boa was a real-life constrictor) fall down impressively, (the new Euphoria engine really showcases its talent here) for you to pluck bare, leaving no end of skinned cadavers shivering and fly-blown on the dusty plain. "Lie still," John says, as his knife splodges blood on the screen. And that's exactly what you'd have said too, with just the right touch of irony in the chuckle. You are soulmates and your journey together, you absolutely know for a fact, is going to be special.

And from here on in, the game never loses that quaint, almost somnolent vibe. Not in the cut scenes, which are tight and cinematic, not in the fights you are called on to break up, the honour of whores you are required to defend with unfailing regularity, the storekeepers' funds you are implored to reappropriate and offenders to vanquish, the various wild beasts you are compelled to fight off, most of which are completely fixated on the job of disembowelling your horse.
Cougars and rattlers and bears - oh my!



All of this is underpinned by a swoony feel of High Plains Drifter meets Back to the Future III that you never once want to buy out of, especially when you enter Mexico and the haunting music rises with the hoofbeats, putting you more firmly in the saddle of a Sergio Leone movie score. It is achingly good. They've obviously watched a ton of westerns in the course of making this, and, if it doesn't exactly provide you with the catharsis you first anticipated (or had wistfully bestowed upon it) there's one thing that playing Red Dead leaves behind in your waking life, and that's the urge to watch a good western. Silverado, maybe, or The Good the Bad and the Ugly. Actually, I did watch that last one and it's shit.

Any issues that may have tainted the flow of GTA4 and its offshoots have been winkled out and refined to perfection. Whilst the shirt on its back is manifestly of GTA cheesecloth, it's had a good biological washboarding under a mountain stream, and all its creases ironed out through the mangle, which is nice. Not too many names on the map to shuttle between like human tumbleweed, so sets of missions tend to be grouped manageably between characters. Sub-quests from strangers neatly arrayed with progress bars, available through the menus. Sub games such as Liars Dice and Horseshoe all throwing some welcome gunslinger R&R into the mix. Texas Hold Em Poker is a particular fluid and addictive hook, with all the usual wry and repetitive soundbites we come to expect from the Rockstar NPC. "I saw mah boss - kiss a man!"

Other dalliances are there to take up your time, such as searching for scraps of outfits to wear when you piece them up, or the ubiquitous bounty hunt. Then, after you gain the lasso, a-wrangling we will go, hogtieing varmints and vagabonds alike, for extra 'alive' bounty cash. Sometimes a stranger accosts you for a shooting contest (as if you hadn't randomly slaughtered enough birds that day). Or he might simply take a dislike to your pissant face and challenge you to a duel.

So despite the distances between places and the lack of architectural features to fill them, (compared to, say, San Andreas or Vice City) there's never anything less than the feeling of an organic world, thriving studiously under the desert sun. There's an even greater sense of it in multiplayer, which offers a whole other picnic of 'free roam' within the game environment. With co-op missions and competitive missions such as Gold Rush and Grab the Bag, these are party games for the big kids, worthy of a separate review in themselves.

Paint your wagon. With lead.
As far as gunplay goes, there's a new Sheriff in town and his name is Dead Eye. It's a welcome departure from all that frantic, third-person lurching that has dogged previous GTA combat. Deadeye, a sort of Payne-esque bullet time, is a handy way to slow down those cotton-pickin' varmints who seem to come from all angles with malice aforethought and vital in assuaging that 'grr' factor from dying time and again by an unseen shot. It is never more beneficial when trying to shoot through the thickness of a gallows rope to rescue some poor fellow's dangling wife, while bandits lean angry fire-irons your way. It even allows you the luxury of targeting multiple enemies, then fanning the hammer like Clint Eastwood to send them all a-toppling from their rides. Yee-haw.

There are far more save opportunities now too. A property to rent or buy in every town, but even better - a camp you can buy and set up in the wilderness, where you can not only save your game and change your outfit but fast travel to a location of your choice. Checkpoints in missions so you don't have to start right from the beginning again. Keeping hold of your weapons and provisions once you die, thereby not penalising too heavily by simply putting you back at the last save point, essentially intact. The levelling up stuff and all the sub-games are a nice, highly-polished touch too.

There are some niggles though, as might be expected with a game of this sheer size and scope. Frame rate issues in places, random things disappearing from the screen. One mission bug had me trying to corral a herd of cattle into an enclosure whose gates steadfastly refused to open, another saw my body cartwheel around the hitching post every time I tried to secure my horse. But they are not gamebreakers, and the simplicity of restarting mid-mission eases the penury somewhat.

Overall, GTA4 with cowboy boots on, it may well be. But this game embodies all the spirit and fun of line dancing with none of the shame, unless, of course, you just shot your horse through the neck trying to down songbirds again.

Rating: 5 stars out of 5.
.

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Tony Foster
Manchester, England, United Kingdom
Writer, Father, student, career procrastinator.
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