Red Dead Redemption Review

So today I sat with my laptop placed firmly across my knees, started up my 1930’s Pandora station (Check out The Ink Spots), and proceeded to check up on all my favorite feeds when I remembered something; I forgot about that planned review of Red Dead Redemption.  After smacking my forehead and admonishing myself for, once again, not keeping up with this blog, I began to write.  This paragraph is the product so far…

For those of you who have slept through the last couple months, or simply know nothing about video games (why are you reading this again?), Red Dead Redemption is a wild west sandbox game.  If you don’t know what a sandbox game is then… No, I’m not going to bother explaining.

Red Dead Redemption is Grand Theft Auto taken back in time to our nation’s early much less favorable days, and, much like every other pop culture version of the wild west, glorifies it.

When I first heard about this “cowboy” videogame I immediately thought, “Wow, Rockstar is taking their same game engine and creating the same game except with a few pixels mixed up.  Of course I was wrong which I found out after I bought the game after hearing raving reviews about it.

Campaign__________

The game is excellent.  There is something to be said for a game which I can find nothing wrong with.  Red Dead Redemption excels in its element: a sandbox do whatever the hell you want game.  Of course, we already knew anything from Rockstar would excel in the category because this is their element and they have mastered it beautifully.

The campaign is fairly lengthy, but short enough that by the time it’s over you’re sad and left wanting more (which is the way every good videogame should leave you).

My one complaint is the fact that I have to repeatedly tap the A button to sell all my pelts after I go on a hunting/skinning spree.  It sounds like I’m nitpicking, but when you have a fifty pelt inventory to sell, it gets old.  However, if my biggest complaint about a game is my own laziness in the shop, then I think you’re alright.

Multiplayer__________

The biggest disappointment about this game by far and I can’t blame the creators for it at all.

The online multiplayer has countless possibilities: challenges, gang hideouts, missions, etc.  But… you can lead a horse to water, but you can’t make him drink, just like you can lead a thirteen-year-old to a good game, but can’t make him play it right.

The online multiplayer is a disaster, but it’s not at the fault of Rockstar, no.  As soon as you, as a gamer who simply sees the online circuit as a way to play through the challenges of the game together and make awesome teammates online, go into public mode you will endure the splatter of brains of epic proportions.  You cannot walk two feet in the game without being hunted down and blown away, which defeats entirely the idea of cooperative missions and challenges.

Rating:  4/5

And yes, I know the game came out ages ago and this is a very late review, but oh well… the amount I care could fit into a teaspoon.