These days, in the world of hyper-advertising, viral advertising and Jane Fonda selling you moisturiser, everything is uber-touted as the best "insert product" evvvarr. Needless to say, I, like many others, am momentarily seized with a mental illness whereby I absorb every microbe of this bullshit and, like a meek lamb at a Satanists birthday party, await my reward in blissful ignorance.
However, 9 times out of 10, the thing you couldn't live without and which was going to change the way you thought about entertainment like Flying Spaghetti Monster changed the face of teh Internets, is in reality a mass-produced heap of genericism masterminded by Jew capitalists gleefully sucking at the teat of the cash-cow.
Thankfully, I had missed all the advertising campaign for Red Dead Redemption, RockStar Games latest effort for the video-game market after a decade making graphical interpretations of a Saturday night in Hull town centre (GTA and family). But I digress, having let RDR slip under my game radar I bought it with little or no expectations other than it was going to be a sandbox Grand Theft Auto with horses.
What I got however, was one of the best games of the past few years and certainly a mile-stone game in the same vein as The Legend of Zelda for the N64 or Halo for the X-Box. The genuinely beautiful backdrops teeming with authentic wildlife (all of which which you'll spend many happy hours riddling with buck-shot) provide a rich stage-set for the character of John Marston, the only video game interface devise I have ever felt any sort of emotional connection to or truly worried for the well-being of. A vast map gives you free scope to explore and complete a range of missions in the GTA fashion, with multiple "jobs" available across the map from different NPC's all the time and any time.
Far from being merely a "Western-style" GTA, Red Dead Redemption unravels its intelligent if well-worn story arc with some of the deepest character development to be found in the video game media. Realistic voice acting, dialogue, music, ambiance and background noise all add to the feel of this game. While the constant horseback riding can at times border on tedious, the cleverly disguised option of map travel is available should you not wish to spend 3-10 minutes of real time cantering though the truly breathtaking scenery RockStar have created. The dying days of the Old West are brought to life in a level of detail hardly conceivable only a few short years ago.
RockStar's notorious "myth" (i.e. Bigfoot from San Andreas) elements fuelled no doubt silently by the game designers themselves and fed on by players imaginations are present in RDR in a dynamic and truly spooky way.
Mysterious Strangers, possible ghost sightings and legendary beats (the latter are defiantly real) all add a level of mystic realism, a level of worldly uncertainly not present in other games giving it the unique and endearing atmosphere so well-loved in GTA games. In all, a truly fantasic gaming experience up there easily with any of the established "greats".
0 comments:
Post a Comment