My review of the video game Red Dead Redemption

I know that this is not exactly breaking news now, almost a week after the game has been released in the U.S.  However, as good as the professional reviews and youtube clips are, I think I have a perspective as a gamer that can be more beneficial to casual gamers who might seriously consider buying this game.

Lets start out by saying that Red Dead Redemption is so much more than just a cowboy version of Grand Theft Auto, but does fall victim to many of the same quirks.  I think that one of the big troubles that ALL open world games face is that they are automatically compared to Grand Theft Auto, in good terms and bad alike.  It’s a quite unfair expectation to think a game is going to come along and instantly surpass the greatness of Grand Theft Auto.  The best an open world game can be expected to do is improve on many of the minor areas that Grand Theft Auto fails at.  For example, I have always found an annoying aspect of open world games in general, is that some missions seem just near impossible to beat, while later missions that are intended to be harder, I find much less trouble with.  This is a major area that I think Red Dead Redemption has made fantastic improvements in!  Another area that Red Dead Redemption has been major improvements in is creating a much more engaging storyline.  You start to really care about the main character, and want to complete main missions and side missions alike just to see what happens to him.

Just like the areas that showed major improvements, there are some areas that just seem Exactly like Grand Theft Auto.  I found that you will still encounter graphics and/or gameplay glitches, the kind that create ghosting, or the kind that get your character stuck in one spot.  One thing I was disappointed with when playing Red Dead Redemption was the lack of variety in horses, or at least the difficulty with finding a better horse.  Grand Theft Auto was clearly better in this respect, seeing as you figure out early on what the fastest car and strongest vehicle in the area is.  In terms of repetitiveness,  Red Dead Redemption has made some improvements (see engaging storyline comments) but still feels too repetitive, which is a quality that all open world games seem to share.

Overall, I think Red Dead Redemption is a fantastic buy even if you already own all the Grand Theft Auto games like I do (sans GTA4 addons).  However, if you really dislike Grand Theft Auto, then Red Dead Redemption will probably feel like just more of the same to you.