Above Snakes: The Lessons of The Red Dead West

The developer of the Grand Theft Auto series, a franchise that goes punch for punch in fan-boy loyalty with the Super Marios and the Halos, is a trendsetter. Rockstar Games with GTA, Bully and now Red Dead set the bar for interactive media. If developer houses were to be ranked by which rap star they are, Rockstar is Jay Z. Sauve. Charisma. Forward thinking. And with the newly released title, Red Dead Redemption, developers from different houses should take the lessons taught from the Rockstar Games team. When it comes to Rockstar Games we are left never less than marvelous works. The push the envelope and with RDR, they raise the bar for games to come in the 3rd person open-world genre.

 

As the story unfolds, we learn the character, John Marston and the West is in a period of change. We see John's story unfold, New Austin is in econonimic turmoil (think the Mid-West right before the Dustbowl), Mexico is burning from the embers of power hungry revolutionaries and New Elizabeth starts to show the fruits of modernization. But the decay that the white man has brought is apparent, the Buffalo are hunted beyond their means and the Native Americans have turned away from the reservations to become a menace to society. The stories are presented with sincerity, eloquence and often with the brutal truth. Rockstar does the Old West Genre, better than Clint Eastwood and Hollywood ever could in its' heyday.

 

 

The Clean UI and Ergonomic Controller

Clean is a relative term, but go back to Grand Theft Auto 4. Notice how in GTA 4 there is a sign for every little thing. In RDR, the fidelity is so clear there is no need to have a flashing triangle over the targets head or where to start a mission. It is like going from a Ford Mustang to BMW M3. One of my biggest gripes on GTA 4 was the use of the D-Pad. Rockstar took the choice of weapons, and place them on a radial dial ala Bioshock/DeadSpace while holding down the R1/LB button. Another gripe, was the gun aiming on transportation, but with the use of the Red-Eye locking mechanism, I rejoiced with the controller instead of battling with it.

Click on page 2 for Weapons, Scenery and Closure.

Weapons

From Revolvers to Rifles to Dynamite Sticks to Lassos and totin' Machine Gun, Red Dead's weapons have an oomph of authenticity. Well, the team of Rockstar research the weapons of the early 1900s and incorporated them masterfully into the video game. The accuracy is as detailed to the time, even boasting the accuracy of their weapons in an essay after the release of the game. The 2nd Amendment was alive and well in 1911, and Red Dead's John Marston is quick and deadly with any weapon in his hands.

 

 

Beauty in Scenery

The sounds of animals living in their natural habitat, the beaver, horse, and the grizzly. A place where the sunrise and sunset is as beautiful outside in the true wilderness, with a skyline littered with stars and galaxies. Revolutionary-war torn buildings with gun battles in every other town, with shots being fired from every possible fenestra. Every nook and cranny of RDR's scenery is painstakingly detailed, your horse leaves tracks, as shots are fired the wildlife disperse by land or air, and each train works on it set pattern. RDR's plains, wilderness and cabins become are born from the crafty research teams Rockstar employed, but from ghost towns to a digital love letter of the West.

 

One of the greater issues in video-games, is the ending of a title. Many video game stories fall into the category of creating a franchise, just as Hollywood does. Sequels are good, but so are movies who only garner one entry into the market. It is the Star Wars franchise that is the bane of video game stories. Red Dead Redemption may be a sequel on paper, but it owes very little to its' predecessor. RDR actually advances the genre of storytelling, moving away from science fiction and fantasy, and placing a game right smack dab in the "teenage years of the United States of America" search of identity.