Red Dead Redemption

Rockstar only release around one new game property a year, but by god they make the most of it. The marketing for Red Dead Redemption has been considerable – easily the match of the campaign for their last major console release, Grand Theft Auto IV– and games journalists have been plied with screenshots, in-game video, new teaser trailers and the like for the best part of 12 months. To be honest, though, they could have put this out with no warning in a hessian sack with a scrawled Rockstar logo on it and slavering gamers would have bought it regardless. That's because the Rockstar name is as indicative of quality as that of Pixar on an animated film or Sub Pop on an album: there's a stylistic unity to what they do, along with a well-deserved reputation for quality, which means if you've been a fan to this point, you'll almost certainly love what they do next.

Red Dead Redemption (the sorta-but-not-really follow up to 2004's middling Red Dead Revolver) could almost have been marketed as GTA: Deadwood. It's a sandbox game set the American West of 1911 as the encroaching influence of civilisation begins to drive the frontiersman lifestyle to extinction. You play as John Marsden, a former outlaw with a violent past who wants nothing more than a quiet life with his wife and son, but is pressed back into service by shadowy government agents who want his former gangmates dead and aren't above holding his family hostage to motivate Marsden along. This requires you to enlist the help of a variety of characters to bring your targets to justice, each of whom have their own agenda, while learning more about the world of the game and carrying out endless side-missions.

While the gameplay should be no surprise to those familiar with the GTA template, the sheer scope of the game leaves its bedfellows in the dust. The map is absolutely enormous– you'll soon be grateful for the wagon "taxis" that run between most of the towns – with environments ranging from snow-covered mountains and coyote-infested deserts (truly, RDR puts the "sand" in "sandbox") to swamps, isolated homesteads, lush valleys and well-populated towns. While the central plotline should take a player a solid 20+ hours to complete, that's assuming that they don't want to embark on any of the side missions which earn money and add to (or detract from) John's honour and fame, thereby determining how people respond to him and what missions are available. He can hunt down criminals for their bounty, make money breaking horses or selling animal skins, play cards or dice, read the newspapers or just wander about waiting for people to ask for help or make ill-advised threats. In fact, you could happily play for days without doing a single thing to progress the storyline, such is the variety on offer.

The plot just keeps unfolding too: there were three occasions where I thought I was approaching the conclusion only to discover that there was still a long, long road ahead of me. And there's more to come: even as you rush to complete the existing game, new downloadable levels and achievements are already being rolled out. The game also looks fantastic: the character models are very well executed but the backgrounds are often stop-in-your-tracks breathtaking, especially when you round a mountain pass and are rewarded with a vista spreading for miles across the prairies.

Despite some occasionally frustrating glitches that suggest a rushed testing schedule, Red Dead Redemption is not only likely to be your favourite adventure game of 2010 – there's a good chance you'll still be galloping around it come 2011.

BONUS PACKS

Unsurprisingly, Rockstar have been parcelling out bonus packs since the game's release. Sure, most of the benefits of Outlaws and Killers and Liars and Cheats are in multiplayer – you get some Red Dead Revolver characters and new maps in the former, multiplayer poker and Liar's Dice in the latter – but the best thing for those obsessed with the single player missions are the new weapons (and their related achievements): the tomahawk and the explosive rifle. The latter is fun but hardly that challenging (y'know, because stuff blows up), but nailing the tomahawk achievements are deliciously difficult, especially completing an entire gang hideout only using the weapon. If you've already completed the game but want more, dammit, these are must-have additions.

The Hunting and Trading pack is free, which is very nice of Rockstar as well as a recognition that the pack's not actually that great: two new outfits can be unlocked (Expert Hunter and Savvy Merchant), but if you've been playing Red Dead for much time you've probably achieved most of the necessary achievements to unlock them: hunt 500 pounds of meat, earn $1000 playing poker and the like. The main reason you'll want it, though, is the new animal on the block: the wily Jackalope (a rabbit with antlers), a legendary creature you'll need to hunt to get the Expert Hunter outfit. They're not easy to find, but if you check around the north-west of the map you should get lucky (I found mine near Repentence Rock). 

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