A GUNSLINGER'S LAST STAND
I can almost feel the scorching heat radiating off the screen as I boot up Red Dead Redemption for the first time in a long time. I'd forgotten how utterly inhospitable this western setting is. It is certainly no apple of the aesthete's eye; nothing like the varied, lush fantasies of contemporary games.Instead, Red Dead Redemption takes place in the fictional land of New Austin. It is the survivalist's land. Home to savages, animals, food chains and drought, it makes me long for the comfort of a house with a soft bed, and some loved ones to greet me at the door - with a big bucket of ice-cold water.
The sequel to this game, Red Dead Redemption II (2018), which took place before the original, made me mourn the dying of a lifestyle of freedom and camaraderie. As it picks up the narrative thread, the original Red Dead Redemption is so barren it makes me give in and salute the arrival of any lifestyle at all.
Both games portray romanticized cycles of violence and adventure. In Red Dead Redemption that cycle is coming to an end. It's an epilogue I don't necessarily want to hear, but I'll stick to it because at the end I'll be rewarded with that glimmer of hope. The future looks peaceful and bright. Right?
INTRODUCING JOHN MARSTON
An opening cinematic introduces the character of John Marston. Whether you already know him or not, you'll find him an instantly likeable fellow, greatly served by his brilliant voice actor Robert Allen Wiethoff. A small fish in a big pond, John really does not belong in the world that's forming around him.He nonetheless tried his best to adapt, settling down as a farmer and family man. Uncle Sam, however, would have none of it. Some crooks in government kidnapped his wife and son, and as the game starts are blackmailing him into killing the scattered survivors of the Van der Linde-gang he used to run with. Upon succeeding, he'll get his farm and family back.
That is the 'redemption' part of the title. The rest of the game is all about the 'red' and the 'dead'.
John must utilize his gunslinging abilities and what few contacts he can muster to succeed. As the game picks up in 1911, he is seeking the whereabouts of one Bill Williamson (Steve J. Palmer), located somewhere near the town of Armadillo. This, and every other in-game location, is fabricated, but you immediately get a sense of their place in the world.
Armadillo, for instance, probably came about as a quick train stop for refuelling and rewatering the engine, before it would chug along to more important destinations. I see no happy future for the place - probably it will decline into a backwater dump of unemployment and depression as soon as civilization is finalized.
STORY AND WORLD STRUCTURE
The early story missions constitute a glorified tutorial. They are written so exquisitely that you tend to ignore how little they accomplish. They introduce you to such mundane gameplay activities as horseback riding, aiming your revolver, cattle herding, and shopping. By today's standards the character models have inanimate faces, but creator Rockstar Games superbly expresses their personalities through body animation, design and voice acting.Soon the story picks up the pace, introducing more advanced gameplay features like fighting and some mini-games, like poker, blackjack and five finger fillet.
You'll have to ride back and forth across the map, which seems smaller than I remembered. Exploring outside of the main story will not reward you in any meaningful sense. A few strangers' questlines exist, as well as survival challenges and endlessly repeated random events that you'll most likely ignore before long.
DISILLUSIONMENT AND FIGHTING
Playing Red Dead Redemption reminds me of 1970:s Hollywood, when its disillusioned, post-Vietnam auteurs dared to display a decadent America. In the movies of directors like Martin Scorsese, Francis Ford Coppola, Robert Altman and Hal Ashby the streets were littered with trash, people were damaged goods, and even its heroes were imperfect.John is like that. His mind holds no room for bigger ideals, so he'll side with anyone able to bring him closer to his goal - a reunion with his family. This makes his tale sad and cynical, but also opens up to a lot of fun banter. Every friendly character you run into will take advantage of John's skills and desparate situation to fuel their own demands. To see his family again, John'll have to kill a lot of people.
A lot has been said about Rockstar's poor combat controls. General consensus claims they are in dire need of an overhaul. But if that is true, why do I keep having so much fun with them? They aren't realistic, but they feel believable within this cinematic universe, just like the writing and world design. It all fits the western myth like a glove.
Gunslinging utilizes a cover-based system supported by a few seconds of automatic aiming as soon as you press the aim button. Manual aiming requires a steady hand. To support it, a Dead Eye mechanic exists, which slows down game time to a crawl. However, it only lasts for as long as your Dead Eye-meter isn't empty. You can refill it with chewing tobacco, just like you can refill your health with medicine. I adore this mechanic that allows me to disarm opponents with the precision of a western legend, or blow the hat off his top. I only wish you could shoot his belt to make him drop his pants, as well.
In a few, spread out settlements you can purchase better weapons and refill your supplies. If you succeed in taming a wild horse you may also unlock the deed to that specific breed, allowing you to magically obtain a new one wherever you are. It's a quality of life improvement that speeds up the gameplay, to the detriment of immersion. To me, it is a most welcome trade-off.
A FEW IMPERFECTIONS
This seems like nitpicking, but I would have liked the possibility to fast travel between the condos you might've bought in various settlements. Rockstar usually doesn't want to break immersion, and might want to force you to pay for stagecoaches. But since fast travelling from campsites anywhere in the wild is possible anyway, I don't see a reason for this nonsensical restriction.Lassoing people still glitches out if you accidentally let go of your rope whilst hauling in your catch. I'm surprised Rockstar never fixed this. It leaves the hapless victim stuck on the ground, as uninteractable as if he's dead. When this happens, you can only kill or abandon your prey. If this happens during a mission to capture someone alive, you'll automatically fail and have to try again.
Also, the story drags on a bit in the second act, which takes place in Mexico. This is where you're forced into a revolution, trying not to pick sides between a dictator, Allende, and a rebel, Reyes. Both of them try to play you out against the other, lying and delivering empty promises to gain your services. Here, gameplay gets a funny systemic twist: If you help out innocents held down at gunpoint you're breaking the law, because the bad guys are working for the government.
These missions are still fun, but the story starts overstaying its welcome. I think this part exists to mirror John's past of being a rebel with a cause in a gang of outlaws. Except now he perceives it through jaded eyes, as he's grown more mature and independent.
Gladly, the story really picks up the pace after Mexico, with only a handful of missions until the big climax - and then an emotional epilogue. As John catches up to his former gang members, Rockstar tastefully downplays big moments and important character deaths. This is brave, especially given the scope of the surrounding world and the time players invest in getting there.
THE GRAND CONCLUSION (?) TO AN EPIC
Today Red Dead Redemption looks aged only on the uttermost surface level. Playing doesn't feel that way at all. It maintains the same excitement and thematic depth that I sensed, with its hopeless defiance against the dictatorship of evolution. In this world, the wilderness no longer symbolizes freedom, only savagery.Also, re-living the original makes me further realize how utterly brilliant its sequel really is. Red Dead Redemption II not only excels in its own right. Instead of replacing its predecessor, it supports and nurtures it with added flavor. It shines a new light on its themes. Rockstar called them "companion pieces", and by playing them side-to-side, that statement makes perfect sense.
As both stories start off in medias res, you can begin anywhere. The richness of the second game begins to decline halfway through it, and you feel a tremendous loss over it. As the events of the original Red Dead Redemption take over, this decline has reached unbearable depths, which is mirrored in its barren landscapes and lack of good, trustworthy people.
And as the tale concludes, we get a sense of an epic, spanning two games; a story about an America gone wrong, where unscrupulous crooks get celebrated to feel like liberators. Now they have deceived their way to power. The people sing and dream of the land of the free, but are herded and branded like cattle in growing settlements. And their place in the wild is truly dead.
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