Game: Red Dead Redemption
Format: Xbox 360
Developer: Rockstar San Diego and Rockstar North
Publisher: Games

The sales juggernaut that is Red Dead Redemption is finally in our hands and available to play by all. From the Grand Theft Auto studios, it is no surprise that this game has managed to set fire to sales charts all over the world.

Everything Rockstar touches seems to turn to gold these days, no matter how tedious it is (see our Massively Overrated Games article on GTA4 and our review for The Ballad of Gay Tony). But the question is: how does this new game fair under the scrutiny of The Newb Review?

To say that Red Dead Redemption took us by surprise is an understatement. Perhaps it is because the hype engine behind this game didn’t really get into full swing until a month or so before the game came out.

Sure, we had seen a bunch of trailers over the past year or so and the game was looking technically very nice, but the Red Dead label really had not established a strong reputation. After all, this is only the second game in the series and the gaming press was full of news about the game’s troubled development. Frankly, we were half expecting this game to be a perfectly competent Grand Theft Auto clone.

Yet, to call Red Dead Redemption ‘Grand Theft Horses’ cheapens the game slightly. In terms of gameplay the series has moved away from it’s arena based combat roots to a massive open world, non-linear action game.

Very few things are carried over from the first Red Dead game. The main leftover is the ‘Dead Eye’ shooting mechanic. Here time goes into slow motion, allowing you to line up individual targets, then blow them all away in quick succession.

Duels are one of the few things that return from the original game.

In terms of story, you play as John Marsden, a former gang member, whose family has been taken hostage by the federal government. In exchange for their freedom you must hunt down your former gang members and execute them in order to bring order to the last days of the Wild West. To say that the game’s opening was slow and methodical would be an understatement. Following an unsuccessful attempt at killing his old friends, Marsden is wounded and left for dead in the desert.

Marsden’s wounded body is discovered by ranchers who tend to his wounds, and conveniently serve as your guide to the world of Red Dead Redemption. A well as teaching you the basic controls for walking and shooting, the ranchers teach you everything you need to know about being a genuine cowboy.

Your main mode of transportation, the horse, comes in multiple forms; each with differing levels of stamina. The horses’ really feel like living, breathing creatures and they can only be worked so hard before they buck you off their backs. The key to travelling by horseback is to maintain a steady pace and not push the horse too hard.

The vistas in the game are breath taking.

Soon after mounting my first horse I managed to accidentally shoot it in the head while hunting coyotes thanks to the game’s default auto lock-on feature. This auto lock-on can be made stronger or weaker depending on your preference; although once I got to grips with how aiming worked in the game I found it was a fairly useful feature.

At the ranch you are given a number of side tasks. These range from horse shoe tossing, breaking in wild horses, night watch and cattle herding. These side missions serve as nice distractions but once you’ve completed each of them there really isn’t any need to visit them again; unless you become desperate for cash. Before long, you expand out of the ranch and venture in to the nearest town; Armadillo. Gradually  you venture further and further from your starting point in attempt to gather allies for your mission.

There is a real joy to be found in exploring Red Dead Redemption. Despite most of the world being empty, each area has its own distinctive look and character. Along the way you will encounter random people in need of help. These random tasks range from retrieving a stolen wagon to stopping a lynching and everything inbetween.

The Grizzly Bear is one of the toughest creatures in the game

As well as these random missions there are a number of collection based ambient missions. These serve as a decent replacement for the tired old ‘collect X amount of hidden packages’ or ‘shoot 100 pigeons’ in GTA4.

These challenges are broken up into 4 categories; the survivalist challenges require you to find flowers, treasure hunter challenges have you hunting for hidden treasure, sharpshooter challenges revolve around performing skilful shots, and the master hunter challenges have you hunting wild animals; from harmless rabbits to more deadly creatures like grizzly bears. Challenges can be completed in any order at any time and offer up a fun way to pass the time between missions.

The game is well written, with the usual great voice acting. Most of the characters are fairly decent multifaceted human beings, although there are still a few over the top characters. Some people will like these characters and find their inclusion humorous, but personally I found myself preferring the more realistic characters.

When hunting criminals you can take them in either dead or alive

As enjoyable as the game is, there are a few niggling issues. The game goes to great lengths to explain how every feature in the game works… except for the Dead Eye aiming centric duels to the death. I often found myself losing a duel simply because I had pressed the aim button a second or two too soon.

The sooner you press the aim button, the sooner you will pull our your gun. However this comes at a cost of your accuracy. At least, that is what I have been able to piece together so far. I’m still not 100% on those damned duels.

Weapon selection in the heat of the moment can be cumbersome at best; while holding the left bumper down you move the right analogue stick to select your weapon from a weapon wheel. However the icons for each weapon are entirely see through, which makes determining which weapon you are picking very difficult.

As cinematic and well written as the script is, the cinematography in the cut scenes is at best unusual and at worst sloppy. The camera cuts between characters at odd moments, sometimes mid sentence, and other times the camera will not cut for a long time after a character has stopped speaking, leaving them gawking at the screen. I would not normally mention it, but in this case it does not appear to serve any purpose other than irritate the film graduate in me.

Multiplayer is well represented in this game in the form of the free play mode. In essence this is the entire single player world, but with up to 16 other human players running around the place. You can from a posse of up to eight players and ride together, taking on general combat missions which have you storming bandit strongholds. Alternatively you can just run around shooting at the other players, being as much of a nuisance as possible.

Other death match and flag capturing multiplayer game modes are also available, but to be frank the best fun in the game is had teaming up with friends and tearing around on horses causing as much mayhem as possible. There have been some issues reported by players finding they are unable to join public free roam games. I have not experienced it myself, but the problem is wide spread enough for Rockstar to promise a patch to fix the issue.

Much like every other multiplayer on the face of the planet, there is a progressive levelling up system. Experience is awarded for killing bandits and other human players. Each level unlocks new weapons, character skins, and animals to ride on. Hilariously, every character starts with a worn out old donkey to ride; it’s a real joy seeing your team mate trundle into town on the back of a decrepit old mule, guns blazing.

Review Round-Up:

Graphics: 4/5 While some of the facial animation, particularly the lip syncing, is a bit patchy, you can tell a lot of love and effort has gone in to the character and environment designs. Individual people in the towns are recognisable, and each region of the game has its own look at feel, without coming across as unbelievably distinctive.

Sound: 5/5 The voice acting, as you would expect, is superb. Aside from a few over the top characters, most performances are subtle and subdued. The general sound effects for animals and weapons are believable and contribute towards creating a believable world.

Story: 4/5 Red Dead Redemption’s script resembles a movie more than a video game, with fairly unusual pacing; Marsden’s mission remains a secret to the player (unless they read the back of the box) for a good hour or so, and the end few missions of the game feel more like a traditional training mission more than anything else. It is not a bad thing by any means, merely unusual.

Gameplay: 4/5 Controlling John Marsden feels a lot smoother than previous characters in Rockstar games. The Dead Eye slow motion aiming is a great feature that can help you out in tough situations. The single player is full of numerous missions of various types, such as fetch quests, escort missions (that are actually fun!) or missions that revolve around taking control of huge mounted guns.

Longevity: 5/5 With a lengthy story mode, numerous side missions and other activities, Red Dead Redemption will easily keep you busy for hours on end. And that is before you even try the multiplayer.

Overall 4.5 Extinct Buffalo out of 5. Red Dead Redemption is perhaps the ideal sequel; it took everything that was less than spectacular from Red Dead Revolver and cast it aside. Crossing the distinctive western aesthetic with the open world style of Grand Theft Auto, Rockstar have managed to produce a cinematic new blockbuster franchise, complete with compelling co-operative multiplayer, and oozing replayability.

[starreview tpl=16]

And Another Thing…

Tom Wallis writes:

I fired up this game straight into multiplayer with a couple of friends, giddy with excitement as to the possibilities contained within. Certainly, the first few hours I wasn’t disappointed and we had great fun completing the gang hideout missions and causing havoc for other posses in the world.

The problems arise after the initial few hours: there just isn’t enough to do. The frustration with the multiplayer comes with the fact that you can see, and indeed you’ve been given, the tools to do a lot of things in the world of Red Dead, but there just aren’t enough missions for you to fully enjoy them.

Another problem is with the player versus player challenges, in the form of grab the bag and shootout. Generally the aiming in the game is competent, but auto-aiming is far too effective and switching this off becomes far too hard.

Inside player versus player games I’ve also encountered problems with the match making. Players within my posse have been split between different teams, which defeats the purpose of allowing us to posse up in the first place.

Finally, opposing players have large indicators above their heads. This irritatingly highlights the player and means there is almost no skill involved in winning.

Generally the multiplayer has been a disappointment considering the high quality of the single player campaign. Hopefully future DLC will both address some of the issues as well introducing some much needed variety to create the superb overall package we were all hoping for.

Red Dead Revolver was released on the Playstation 2 and the original Xbox in early 2004 to some mixed reviews and fairly decent sales. This week sees the high profile release of the sequel, Red Dead Redemption, which so far has received mostly stellar reviews. So what better time to shamelessly cash in and take a trip back in time to look at how it began?

Created by Rockstar San Diego, the studio behind the Midnight Club racing games, and published by Rockstar Games, the powerhouses behind the Grand Theft Auto series, Red Dead Revolver was a interesting third person shooter simply because it exuded style from every pore.

Meet Red. He's the protagonist... That means hero.

The game featured a fantastic sound track by Western Legend Ennio Morricone, composer of The Good the Bad and the Ugly, which really contributes towards the authentic western feel.

Like any good Western, Red Dead Revolver put you in the role of a man out for vengeance; Red, the bounty hunting son of gold prospectors. As a child, his parents were murdered by a greedy Mexican general, out to steal their substantial amount of gold.

How did this General learn of his family’s recent find? A trusted friend betrayed them in exchange for saving his own worthless hide. Once Red grows up and becomes a bona fide Bounty Hunter, he sets out to take revenge on both the heartless general and the gutless traitor.

As well as the main protagonist there were several other playable characters at various points in the game. However, they all handle exactly the same as Red, and only really served as a way of emphasising what a bland character Red was.

Shooting fatties as they waddle towards you has never been such fun

Characters like the English sharp shooter Jack Swift, for instance, were far more charismatic. At times these side levels served as little more than distractions from the main quest. Each character was playable in the multiplayer mode, which offered up various death match games; although overall it felt a little tacked on.

The real meat of this game came in the single player story mode. The world of Red Dead Revolver was far smaller than you might expect, what with it coming from the people behind Grand Theft Auto. If any comparison can be made to another existing Rockstar game, it would probably have to be Manhunt. Each level is broken up into small arenas populated with a number of enemies. In order to progress you must defeat every enemy, and defeat the more powerful boss character at the end of the level.

There were a lot of tools at your disposal, ranging from the generic pistols, revolvers, to riffles, and dynamite. The best feature in Red Dead Revolver came in the form of the deadeye mechanic. Basically, deadeye is the equivalent of the slow motion bullet time found in games such as Max Payne and Stranglehold.

When deadeye was activated you could aim at up to six targets, be they six individual targets or just separate body parts, and fill them full of hot lead. Deadeye was also implemented in quick draws at regular intervals in the game. These quick draw moments proved to be some of the most memorable, and genuinely satisfying, moments in the game.

Deadeye aiming is a brilliant feature

Like a lot of Rockstar games, at times the controls could be a bit fiddly, particularly the movement controls. Your character could duck behind cover, roll out of the way of fire, and perform hand to hand combat, but overall you really fighting up close with your enemies was a bad idea. The game was at its best when standing at one end of a deserted ghost town, firing off shot after shot at enemies standing at the other end of the street.

As well as gun fights, you would be right in expecting other Western staples, such as train robberies, saloon fights, and horse riding. For the most part the big set pieces, such as the attack on the train, were exhilarating, although a little clunkily put together.

That is probably the best thing you could say about Red Dead Revolver; it was a neat game with a ton of good ideas. The only problem being that the execution was a little off. It’s probably safe to say that Rockstar are aware of the game’s faults, as the sequel Red Dead Redemption shares little in common with the original. In fact the only links between Red Dead Revolver and Red Dead Redemption are the inclusion of the Deadeye mechanic and fact that it has a protagonist that rides a horse.

There are a number of thrilling set pieces, including this attack on a train

Red Dead Revolver is available for both the Playstation 2 and the Original Xbox and should be available at a fairly low price online. It is one of the original Xbox titles that will work on your Xbox 360, and if you are lucky enough to own an old 60GB model of PS3 then you should be able to play it on that too.

Stay tuned to The Newb Review for the ultimate Red Dead Redemption review.

Game: Borderlands
Format: XBox 360
Developer: Gearbox Software
Publisher: 2K Games

At first glance you could be forgiven for thinking that Borderlands is a fairly derivative game. Sure, it appears to have taken the wasteland setting and RPG elements of Fallout 3, mixed it with the “proper” first person shooter controls of your Call of Duty and Halo games, and even added in the cell shaded visual style of games like Jet Set Radio and Crackdown. You have got to give it to Gearbox, they’ve taken elements from some of the best games in recent years and created something entirely new, and frankly quite fantastic. Borderlands is not only an excellent shooter, it is a brilliant RPG, with the option to play through the entire thing with up to three friends, or go all the way on your own.

Missions range from the bright sunny surface, to dank dark caves

The game takes place on the planet Pandora, far in the future. Pandora is a desolate junk yard planet, populated with mutant creatures, bandits, and frontiersmen. So if Pandora is such a hell hole, why would any sane person want to go there? The answer lies in the legend of The Vault, an alien treasuretrove just waiting to be discovered by any adventure hunter brave enough to search for it. You take control of one of these treasure hunters. There are a total of four types of adventurer and each is armed with their own special ability. Roland, the Soldier, is your all round character, who is especially good with combat riffles and shotguns and can use a turret if things get particularly sticky. Lilith is a Siren, and is able to turn invisible for short periods of time, giving off an energy pulse. Mordecai is a Sniper who possesses a hunting bird that he can send to attack his enemies. The final character to choose from is Brick, who is proficient with explosive and shotguns, and is able to go in to a blind rage and punch the daylights out of his enemies. Unlike many other RPGs you cannot really customise the appearance of your characters, beyond changing the colour of their clothing, which is a shame but it does not harm the overall experience. As you level up your characters you are able to customise your character’s abilities through a fairly expansive skill tree. You can also equip various types of energy shields, squad modifications that bestow special abilities such as ammo regeneration, and modifiers for your grenades. It sounds complicated, but the game slowly eases you in to the customisation of your character through the first four or five missions or so.

Meet the cast: Roland the Soldier, Lilith the Siren, Mordecai the Hunter, and Brick the... errr... Brick.

At first Borderlands can seem quite daunting. At the start of the game your standard weapon is fairly weak, but you should not have any problems dealing with the bandits and creatures called Skags, a weird cross between dogs, lizards, and rhinos. As you kill more enemies and explore more regions you discover more loot, including better weapons and shields. The developers proclaimed early on that there were millions of weapons in the game, and that is easy to believe. For the most part the differences between the weapons are subtle, with the main differences between guns being a few points in the damage capabilities, accuracy, or firing speed. However, as you progress further in to the game you discover weapons with elemental damage bonuses which can cause serious damage to your opponents. Yet, it will take more than a cool gun to get you through the game. Each mission is labelled with a recommended experience level for you to be at in order to succeed, and in my experience I found these guidelines were very strict. For instance, early in the game I was a level 7 and a mission required me to be level 10. Feeling confident in my abilities, as I had discovered an excellent sniper riffle, I decided to go ahead with the mission anyway. As you can imagine I was utterly obliterated every time I attempted that mission until I reached level 10. At this point I was able to succeed, as if by magic, by meeting their guidelines. At first this felt a little cheap, like an artificial way of increasing the game’s length, but those feelings soon subsided as I progressed realising that it was a lot of fun running around doing the side missions in order to boost my experience level.

There are plenty of enemies to keep you occupied as you travel the land

The world of Pandora itself is fairly large, and while it is very open, it is not entirely an open world. Each section of the planet that you can access is more like a large arena, with mountains and valleys stopping you from straying too far instead of artificial walls. To progress through one area to another you must travel through a gate, which prompts a loading screen, taking you to the next area. In some ways this is a little disappointing, but for the most part it actually makes the game less daunting and gives it a decent level of structure, as you are mostly unable to wander too far away from your objectives. Being a wasteland, the world is mostly made up of barren deserts, but there has clearly been enough thought put in to the design of each section to prevent the world from becoming boring. The world is densely populated with hostile forces, so you will often find yourself being attacked as you attempt to travel from one place to another. If you see an encampment, or run down building, chances are that the bandits have taken control of that area, so you will have a fight on your hands if you dare to explore or go looking for loot. Each section that you visit is fairly large and expansive, and takes a long time to traverse on foot. Thankfully cars have been included, allowing you to quickly drive around, and shoot at enemies with either a mounted machine gun, or a rocket launcher. Each vehicle can hold two people – a driver, and a gunner – so if you are playing multiplayer you will probably need two vehicles. Vehicles are fairly easy to come by, with several garages in each section of the world, all you need to do is press a switch and a vehicle will appear. Upon reaching the second main area in the game, you unlock the fast travel ability, which lets you teleport from one section to another, avoiding all of those nasty enemies.

Vehicles can make things a lot easier for you, but they are not invincible.

As for the story itself, I do not think that it would be unfair to say that it is pretty weak. Each story mission merely serves as a way of progressing you from once place to another, rather than enriching the story. Yet the writing for the individual character’s dialogue is often hilarious, with some of the incidental side characters being very memorable. The story revolves around your quest to discover the vault, and prevent the evil corporation that claims to own the planet from getting there first, but to be honest, it all seemed fairly generic and uninspired. The real fun in this game is in the exploration, the discovery of loot, and the combat. The action is fast paced and frantic, especially when you are playing in four player co-op. Thankfully you can play in co-op with any combination of character types, so you can all be soldiers, or whatever you want, with no penalties. If you choose to play the game in single player, then you are entirely on your own, with no AI controlled team mates. It is clear that this game is designed with 4 player co-op in mind, as the more players you have, the more enemies you will face, and the better loot you will find. There is a very handy feature in the game that takes place if you are killed – before actually dying you drop to your knees and are given a few seconds to try and kill an enemy. If you are successful you spring back to life with a little health, and can continue. There is no real punishment for dying apart from a small fine, as you merely respawn at health stations, and can continue from where you left off, although any enemies still standing will also have their health refilled if every member of your team dies. As an overall experience, Borderlands is fantastic fun and incredibly hard not to recommend.

REVIEW ROUND UP:

GRAPHICS: 5/5 Originally Gearbox were going to go with fairly generic “realistic” graphics for this game, and thank god they decided not to. The thick black lines and bright colours gives the game a charming and distinctive comic book look.

SOUND: 5/5 Some of the voice acting is superb, and the sound effects for the guns are impressive. The screams the bandits make when they are killed with a corrosive gun, and turn in to a pool of ooze, are incredibly haunting but satisfying. The music is subtle, but memorable, and can create a sense of tension when you are bombarded with enemies.

GAMEPLAY: 4/5 The missions usually revolve around collecting items, or going to a certain location and killing someone. While some missions can become a little tedious, the experience is overall a very positive one. The enemy AI is pretty stupid for the most part, as they just tend to charge at you. A lot of the time gunfights involve you walking backwards slowly and emptying your gun in to a crowd of enemies. Thankfully there are no times racing events, and no escort missions!

LONGEVITY: 5/5 The first play through will probably take over 20 hours to complete, especially if you aim to complete as many of the side missions as possible. Upon completing the game you will be a level 30ish character and can start a second play through, keeping all of your attributes and loot, facing much tougher enemies. The inclusion of 4 player online co-op, and 2 player split screen co-op can potentially keep you coming back to the game for a good while to come.

OVERALL: 5 Critical Hits out of 5. Borderlands is a surprisingly fun experience, especially when playing online with friends. If you are the sort of person that enjoys hunting for treasure in games, always trying to have the best equipment possible, then you will find a lot to enjoy here. Those looking for a deep and lengthy story telling experience may be left a little disappointed, but the dialogue of the characters makes up for that particular shortcoming. The RPG elements are slowly introduced to the player so that even a novice will quickly pick up the complexities of the game and be equipping modifiers with the best of us.