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Red Dead Redemption Preview

By Jason - December 16, 2009 - 22:52 UTC

Somewhere between Red Dead Redemption and Deadwood, my vocabulary changed.  Cocksucker.  Actually, I’ll try and keep the swears to a minimum, but it’s a very hard task, I assure you.  Recently, I was lucky enough to visit one of the happiest places on Earth, Rockstar Games in Sydney to have a preview of Red Dead Redemption.  Once I left however, they warned me carefully, “There’s a bounty on your head, you flea-ridden, cotton-pickin’ sunnuva bitch!”  Damn it, I slipped again.  Sorry about that.

You all sit back whilst I spin you a tale, set at the turn of the 20th century.  A western adventure of the likes and scope you’ll likely have never seen.  It’s a lawless place, the west is dying as technology and politics muscle the cowboys out of town.  It’s a place where wild dogs will take you down if you’re weak, and where anyone, and I do mean anyone could be your enemy.  Trust no-one, expect to be backstabbed and you might just survive in this god-forsaken place.  If you do, it’s one hell of an existance.

Red Dead Redemptionis set around three major areas:  West Elizabeth, a more civilized town surrounded by rolling plains and tall forests.  New Austin is a more frontier town, very much more symbolic of the times.  Finally, there’s Nuevo Parasio in the northern section of Mexico, separated from America by a river, it’s a place where the sands are red and the times are always crazy.  John Marston is the protagonist of the story, a reformed gunslinger hot on the trail of his old gang for reasons that Rockstar are keeping firmly under their hats.

You’re onslaughted by something that I thought was porn music, a slow track with a guitar riff and some low trumpet.  It’s very western and is probably better suited to gun fights rather than love-making.  Putting out the campfire (which is used to save, restore ammunition and restore dead-eye), we make the move towards Chuparosa, a small town close to our campsite.  A limping man calls out for help and we make decision to assist him.  This is automatically a mistake, as he throws us off our horse and makes off with it.  Thankfully, the horse is very loyal (this isn’t always then case) and when we whistle, our assailant is bucked off and the steed merrily trots back to us.  Not this time, sucker!  Now, these aren’t scripted events, there’s no way of telling whether the event will go your way if you’re nice, or if they will be out to get you.  Maybe even if you do help, you’ll get no reward, maybe you’ll be paid nicely.  Who knows?  Like I said, trust no-one.

There’s an honour system which will affect the way you’re seen in towns, and there’s multiple ways you can raise it.  Some of those include taking bounties alive rather than dead and helping people in need, and the rewards of good acts will range from people taking your side in a bar room brawl to lawmen taking up arms in your defense, which sounds like it could be very handy.

John enters Chuparosa, and we see it’s a pretty run down place.  Buildings are made of clay and stone, and it looks like it could really use some TLC.  The people are completely dynamic too, not only will they react to your presence, but they’ve also got their own lives.  When night comes, they might be in the bar, or in bed; they’ve got jobs, each person has their own individual role in town.  At the general store we see a range of items we can buy, we pick up a bandana, which can be used to help you commit crimes.  If you’re seen with a bandana committing a crime, escape then remove it, the lawmen will have a harder time looking for you, as you’ve altered your appearance.

A bounty is put up by a towns person, and we’re more than happy to have a look at it.  Oh my, grand larceny, tsk tsk tsk.  We pick up the wanted poster and notice the villain was seen at a campsite not too far from here.  Folding up the poster, we set off to take out the criminal.  The camp isn’t far from the town, so we go take a look-see.  In a big ol’ firefight, including much usage of Dead Eye (which slows down time and allows critical ‘points’ to be targeted on enemies), we take the villian dead, rather than alive.  Sure, it’s not as much of a ‘good guy’ action, but it’s sure as hell easier.

Another past-time we engage ourselves in is treasure hunting.  In a robbery we tried to stop previously (the victim was already dead, so we just looted the lot) we found a treasure map.  These are extremely basic and offer little help, as you’d probably expect of the time.  What they do show is a landmark (outline) and a more detailed picture (I use the term loosely) of where in the landmark the treasure is located.  For the sake of the preview, we find the area, a large rock formation with a hollowed out walkway through the middle.  Checking the map again, we find a small group of ‘man moved’ rocks and check them, and find a gold bar!  In the actual game though, they will be a lot harder to find.

Back in town to collect our reward, we notice a small uprising happening against the lawmen.  Deciding to take a more ‘good’ route, we don the bandana defend the public against the law coming into town to quell the uprising.  Shooting a few soldiers off their horses, we flee town with a happy red “WANTED” in the top right hand corner of the screen.  As we get further from the scene, the wanted level changes from red to black, but the bounty and actual wanted level stay.  As we wander the land, lawmen will try and hunt as down, as will locals trying to do the ‘right thing’, much as we did.  This will not go away on its own, the only way to clear it is to go pay any lawmen the amount of your bounty, or do the same at a telegraph office, who will spread the word of your deeds.  More rarely you will get letters of pardon, which when handed in absolve us of all fines against us.

Finally, we do one of the actual story missions; I’ll only go into the brief jist of it as to keep spoilers low.  We assault a maxican fort on top of a cliff with the rebels.  Like the crazy man we are, we ride a horse and carriage filled with TNT to blow the gates, jumping out at the last minute.  Our aim is to get in and find a hidden weapons cache, of which we have a few options to check (it’s hidden, don’t expect it all too easy).  All of this is happening whilst there is quite a large scale gun battle going on around us, which we can join in on or ignore.  Once we find the weapons cache, we defend the fort from reinforcements with a mounted cannon (which is beyond awesome, you can really see the Euphoria engine working its magic here).  Once we’ve taken out the reinforcements, we head down into the fort itself and take out any stragglers we let through.

And that’s everything! Well, everything-ish, I left out some things as this too was getting quite long as is, but you’ll be able to find out when the game comes out in the US on the 27th April 2010, and in PAL regions on the 30th April.  Now I don’t know about you, but if that review didn’t get you pumped, I don’t know what will!  Keep an eye out for this one, it’ll be one hell of a ride.