Red Dead Redemption
Playtime: 23hrs 58min
Completion: 55% no credits rolled; but I’m savoring the 100% completion.
This game is a box of toys. Gameplay elements that are just set out in the world for you to discover. I can spend hours simply roaming through the game world. Hunting for wild game, an American Standardbred horse to tame, looking for some beautiful vistas, or just the next stranger to aid.
In this the game is one hell of a western story generator. The writing woven through the game is spot on beautiful, the characters they created can be both despicable and interesting. Situations you find yourself in generate their own stories as well; for example: I decided to take a shortcut off the trails and was ambushed by a pack of wolves that killed my horse. They were too quick for my pistol and repeater, but the knife made quick work of them. Leaving their corpses unused seemed a waste so I skinned the pack of four wolves, then another pack appeared, and another, and another. By then time I made it back to the trail I have carved a bloody path through twenty wolves. My wife now refers to my character by the name “Twenty Wolves.”
The only drawback I found With Red Dead Redemption was with the controls. This is nothing as bad as the targeting issues that were in Crackdown. Its getting use to their setup; the speed controls of the horse specially. The issue is rooted in my lifetime of playing with vehicle controls that used ‘a’ and ‘b’ as accelerate and brake. So my root reaction is to mash ‘b’ instead of the right bumper when I need to slow down my horse, which usually ends with me leaping off a cliff. My darling wife also calls him “Falling Brick.”