Red Dead Redemption (360)

Have you ever wondered what a GTA game would be like if it took its story seriously? If it had human characters, a realistic atmosphere, desolate brown trees with a ten-mile draw distance, and goddamn motherfucking cougars?

Well, a masterpiece is what it would be.

I don’t like westerns, so I didn’t expect to enjoy myself that much — but I couldn’t resist the universal praise and, more importantly, the splendidly animated fauna in the videos. And, as a matter of fact, I didn’t enjoy myself so much in the first half-dozen hours. Yet I could tell that the universe was great, the characters were more believable than I’d ever seen in a Rockstar game, and the game mechanics were sound. (Not to mention that the animals were, indeed, gorgeous. And horse riding felt like riding a horse, which is not such a given when you’re coming back from Assassin’s Creed.)

Then I really got into the story, and I really got depressed. Because that’s a damn depressing universe, the Old West in the early 1900s, wouldn’t you know. The graphics are bleak (but gorgeous), the story is bleak, every single character is miserable and the side missions make you want to shoot yourself in the head. Like I said, it’s a realistic story that takes itself seriously — and the fact of the matter is, that wasn’t a nice place and a nice time to be.

Where I felt closer to giving up, though, was around the midway point of the game, when you unlock Mexico and the story essentially reboots — new characters, new quests, and the same arc starting over in the most predictable way. But it just takes a few hours to realize that Mexico actually provides a breath of fresh air: the story is still cynical and disillusioned, but the dialogue is funnier, the environments look less murky, and they’re even less dangerous. A welcome respite, before you go back to America and get that grim story over with. (Sorry if you consider this a spoiler, but I figured out that structure as soon as I realized the boundaries of the — huge — area you’re restricted to as you start the game.)

And what an ending you get then. That’s about all I’ll say about it, because I don’t want to give out hints, and I don’t want you to think too much about it either, because in retrospect it’s not all that hard to guess what might happen. You just don’t see it coming. At least, I didn’t. And, if other people had seen it coming, the review scores wouldn’t have been so good.

There are two things Red Dead Redemption does splendidly, that you don’t expect from a GTA-like game. You know it’s gonna be superb, and immersive, and basically a state-of-the-art sandbox, but you don’t expect these: human characters brought to life with subtle hints (yes: subtlety), and fantastic pacing of the story, both the main arc and the sidequests.

I still can’t get over how well-designed, well-rounded that experience is — those perfectly weaved together forty hours of gameplay. There are adrenaline highs and there are slow trudges, but it’s all part of a plan to make you inhabit the world and bring you to that ending. And I realize some people could say the same thing about games that I found boring, but the bottomline is those people would be wrong, and I’m right about Red Dead Redemption. Because, beyond technical excellence (I know, not the right term considering all the glitches, but they don’t matter) and pitch-perfect voice acting (except for Junior — though that might as well be intentional, because it ultimately serves the buildup), what this game displays first and foremost is a fantastic mastery of interactive storytelling. Move over, Heavy Rain. This is how you tell a story in a game.

Westerns are clichés. And they’re dirty. And so heterosexual. This game is all of those things, absolutely all of them, unabashedly — and I love it for that, and it makes me appreciate a genre I never thought I could.

Oh, and it’s also a great hunting simulator. And just an altogether pretty place to visit. But, damnit, does it give me late-night frights when I see our cat move in the dark while I’m crossing the long, dusty, weedy hallway that separates my room from the toilet. Fucking cougars.

This is a must-buy. By which I mean, it’s an I won’t talk to you anymore if you have a console and you don’t buy this game.

And I haven’t even started multiplayer yet.

(You might just want to turn to Wikia to learn how the minigames work, though, because they’re as complex and poorly explained as ever — including the duel mechanics. Seriously: the inline help encourages you to disarm your opponent instead of killing them, but most of the story duels will kill you if you try to do that, because the story needs your opponent dead. Ah, and I can’t cheat at poker without being detected, because the goddamn help only begins to show up after you’ve started, and failed. These things need real tutorials, not just inline help. Damnit, I hate Texas hold’em, and I need to win one game if I’m gonna reach 100% completion.)