Red Dead Redemption doesn’t ride into shops until April next year, but we’ve just had a sneak peek of what to expect in an extensive preview. Have you ever wished you could play Grand Theft Auto: Deadwood? This is it.
Red Dead Redemption is the sequel to the Rockstar 2004 Western Red Dead Revolver, but from the early preview code we were demoed by the company at its London HQ, it takes an awful lot from the gameplay of Grand Theft Auto 4. The main difference? You take on missions across a vast wilderness straight out of a John Ford movie, and your ride is a horse, not a Chevy.
Set at the turn of the twentieth century, as the old, lawless West is beginning to die, you play as John Marston, a reformed outlaw you might have seen in the most recent Red Dead Redemption trailer tracking down his old gang members. Rockstar couldn’t tell us any more about the narrative, and the build we were shown had cut scenes missing, but we got to witness how the gameplay works in depth, and it looks nothing short of epic.
The setting itself is stunning. There are three huge plains to play across, which appear to stretch for miles. We only got to see the Nuevo Pariso area, essentially Mexico, but we were promised two more levels, New Austin and West Elisabeth too. Riding across one alone was impressive enough: stand on top of a hill and you can see in every direction for miles, and travel to anywhere that’s visible (the borders of the game are huge canyon cliffs), with a draw distance that’s even further than that in Assassin’s Creed 2.
Read Dead Redemption: first trailer!
Characters and scenery both look far better than anything in GTA 4, and while there’s not so much in the way of traffic to deal with when riding, packs of wild dogs roam the plains, so you’ll have to be careful they don’t kill your horse. Thieves will also try to steal your horse – we saw one wave down John, shovd him off his horse and ride off, only to fall off when the horse bucked on command.
You can still pitch a tent anywhere with no heat on you to save, but you’ll have to watch out for your wanted level. Posses will ride out into the desert in the direction you were last seen leaving the area, and the only way to get them off your back is pay off your own bounty, or procure a pardon letter from the law.
There are also two other ratings that change over time in Red Dead Redemption depending on how you play. Fame goes up as you complete missions, spring convicts and generally attract notoriety by killing people. You also have to watch out for your Honour rating, which fluctuates depending on your decision in the game and moral behaviour.
Act like a benevolent John Wayne, and rescue victims from the impromptu firing squads you’ll sometimes see on the edges of towns, and you’ll be able to bribe lawmen easily. But murder and loot corpses and you’ll be known as a cold hearted killers. A spokesperson told us Rockstar “couldn’t rule out” the possibility your honour may affect the storyline in a big way, but wouldn’t confirm anything just yet.
Mission wise, we were first shown a bounty task. A clerk will hammer up a wanted sign on the town hall wall, showing you who you need to capture and where they were last seen, a fun touch.
Red Dead Redemption: first gameplay footage!
Riding out, we soon came across the hood holed up with his gang, and a shootout began. The Dead Eye option from the first game is back, letting you enter a slow-mo, sepia view where you place markers on as many people as you can, a little like Bullet Time from Max Payne. When it ends, you draw and all the bullets go flying out rapidly, taking out whole crews in one go. To capture the criminal, you can kill him, or for a bigger reward, maim him by shooting him in the leg, lasso him and tie him up, carrying him back to town on your horse.
In the second mission we were shown, things got much more Spaghetti Western. You have to invade a fort, then guard it from the reinforcements that arrive using a cannon, sending coaches and wagons soaring into the air and bodies flying everywhere. It’s completely over the top, and there are some clever additions to the gunplay mechanics, with lanterns and TNT lying around that you can set off.
It’s not just better graphics that Read Dead Redemption boasts over Grand Theft Auto though, but a real mise en scène that even Liberty City is missing. There’s a day night cycle, sure, with markets packing up and the cantinas opening up at night where you can play poker and shoot other players if you get the urge.
But roaming around Nuevo Paraiso, you can see a revolution is on the cusp of going down, with or without you. Workers hold protests and soldiers in the pay of the brutal dictator clamp down on them. You can don a bandana and join the fight if you like, but you don’t have to, and that’s the thing that impressed us most in our Read Dead Redemption preview. You can take sides, or play it solo and see if you get swept up in the bloodshed another way.
With five months to go before release on PS3 and Xbox 360, the Read Dead Redemption build we were shown is still far from complete. But what we saw was big, bold, ambitious and brilliant. It’s already nailed the setting, but if Rockstar can get the controls and story down too, it promises to be one of the best games of 2010.
Out 30 April 2010 | £TBC | Rockstar
