Red Dead Redemption isn’t the first sprawling sandbox adventure this year to win plaudits for its vast size and atmosphere: that honour goes to Just Cause 2. But that was strictly a solo affair. Rockstar’s Western has multiplayer modes aplenty baked in, letting you and your friends ride all over, and face off in tense shoot outs. How do they rank? Read on and we’ll tell all in our multiplayer Red Dead Redemption review.
Read the rest of our Red Dead Redemption review:
Red Dead Redemption review
Red Dead Redemption review: Characters
Red Dead Redemption review: Atmosphere and setting
The similarities between Grand Theft Auto 4 and Red Dead Redemption are glaring (though by no means a flaw), and not just in terms of controls. The multiplayer modes available, from co-op to team deathmatch, will be recognisable to anyone who’s played Rockstar’s 2008 game, but the brand new setting gives them a whole new edge, and a breath of fresh life. We tested Red Dead Redemption’s multiplayer out on the PlayStation Network with a PS3, but we had a chance to play a preview build of all the multiplayer modes extensively on the Xbox 360 last month, and the differences aren’t noticeable.
Jumping into a session is easy, as you can now enter from the start screen, rather than dialing in from Niko’s phone in GTA 4’s single player. Whatever you intend on playing, you’ll end up in Free Roam mode to start: at first glance, it’s a lobby for diving into deathmatches, but it’s much more, giving you the option to team up and ride across the game’s huge expanse, make mayhem and play by your own rules. You can simply choose to race each other across miles of terrain, explore, or team up in impromptu co-op games that kick off, seeing you clear out bandits.
What may come as a surprise is the leveling system in Free Roam: you’ll be dumped on the map as a level one bandito, with only a pathetic donkey to get you from A to B. Complete missions and gun down a few folk, and you get stronger, unlock new characters, outfits and steeds (There are even buffalo to unlock), giving you an incentive to keep playing. Smartly, you need to reach a certain rank to be able to play in Hardcore and Veteran deathmatches, meaning better players can face off against those with equal skill level, while still allowing newcomers to play without getting gunned down every few seconds.
If exploration doesn’t tickle your fancy, you can dive into the individual game modes with a pop of the select button: you can choose from deathmatches and capture the flag (or gold) options in solo and team flavours, and little has changed from our first time round testing these Red Dead Redemption options.
True deathmatches are gripping affairs, with tight controls and added tension from radar invisibility when walking instead of running. Goldrush sees you frantically grabbing sacks and bringing them back to bases scattered across the map, while Hold Your Own (Capture the flag) requires serious tactics when it comes to offence and defence, especially with smaller teams. It’s thrilling, and the realtime nature of playing live opponents means Deadeye targeting is all the more humiliating for those who get slain by the sepia shooting mode – you’ll only be able to pull it off when you get the drop on someone.
Rockstar’s also planning to release several downloadable content packs expanding the multiplayer modes on option with Red Dead Redemption, and pretty swiftly too. The first pack isn’t available until June, so we weren’t able to test it, but to Rockstar’s credit, it is free, so you won’t feel like you’ve been pumped for extra pennies as you might with the DLC for Modern Warfare 2 and BioShock 2. There’s also an option to download it straight from the start screen (At least on the PS3), so you’ll be able to grab it quickly and easily when it arrives.
What DLC won’t fix however, is the player cap. You won’t get more than 16 players in a game ever, which feels like a missed opportunity, when Free Roam mode is so enormous: you can ride for an age before tracking anyone down the first time you enter. Sure, we can see why: the PS3 version of the game at least can suffer slowdown when lots of guns start going off onscreen. But should we stumble across a lamp in our travels across the game’s deserts, a way to get more players in the mix would be what we wish for.
Still, there’s no doubt that Red Dead Redemption’s multiplayer modes will have you coming back for more, long after you’ve completed the single player game. If you spent time racing cars and gunning down your friends in Liberty City after the GTA 4 credits rolled, you’ll love this.
Read the rest of our Red Dead Redemption review:
Red Dead Redemption review
Red Dead Redemption review: Characters
Red Dead Redemption review: Atmosphere and setting
