By Joshua Cornelius

My name is John Marston.  I don’t know much about myself at this point, but plenty of people seem to know about me.  As it turns out, I was once part of the Williamson gang.  I made a good living, thriving off of murdering and committing heinous acts as a younger man.  Now older and repentant, I seek to settle with the house for my prior deeds so that I might be washed of my sins and live a peaceful life with my wife and children.  None of that will come to pass unless I kill Bill Williamson who is holding them hostage, and put an end to his empire of tyranny… one in which I had a major part in helping to build.

Red Dead Redemption is the second to last (the last being the excellent L.A. Noire) in a long line of what are known as open world “sandbox” style games from Grand Theft Auto series originators, Rockstar Games.  The UK based company have the patent on this gameplay style and with each successive title, they’ve refined their particular viewpoint on what a video game can offer for your hard earned dollars.  In the case of Red Dead Redemption, it’s a lot.  The game is something more than a simple shoot-em-up, as you’ll find yourself immersed in the western world of 1911.  You’ll learn to hunt bears, herd cows, to hog-tie, to play horseshoes and poker, and you may even wind up becoming an entry level botanist.  As far as Western simulations go, Red Dead is fairly complete.  Just about the only thing you won’t be doing is using the bathroom.

The “sandbox” style of game means the world is truly yours.  Plot points of the overarching story don’t advance until you say they will, and won’t come until you actively seek them out.  Want to spend twenty hours hunting and skinning animals?  Want to spend a whole day playing poker at the saloon?  No one will stop you, and the story will resume right where you left it.

Even if you choose the lackadaisical approach, as in life, you’re bound to come across some conflict.  Early in the game, I rode into Armadillo late in the evening.  There on the porch of the local saloon, a man was trying to have his way with a woman, threatening her with a knife.  After a bit of hesitation, I decided to draw my sidearm and shot the attacker.  I had hesitated too long as he had apparently already stabbed the woman.  I felt regret for my hesitation, but the game did not offer disdain or praise for my actions, and there seemed to be too few townsfolk awake to notice.  Confused and fearing some kind of retribution, I walked towards the bodies.  ’Press Y to Loot Corpse’, the message said.  And so I did.  I found myself wondering if men and women really lived like this in the West, before settling on the idea that this was at least closer to the truth than anything I’d find in one of Sergio Leone’s films.

This 29-minute long short film was directed by ‘The Proposition’ and ‘The Road’ director John Hillcoat and packaged with the game.  Red Dead Redemption and Hillcoat’s ‘Proposition’ share a similar Revisionist Western bent, and feature protagonists with a lifetime of sins they seek to avail themselves of.

Redemption is a theme that never quite made it into Sergio Leone’s Once Upon a Time in the West, but is the most prevalent major theme of the modern Western.  Films like The Wild Bunch sparked the revolution known as the ‘Revisionist Western’, many choosing to de-emphasis the romance of the era and instead focusing on the intense reality of a life filled with hard choices made by hard men and women.  The world of Red Dead Redemption is not one of singing cowboys and mirth, and you won’t find yourself squaring-off against faceless Native American hordes, emerging without a scratch or spot of blood.

Revisionist Westerns seem to seek atonement for the sins of the past; the incessant glamorization of America’s most inwardly violent period in films and books for decade upon decade.  Rockstar Games have wisely seen fit to imbue their game with this same sense of weight.  As presented in the game, each pull of the trigger and each act of ignorance or deceit has an echo.  At any given moment, you (and often your horse) are a hair’s breadth away from death.  This is heightened during ‘player vs. player’ combat during free roaming online play.  One moment you are rolling through the breathtaking open countryside on your horse at a full out gallup, and the next an errant bullet has ended the splendor of your travels.  In these moments, the game strives to be more than a simple third-person shooter.  Beyond morality, social and religious themes crop-up, echoing our modern day struggles and demonstrating that a life lived cannot be one without these constant conflicts, no matter what era we live in.  Time and again, John Marston is asked to make and be judged by his choices… and mistakes.

Later in the game, I found myself back in Armadillo.  Once again an unknown man was attacking a woman.  Now after many hours of gameplay, I felt practiced enough to easily dispatch the man and hopefully restore the peace.  Confident and cocky, I didn’t even dismount my horse as I opened fire, accidentally shooting an innocent bystander through the head.  Since the act had occurred in full daylight, there were plenty of witnesses and soon I was on the run from local law enforcement.  Backed into a small house that was being splintered with gunfire around me by the police outside, I found myself thinking that this too, is something true.  An innocent man dies in a hale of gunfire after accidentally shooting the wrong man.  It might have happened in the West.  Then again, it might have happened last week.

Don’t let all this heavy handed talk of morality let you think that Red Dead Redemption isn’t one of the best and most fun games out there; it surely is.  Truth be told, I think you’d have a tough time finding a single game that will offer as much replay value without a recurring monthly cost.  Rockstar have done a rare thing in that they don’t seem to have held back anything for a sequel.  Red Dead is as rich and complex a console gaming experience you will find.

To wrap things up, I’m including a two part video from VGM where they discuss the filmic influences on Red Dead Redemption, one of which being our own Once Upon a Time in the West.