There are plenty of people who say it drags but I'm of a different opinion. You see, I've never actually managed to beat a Grand Theft Auto as they become the very epitome of tedium. RDR was different and yet in most ways exactly the same. I'm not quite certain what it is that made it the sort of game I'd sit through until the end though.
Perhaps it was the cast. Rockstar has used the idea of a protagonist who has tried to leave a life of crime behind him but it always rings hollow. In RDR, all the acts of violence forced upon you are technically in pursuit of the goal of taking down your old partners and those that stand in your way are outlaws and villains themselves. San Andreas' CJ might have claimed to be "out of the game" but given the slightest opportunity he threw himself unambiguously into a life of crime again. And then there are the people you meet along the way who are a pastiche of all the great characters of the old western movies. There is a hooker with a heart of gold, a scheister doctor selling what he thinks is snake oil (though, considering it is what gives you bullet time I'd argue he actually did stumble across a miraculous elixir), a philosopher bandit, a retired gunfighter - the list goes on and on. GTA often lifted characters from other works as well but rarely were they sympathetic characters. Most of the time they were simple sociopaths and psychopaths who are utterly irredeemable. This is an important distinction - being asked for help by a character you actually like makes the resulting mission seem much less like a chore. And, when the game regularly asks you to put one of these people down, it stings all the more - how can you truly be on a quest for redemption when you're asked to kill plenty of men more noble than you? The cast, pilfered though they are, are truly integral to the story helping both enhanced by the setting and helping to make the time and place more, well, believable.
Speaking of setting, RDR certainly deserves recognition for their feat. GTA games take place inside of cities that, though analogous to real and famous cities, always felt fairly generic to me. RDR captures the feeling (for lack of a better word) of much of the American southwest perfectly. The area around Armadillo always reminded me of my hometown of Amarillo - a city barely starting at the turn of the century nesteld in the middle of the high plains. Further west and south you have the rolling hills and scrub of a region known, quite obviously, as hill country. Crossing the Rio Grande into mexico gives you box canyons and full proper desert - both common in the region. Traveling far enough east sees the plains give way to proper green grass and trees and even snow. The game, though incredibly compact, manages to evoke an area stretching from just beyond El Paso to St. Lous and it does it all at the perfect scale for a video game. From end to end is a long enough ride to be taxing without overstaying it's welcome. And the game so perfectly captures weather. In one mission you are tasked with helping a widow round up cattle in front of an approaching thunderstorm and as someone who has lived through many storms on the high plains, never before have I seen it so believably rendered. The rapid descent into darkness, the sudden and torrential rain, the nearly terrifying flashes of light and crashes of sound all of these help build the very real sense of danger both to player as well as the herd. Since many were not raised in a place where cattle are common I'll simply say that while they are fairly weather resistant, unless they are well controlled thunderstorms tend to scare the herd causing them to run wild without much regard to where they are going. Keeping the herd contained and calm is, to put it simply, incredibly important in such a situation.
Mechanically, the game works better as well. Gone are the fancy car tricks replaced with a much simpler and slower horse. But the change in pace allows for more far more excitment. Couple that with the very usable auto aim system and the game manages to make you feel like a legendary gunfighter of the old west. The result is, as others have said, a game that is incredibly easy but one of the great problems I've always had with GTA is it's capricious interpretation of a difficulty curve. So while you'll beat most challenges the first time around, you're spared the common aggrivation in GTA of having to play the same mission again and again simply because you couldn't wrangle some finicky vehicle or the NPC traffic wouldn't cooperate or whatever other random frustration the game decided to toss your way.
Finally, and importantly, the game manages to be consistent about things. Take John Marston - you are forced into the plot by the US Government who is holding your family ransom in order to force you to hunt down your old gang. John never seems to forget this and so though prostitutes are common fixtures of the towns, John refuses to parktake. When he meets a woman who is every inch his equal, the romance that goes nowhere is entirely unrequited and it is painful. John is flattered and, you get the feeling at least a bit interested but not enough to so much as steal a kiss and you know that at least some part of him wants to just give up on his quest and settle down with her and build a new life of peace in the New Austin territory. The people he hunts down are John's old friends, something the game doesn't let you forget. Sure, the first guy is a simple brute and villain but as the game wore on and boot hill filled with old friends and allies it got harder and harder to pull the trigger. All of this builds towards the notion of redemption - John wasn't a good guy before the game and with each betrayal of fellowship you're forced to wonder, much like John himself, if redemption was even possible for a man like him.
The game also ends supremely well. You fight a man who is no more evil than you, a man who is just as willing to seek redemption as you, a man perhaps more worthy of being saved than you and once the last shot rings out and the almost palpable smell of gunsmoke and soil clears the air you ride home. It is a long ride through all of the settings the game can provide from the dark and snowy mountaintop where the finalshowdown took place across the plains to your small farm. Finally, after one last campaign of violence, after sacrificing every friend you ever made, you are reunited with your wife and child and are granted peace. But, as should be obvious by that point in the game, John Marston is not a man destined to live in peace and there remains one last act of savage violence, one last sacrifice and, years later, one last tragedy to chalk up to John. By the true end you have to wonder if it was possible for John to be redeemed, if all his sacrifice was worth it, if instead he should have simply chosen to live and die an outlaw rather than trying to be a man of peace and, eventually, a hero. Endings are something so few games do well and Red Dead Redemption gives us an example of a game that ends perfectly.
Red Dead Redemption is, without question, the finest video game western ever made. It captures the feeling of the southwest and couples it expertly with the subtle sadness that it seems must always accompany the end of an era destined to live on as legend. It weaves a story with a tapestry of characters perfectly suited for their place and time even though many of them, like the era itself, are clearly on their way out. It does all of this with a set of mechanics that allow you to play the game as it should be played with a gunfighter of such skill that hapless mooks are exactly that - all of it is in keeping with the idea of a legendary outlaw and gunfighter looking for a way to leave a life of violence behind him. The game is often paced well with many segments standing perfectly fine as their own three act tale and, like so few games before or since, has the courage (and the talent behind it) to pull off an ending that the game truly deserved. In terms of a self contained game, it was easily my favorite game of the generation and it is absolutely worth trying. Especially for 7.50.
