We were lucky enough to get some hands on time with Rockstar’s upcoming Red Dead Redemption yesterday, and we gotta say, you do not want to miss this one.

The Setting

Set in 1911, towards the end of the time we know as the Wild West, the game takes place across two fictional US States: New Austin and West Elizabeth, and a part of Mexico called Nuevo Paraiso. The world is huge. Actually, that’s an understatement. The world is gargantuan, gigantic and other big g words.

I asked how many Liberty Citys would fit into the world. The Rockstar rep didn’t know, but he said ‘he would get a number’. So presumably that’s at least a few. And I can believe that; standing on one of the mountains in the game, looking out at all the terrain, we were told that anywhere you can see, you can visit.

The Great Outdoors

Each area has it’s own terrain, from snow covered mountains, to dusty, cactus filled plains with rolling tumbleweeds. One area even has a modern-ish town, complete with houses, gardens and fences.

With such a big sandbox, you might think that riding around could get boring. Thankfully, the world is full of life. You’ll stumble upon events like robberies, people getting executed, people hunting, maybe just a couple of old cowboys telling stories by a campfire. Mr. Toffee found delight in riding around the open plains, hunting down animals and brutally skinning them, which was mildly disturbing (don’t let him get anywhere near your pets).

Mr. Toffee quickly discovered that skinning a cat agros every cat in a 40 yard radius

Meet John Marston

Do I feel lucky?

The game’s main character, John Marston, is an ex-outlaw, turned family man. The guy looks a bit like Clint Eastwood’s Man with No Name, complete with steely eyed, squinting gaze, permanent 5 o’clock shadow and the addition of some gnarly facial scars. Character detail is superb with authentic trappings throughout. Even your horse looks great. The detail on the horse’s rippling leg muscles as it gallops is truly impressive.

Probably the best horse riding simulator game ever

The world is filled with different characters, and I didn’t notice much (if any) repetition in Armadillo, the town we were in. Compared to say, GTA IV, where it’s not uncommon to run into a few identical twins on the same street, Rockstar have really stepped it in with RDR.

Pop Him In The Kneecap

The action feels a lot more shooty than GTA. We played two missions in RDR, one involved hunting down and capturing (or killing if you prefer) a local criminal, and the other had us gunning down a bunch of miners to steal a Gatling Gun they had stashed away in their mine. The Rockstar rep told us that missions will be a lot more epic than in GTA; you’ll be engaging in multiple stage conflicts between the Government Army and the Mexican Rebels, fighting on horseback, coaches, trains even on a speeding mine cart.

Damn rush hour traffic

The time slowing Dead-Eye feature from the original Red Dead returns. Activate it by aiming with the Left trigger, then pressing the Right analog stick, and everything will go into bullet time. There are three levels of this available, the first slows everything down, the second lets you paint targets, putting an X over targets as you move your aiming reticule around, pulling the trigger will then hit any targets you’ve painted. Level three will automatically paint targets for you.

One in the eye and one in the foot. Still think you're a better dancer?

One of the nice things about the combat system is the realistic damage you can inflict; shoot a guy in the leg and he’ll fall over and start crawling away, shoot a lamp hanging above a guy’s head and it’ll explode and set him on fire.

How Ya Gonna Shoot With Two Fingers Missing?

Drinking: just one of my many hobbies

Besides skinning the local wildlife, the game has a ton of other content you can spend your time pursuing. These range from mini games like Poker and Five Finger Fillet, to side missions like rescuing a farmer’s daughter from a gang of bandits or hunting down outlaws for the sheriff. No prostitute usage in this one though (although you do see them around), as you’re supposed to be a family man.

Not that that will stop you from partaking in a little criminal activity. If you’re feeling villainous, you can always walk into town and start shooting at people, although this comes with a big old bounty on your head and the law on your ass. Like GTA, you can escape by breaking line of sight, but your bounty will remain until you pay it off or earn yourself a note of pardon by performing good deeds.

El Bandito

Before you go reaching for your bandit bandanna though, you should probably know, there are consequences for everything you do. Killing an NPC kills him permanently. You’ll never see him in the game again. To take this to extremes, you can kill off an entire town and turn it into a ghost town. Although if you do do that, you’ll have no-one to play poker with.

Final Thoughts

One thing that needs to be said, this game is not just GTA set in the Wild West. While it does use improved versions of GTA IV’s RAGE engine and Euphoria Physics, and there are definitely some similarities in the game play, overall it just feels like a more complete experience.

The thing I was most impressed with was the amount of side events you can drop yourself into. In GTA, you run around causing mayhem and blowing up cars because you had nothing better to do (unless you really enjoyed bowling with Roman), in RDR you never have to resort to that because there’s always something going on.

Red Dead Redemption is due for release on PS3 and Xbox 360 at the end of May. Look out for a special Pipevine Preview of Red Dead Redemption in May’s GameAxis Unwired.