Review: Red Dead Redemption (XBOX 360 version)

Gopal Sathe

John Marston is a man on a mission. He was an outlaw, but he’s given up that life. All he wanted was to settle down with his wife, and raise his son. But the world is filled with change in 1911, and the government in the East can’t let people in the Old West remain lawless and wild anymore. The railways have changed everything, and tamed the lawless land.

Marston is taken in by the government and told that if he doesn’t want to spend the rest of his life in jail away from his family, he will go into New Austin (a fictional state entirely like Old Texas) and kill his one-time friend Bill Williamson. This might sound like an old Eastwood movie, but it is the world of Red Dead Redemption, the latest game from Rockstar Games, the same banner that made Grand Theft Auto a household name.

It’s a sandbox game – an open world for you to explore and do what you want, when you want. You’re given a vibrant world to explore, and John Marston is a real living person whom you will care about.

It’s so real, I now fear cougars. An early optional mission had me look for a missing person. I followed the trail to the Hanging Rock, a few miles north of the town of Armadillo. I got of my horse to investigate some blood on the ground and there was a heart stopping sound behind me! Suddenly this monstrous creature was charging at me!

I ran as quickly as I could but it took a swipe at me and I fell down. Luckily my horse panicked at that point and ran between me and the cougar, giving me a few seconds to pull my gun and kill it. I knew then that I was never getting off my horse outside the cities again.

The modelling of all the animals, and the various pistols and rifles you use through the game, has been done with tremendous care and is extremely realistic, though people and faces are a little less so. The game stands as a wonderful technical achievement, with almost no load screens to speak of, and an enormously detailed game-world.

Red Dead Redemption is definitely fun. Games don’t _have_ to make sense, they have to be enjoyable. The mechanics themselves are not as important as the enjoyment they provide, and Redemption definitely delivers.

But at the same time, it also gives you a cohesive world to explore. You could do the side quests given by people around the world, or roam the countryside hunting animals for fun and profit, or pick up bounties and arrest gang members. Just riding your horse, with no objective in mind, is enjoyable.

Despite these distractions, you keep coming back to the main storyline because of the great writing. John Marston is no cardboard cut-out, and before long you will actually care about this man, and want things to work out for him.

Like most open world games, RDR also dabbles in creating moral choices for the player. For instance, in an early optional mission, you have to convince an old man to sell you his property. You can put up your own money, or point a gun at him and make him give it to you.

There’s no real consequence to either choice – ‘good’ choices raise your honor and ‘evil’ lowers it, and all this does is change the discounts you get in stores – but while I normally play as the bad guy in any game that lets me, here, I found myself ponying up the cash myself because I knew that Marston would have.

He’s a good guy and while he’s done a lot of bad stuff, he’s clearly trying to atone for it. He might be here as a government assassin, but he’s not happy about that, and he’s not going to rebel by becoming a gun toting outlaw either.

At least that’s how I felt about the character, although perhaps the developers see things differently – the game hardly penalises evil characters and there’s a few things you can do as a bad guy which actually sound like a lot of fun, and would probably warrant a second playthrough of the game for me.

There were some gameplay issues in the game, a number of glitches as often happens in such huge games, but nothing gamebreaking. Some people are complaining about the control scheme and the shooting mechanics to which I must say – the shooting is fun! It’s a game, not a simulator! The control scheme is a little complicated but the game takes you through a thorough tutorial, and the end result is great control over the horse, which is half the fun of this game.

It’s possible to finish the game within around 10 hours, with no side quests, fast travel everywhere, and skipping all the cutscenes. If you’re like me and don’t go for 100 per cent completion, picking up only interesting challenges and missions, focussing largely on the main storyline, the game should take around 4 – 5 days to complete. To compare, I finished all of Modern Warfare 2 in one day. Also, even when you’re done with the story, riding around saving strangers and hunting bears is so much fun that the game represents tremendous value for money.

Bindra spoke of being a reader who became a gamer, and how because of that, Alan Wake has a special appeal to him, and then went on to talk about the reasons why people should be excited about the game, mentioning the “high production values and excellent visuals,” and talking about the powerful narrative.

As you might have noted from our preview of the game, we might not agree completely with Mr Bindra’s assessment of his company’s latest exclusive, but from what we’ve seen of the game thus far, we had to agree him when he said, “It’s an intense experience, [...] one which will stay with you long after you have stopped playing the game.” From what we saw so far, the game manages a problematic accomplishment – it stands on the precipice of being a perfect gaming experience. If the game was not as good as it is, we would be able to praise it and forget it, but because it reaches a particular level, one wants it to do that little bit more, and focusses only on the drawbacks. That being said, it is clearly a game worth getting to know better, and we will be giving you a full length review about the game to make our take on the game clear very soon.

Or if you’re already convinced? You can get the game from Rs 2399 now, from your favourite retail outlet, or you could visit http://www.microsoftstore.co.in/ and buy the game there.

If you’ve seen Kill Bill, you’ll know Uma Thurman as the Bride, as she viciously hunts her old allies turned foes down for revenge. God of War III is no exception – Kratos will stop at nothing to take vengeance on Zeus, ripping any opposing deities on Olympus to shreds in the process.

An avid video gaming enthusiast thus conjured up this clever idea. What do you get when you cross God of War with Kill Bill? Kill Zeus!

Simply put, it’s a God of War III fan made movie that mashes together key fights (and deaths) in the game to the main theme of Kill Bill, “Battle Without Honour or Humanity” by Tomoyasu Hotei. Couple that with some slick Kill Bill style freeze frames and effects, and you’ve got a fan movie just oozing with violence and pure coolness – and that’s not including the options for HD viewing. Check it out and drop a comment or two for the creator.

Before the game hits the shelves and you part with your Rs 2400 (okay, I lie, it’s 2399) to get a copy, I’ll be giving you an in-depth review of the game, but time spent at the offices of Microsoft last week was enough to convince me that I need to see more of the game.

The game is a 3rd person horror/adventure title, which places you in control of the titular protagonist and super-successful horror story writer Alan Wake. You’ve been facing a problem with writers block, and so you go to a rural lakeside getaway to spend some time with your wife and get your writing groove back on. Unfortunately, and somewhat predictably, you’re having strange nightmares about shadowy creatures, and pretty soon it turns out that that’s exactly what’s happening in the world as well. Oh and they’ve kidnapped your wife. Oh and you’ve apparently written a manuscript about everything that will happen through the course of the game, and then helpfully scattered the pages in carefully selected locations. Shocking, right?

I spent almost three hours in game, which is a fair third of the game and while the game might not be an overwhelming experience, it is an enjoyable game, which merits at least a second look.

The game has been in development hell for more than half a decade now, and that shows – the look of the game is thoroughly dated – with a shockingly jarring moment early on in the game, where you come across a cardboard cutout of a life size Alan Wake, presumably to make you (the player) realise how successful you (the character) are. Unfortunately, a simple 2D image is laid on the poster, and it looks a lot more realistic than the 3D Alan standing right next to it.

The game’s other big draw is supposed to be its writing, but if you’re looking for Stephen King or Peter Straub, you’re going to be disappointed. It’s B-movie writing at its worst, but it serves the purpose. It’s grating and annoying at times, and some of the voice acting does not help the cause, but it creates an ambiance which you can accept.

Which brings us to the game’s big schtick. The thing which holds everything together. Lighting. That’s the heart and soul of the game, and when going through the tutorial (presented as a nightmare Wake has at the start of the game) you will probably feel a little skeptical about the whole thing. There’s too much ammo, and it’s a little too easy to kill off enemies, since they freeze when you shine your slashlight on them (using the left trigger) making it easy to blast them to bits with your guns. The weaponry itself plays a minor role in all this, although the rocket flares the game provides you with are pretty cool – not only do they create their own light to demolish enemies with, but the red lit areas they leave behind really look good.

At the same time, the heavy dependance forced by the mechanic might seem to be tedious and forced, particularly in the first level, or episode in the game’s terminology, but the game changes things up and does not seem to get tedious, at least up until the three hour mark.

We’ll provide a more detailed review about it soon, but at this point at least, Alan Wake seems worth checking out, even if it is not a game changing experience.

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e-xpress will be bringing more Xbox 360 titles at this new price point in near future, says e-Xpress sales Director Amit Khemani, “Xbox 360 has continuous demand for more and more games. It is important that products are affordable to the Indian consumer. We do a similiar thing with PC games, we sell PC games at Rs. 299, which has helped fight piracy and boost the legal sales of game software.”

Okay, I’ll admit: For some one who’s had many gripes with Halo: Reach, I was simply in awe of the multiplayer beta trailer that was recently unveiled by Bungie. Jet-packs, CQC, assassinations, invasions – it’s all good. However, we picked up something interesting when viewing the trailer closely; something many haven’t noticed.

If you check the trailer carefully, you can identify several of the level names associated with the map being played by looking at the lower left corner, to the right of the radar. We managed to identify 15 different locations, with about 11 different “levels” in total. Some of them function as transitions or simple ways of telling you what you’re location but the different places you’ll fight in during MP are:

- Atrium
- Barren Field
- CIC (the hall is pictured but there’s also the main CIC itself)
- Concrete Walkway (which is most likely just a transition part, much like the unpictured “In the Air” location and the pictured “High Bridge”)
- Green Residence
- Yard
- Smelter
- Rock Garden
- Powerhouse
- Spillway

Check out the pictures below for the same different segments (captured from Youtube 480p footage, which you can view above in 720p as well).

Peter Molyneux is busy hyping the upcoming Milo & Kate and Fable III. He recently tweeted however about a “special” feature that Fable 3 will have.

On his most recent Twitter post, Molyneux commented,

“Now about to go into a design meeting about a ‘special’ feature in Fable 3, to do with your dungeons.”

Molyneux has been talking about the new features that Fable III will have, even going so far to say that it will be upsetting for most gamers. He’s currently taking suggestions for the game, and has revealed several new aspects such as no HUD for the game. He’s also teased things for GDC, saying in one post, “We are getting ready for GDC I have a big talk and demos to press I hope to have more time to actually demo rather than so much talk.”

If you’ve been keeping track of the rapidly developing news, you’ll know that Activision has systematically forced their way into Infinity Ward offices, dismissed two of it’s bosses (Jason West and Vince Zampella) and locked down the offices altogether. Oh, and they apparently haven’t paid IW any money from the nearly $1 Billion USD in revenue they received from Modern Warfare 2 sales. It’s like a bad mash-up of REC meets Capitalism: A Love Story, with very real dangers that Activision is becoming like the draconic Electronic Arts of old.

Activision claimed their outing of IW’s founders was completely justified since they were apparently in “breach of contract”, having talked to a “rival publisher”. Some assume it’s EA, though sources within Activision assure otherwise, but this seems like a calculated attack on IW either way. After all, the company was formed from the remnants of EA’s Medal of Honour team. They left when they wanted to do more with the franchise. Now, why they would want to go back to EA, even if Activision has been doing the same for the Modern Warfare?Call of Duty franchise, is any one’s guess. Would you go back to the same person who set you on fire for water when some one else just did the same recently?

The fact that Activision has begun this level of harassment is a grim reminder of all the events leading up to it. The attacks on Sony for PS3 prices and threatening to withdraw support, their problems with Tim Schafer on Brutal Legend, the price-rise for Modern Warfare 2…it may be only my opinion but the news from Activision that World of Warcraft, a much loved and successful franchise amongst PC gamers, could become “obsolete”…it’s like it’s written right there, in between the lines, “Infinity Ward was only the beginning; WoW is next”, no matter what technical mumbo-jumbo they use about “increased consumer acceptance” and competition from games on social networking sites. In fact, taken in that sense, it sounds as though they’re saying, “WoW is the past; Farmville is the future”. That seems in perfect tune with their money grubbing nature.

Our support goes out to IW’s former founders West and Zampella, and we hope they find employment in a more dignified company than the one that so heinously hired thugs to get rid of them.

E-Xpress Interactive has formally showcased it’s release schedule for March, and it’s looking mighty fine with both big releases and familiar faces leading the line-up.

First the multi-platform releases. Sonic and Sega All-Star Racing, Final Fantasy XIII, Resonance of Fate, Just Cause 2 and Batman: Arkham Asylum Game of the Year Edition will all be releasing on the PS3 and XBox 360, each for Rs. 2499 irrespective of the platform. Sonic and Just Cause 2 will also be coming to the PC, both for Rs. 699. Metro 2033 will see an XBox 360 and PC release, at the prices of Rs. 2499 and Rs. 699 respectively.

The Playstation 3 will have the overseas success Yakuza 3 as an exclusive for Rs. 2499. The PC sees Supreme Commander 2 (Rs. 999), Assassin’s Creed 2 (Rs. 999), Aliens vs. Predator (Rs. 699), Napoleon: Total War (Rs. 999), Warhammer 40K: Dawn of War 2: Chaos Rising (Rs. 499) and Silent Hunter 5 (Rs. 699) at the forefront.

Sony’s PSP also has some exciting releases this month several compilation packs arriving courtesy of Ubisoft. There’s Shaun White Snow Boarding & Prince of Persia: Rival Swords, Driver ’76 & Prince of Persia 3 Revelations, Brothers In Arms: D-Day & Rainbow Six Vegas, and Splinter Cell Essentials & GRAW 2, all for Rs. 1299.

Even though games based on Ghajini and Hanuman have been moderately successful, the Indian gaming industry has been struggling to churn out blockbuster games for consoles and PCs. Outsourcing projects continue to take most Indian developers’ resources. But times are changing, and with the advent of the iPhone (with the iPad around the corner) and social networking games, even small publishers have the confidence to come up with something very exciting.

Over the past 4-5 years PC market has been continuously overshadowed by consoles. A few quick facts by Keita Iida, Director of Global Content Management, nVidia, showed how the PC is back in business and how PCs are set to surpass consoles by 2015 (which is interesting, keeping in mind the much talked about future-proof quality of the Playstation 3 by Sony).

As compared to 2008, PC unit sales saw a rise of 205% in 2009. Lida pointed out that the MMORG games have been doing astonishingly well in Asia with 76.6 percent of the revenue coming from this area and 23.4 percent from rest of the world. India, however, continues to struggle as the low PC penetration is still hampering the growth of PC games industry. Cyber cafes still continue be the thriving place for the Indian gamers with 180,000 cafes spread throughout the country overall. He predicts that 30 percent of the users in these cyber cafes play games, which accounts for one-third of game revenue from the country.

The Indian gaming industry was estimated at $50 million in 2006, $167 million in 2008 and is forecasted to grow at 49% to reach $830 million by 2012, according to a report by Ernst & Young titled ‘The Animation and Gaming Industry in India’.

However, Indian game developers continue to face challenges when it comes to investing their time and money in big games. Many aren’t ready to take risks in a market running rampant with piracy. But iPhone and online games are flourishing in the Indian market. The latter took central stage at the India Game Developer Summit held in Bangalore, where expert speakers discussed how online games can be monetized and converted into a successful venture.

Development costs are high, not counting the risk most developers must take in India’s gaming business. To help solve this problem, Tridip Roy Chowdhury, Director of Products at Adobe Systems, advises developers to take help of aggregators. “Aggregators do promotion and spread your game. They also help by ensuring that your game works across all platforms,” he says. Since the cost incurred to make an online game is relatively low, developers can easily make flash based games and earn a profit. The Zyngas of the world – with their Mafia Wars and Farmville Facebook apps – have already proved that.

As to profiting from their online creations, Chowdhury says that developers should always consider in-game advertisement when it comes to online games as it brings in a good amount of revenue. All a developer has to do is create an online game which is viral enough to spread around quickly and then enter a tie up with companies like Zapak and Miniclip to use social networking platforms like Facebook and MySpace as much as possible.

The keynote session saw Carl Jones, Director of Global Business Development for CryEngine 3, Crytek (creators of Crysis), speak about their CryEngine 3 as well as the upcoming Crysis 2. Jones gave a glimpse of the engine, just to show how far ahead game developing technology has gone when it comes to developing games based on high performance graphics and photo-realistic surroundings. The good news for students learning game design and animation is that CryEngine 3 is now available for universities, free-of-cost. Jones advised companies to work smartly and invest more in tools. “If you are doing something three times a day, then don’t waste your time on it. Make a tool and let your computer do it for you,” he says.

Stages like the Game Developer Summit have become quite important of late, because the Indian gaming industry has now moved beyond the catfights for outsourcing contracts and now has started to work as a cohesive unit. What is exciting to see is that all four verticals – PC, consoles, mobile and online – are growing at the same time. PC and Console game developers just need to take a leap of faith and once the obstacle of producing the first blockbuster is passed, nothing can stop them.

There have been numerous visual comparisons between Bungie’s upcoming Halo: Reach and Guerrilla Games’ Killzone 2. Now it’s time to let the numbers do the talking and tell you for real which game looks better.

Victor Zuylen over at Killzone.com posted as far back as 2008 about the evolution of Rico Velasquez, an ISA sergeant in Killzone 2. He talks about the exact amount of design changes and rendering Rico underwent, before the final Killzone 2 version was done. His article contained this statement:

“Rico’s new, close-cropped head is comprised of over 4600 polygons, whereas in Killzone 1 it consisted of only 1800 polygons.”

We did some snooping and discovered some 3D character art by Gary Huang for Bungie’s Halo: Reach, which he’s been working on since January 2010 – and they look exactly like the same renders for the futuristic foot soldiers that Bungie has put up online as being featured in Reach. The head’s polygon count? A mere 1300 for the “hi-res” model. As added proof, the hi-res pictures are named “Ingame” and “realtime”, showing that they are indeed the models used in Halo: Reach.

Doing a rough calculation, it seems Killzone 2′s head polygon count for Rico, with no helmet or visor, is roughly about 72% more than the number of polygons for the Reach’s futuristic soldier – that’s a difference of about 3300 polygons. Factoring in total body polygon count may bring the percentage difference down, but not by very much given the amount of detailing models in Killzone 2 carry compared to Reach. It actually seems that even Killzone 1 has a higher head polygon count than Reach, with 1800 to 1300.

You can view Huang’s concept art below and Rico’s final head model for Killzone 1 and 2.

This year has already been hugely beneficial for both Sony and Microsoft, though it currently tilts more towards the Playstation 3. Nonetheless, by the second week of May, each console will have three AAA exclusives to each call it’s own. Which is all well and good, but what next after that?

After Alan Wake releases for the 360/PC in May, there won’t be a single AAA exclusive for the 360 for about four months. The Playstation 3 has it worse, because after God of War 3′s release, it’ll be bereft of any exclusives for six months. This is not to say the appeals of either console’s exclusives will wear off very quickly – God of War 3, Alan Wake, Splinter Cell Conviction, Heavy Rain, Mass Effect 2 and MAG should all support their respective platforms for a good 2-3 months after their release. However, the number of people buying a 360 or PS3 to experience them will steadily drop as compared to pre-existing owners giving them a whirl. This is not to say the drop in sales will be sharp; just that a noticeable decline will follow for a while.

The Xbox 360 will quickly emerge from this slump in September with the release of Halo: Reach (with Fable III to follow by the end of this year), while the PS3 has Arc releasing in Autumn (there should be hopefully be word on LittleBigPlanet 2′s release as well, at E3). But both consoles will have to rely on third party titles like Lost Planet 2, Dragon Age: Awakening, I Am Alive, Prince of Persia: The Forgotten Sands, No More Heroes 2 and Dead Rising 2 to sustain interest over the next few months. The problem is more pronounced with the PS3 since there are currently no exclusives slated for release these coming months (The Agent doesn’t have firm release date; neither does most of Sony’s rumoured titles like Killzone 3 and Resistance 3, and no one in their right mind would consider ModNation Racers a big deal). This is not counting the proposed shortage of PS3 units during the same period.

This gives an advantage to Nintendo, the current leader in the console wars, which has five strong exclusives from March till July with Red Steel 2, WarioWare: D.I.Y., Monster Hunter Tri, Super Mario Galaxy 2 and Metroid: Other M. There’s also news that the new Zelda could appear some time at the end of 2010, so Nintendo has it’s Autumn-Christmas base covered too. And this is not even counting the casual audience that is currently the Wii’s strongest market – they have plenty of family titles planned to sustain them as well. Not only can Nintendo compete with Sony and Microsoft during their stronger months, but will ably pick up the slack while they’re out of the picture. Though The Forgotten Sands and No More Heroes 2 will also come to Wii, they most likely won’t make much difference to sales.

E3 2010 will be a big opportunity for both Microsoft and Sony to expand on previous rumours, announce new titles and generally get the hype ball rolling for Autumn and Christmas. While it’s easy to say Nintendo has been dominating it’s competitors since the Wii’s release, it’s my prediction that it’ll have an even easier time in the Summer till pre-Autumn, while it’s competitors planning their prospective futures.

An ertswhile Japanese wood-carver (yes, that same guy wearing the Jason mask) has created perhaps the most awesome – and only – life-sized carving of Bioshock 2′s Big Daddy ever.

The entire video tracks his creation of the carving, from selecting the initial chunk of wood to subsequent perfections. Check it out, and marvel at how some one with a chainsaw can be so artistic.

News came up yesterday on how David Jaffe felt about professional reviews being done these days. However, it’s capped with a headline – “David Jaffe: I don’t care about reviews” – that seems to quote something else entirely. According to Jaffe himself, at least.

Jaffe recently responded on his blog about exactly which interview it was, expressing confusion on a statement that wasn’t there:

“It comes from a phone interview I did with OPM UK.

“Hey, I have not read the actual piece so it COULD be in there (not the net story but the OPM-UK print story) but I don’t recall saying it and I sure don’t see it in the net recap. Check out the news story on the net, see if you can find where I say I don’t care about reviews.”

He then goes on explain the actual quote attributed to him,

“To me, this sounds like I DO care about getting good reviews BUT I’m not as vested in proper media reviews as I used to be because I don’t feel I connect as much as I used to to what mainstream game critics like/want/desire. That was all I was saying and I THINK I got that idea across. Perhaps Tim Ingham who wrote the piece can let us know in an update of his story if I actually said what the headline of his piece makes it sound like I said.

“Like I said, perhaps I did. But I don’t recall. I can’t imagine someone would just make something up and attribute it to me…people don’t do that sort of thing, do they?”

It sounds to us like the entire comment itself was taken out of context. But you have to agree that there is a big difference between Jaffe not being “vested in proper media reviews as I used to be” and flat out not caring about reviews.

Epic Games President Mike Capps recently spoke with VentureBeat’s Dean Takahashi in a video interview at the Interactive Achievement Awards on building blockbuster franchises, and he made some rather interesting comments on Unreal, the Gears of War movie and a possible new game coming at E3.

“We’re not working on an Unreal game right now because we’re working on the Gears franchise… We’ve been working on that [Gears of War] longer than I liked, and I can’t wait to see something. We’ve got hopefully some news to share soon. My mom will appreciate what I get to do when she watches the movie.”

On being asked if they a have new game in development, Capps responds,

“We might have a new one coming, and I think E3 is going to be really exciting for fans of Epic.”

Could it be the fabled Gears of War 3 announcement fans have been anticipating? Or will rumours finally be proved about that survival horror Cliffy B’s been denying? Sadly there’s no new Unreal coming up but that should be overshadowed by more news of Unreal Engine 4 as E3 2010 draws closer.

You can check out the full interview below or at VentureBeat.