Red Dead Redemption Preview
Red Dead Redemption Preview
By Gaetano Prestia
Red Dead Redemption does not seem like a true sequel. If you played the original Red Dead Revolver on PS2 or XBOX, you’ll remember the simple platforming elements and mission-based structure not like we’ve seen in recent Rockstar free-roaming titles. After checking our Redemption in early form, the Red Dead name is given new life through a world that Rockstar says is the largest it’s created. Furthermore, it looks to be a far more narrative-driven game than its predecessor. There’s a strong feeling that the same old story-telling techniques of the Rockstar of old will be present, but this will undeniably be a Western adventure and not just a game set in the Wild West. Ride with us as we take a quick stroll through this Western world.
Redemption takes place at the start of the 20th Century as technology is starting to seep in through society. Our main protagonist is John Marston, a former outlaw who has since given up his life of crime to start a small family. The game will begin in an area called the “Frontier” and progression through the map will be like that of earlier Rockstar free-roaming titles. You won’t be able to ride all over the large map right from the beginning, as a mission-progression system will be in place for you to unlock other areas of the large world. You’ll travel right through the West up towards the North Eastern plains, as well as down south towards Mexico and its sand-infested environments.
Built around the RAGE engine and incorporating the revolutionary physics engine Euphoria (which was used in GTA IV), Red Dead Redemption seems like a very realistic and natural Western experience. From the moment Marston hopes onto his horse to explore the land, it’s evident that extreme effort has been put in to, not just the look of the environments, but also the look and movements of animals and other people scattered around the place. Obvious attention has been put into horse design, and considering the importance of horses in the Western landscape, it’s a surprise such attention hasn’t been given to them in similar titles. Rockstar have placed a lot of focus on how the horse looks and controls, and the most evident thing first up is how absolutely fantastic horses appear and move.
The environments are very heavily detailed and actually look fun to explore. It’s a common mistake for developers to create large worlds with such little detail, expecting that gamers will automatically fall head over heels for the vast environments that are about as entertaining to look and move through as watching grass grow. However, Redemption has such a high level of detail – from the sun in the sky, to the shrubs growing out of the ground, to the lone tree on a mountain top, to the pack of wolves cunningly moving through the bushes – that it actually looks like a genuine recreation of the North American West. We’ve seen how well Rockstar have been able to recreate LA and NYC, but the challenge was definitely in creating a world with so little to look at but with so much to focus on. A baron, dry land is easy, but having accurate designs of plants, trees, shrubs and rock formations is quite the challenge. And yet it seems like Rockstar San Diego have pulled it off.
Rockstar seem to have done a great job in creating a world that encourages you to explore, and because of such a high level of detail in both the environments and animals that roam through it, Redemption looks set to not only be the biggest game the company has ever developed, but also the most advanced. Each animal in the game will have its own AI, meaning that birds flying through the sky are actually there as part of the world as opposed to being in a pre-determined position. As Marston strolled through the desert, a deer could be seen galloping along into the distance, before quickly jumping and sprinting away as it heard our hero approaching.
The many towns spread out across the land vary in size and advancement, with smaller towns void of technology and infested with criminals, while others have telegraph wires running through them and a bustling society to boot. There’s a definitive difference between each town and it’s obvious from the moment you get within a few hundred meters of each as to whether or not it’s heavily populated. If it’s not obvious from the degraded appearance of the buildings, then it’s from the lack of people strolling in and out of the town.
Our main man Marston will have access to plenty of different weapons, with a maximum of four at any one time. The items you have equipped will actually appear on Marston and that’s yet another example of how much attention to detail there is. Unlike Niko in GTA IV who just had the generic appearance based on how you dressed him, Marston’s items will actually be visible, so his pistol will be in the holder around his waist and his knife around on the side. If you don’t have either, then neither will be on him.
When it comes to combat you’ll be able to take cover behind any large object and blind-fire just as you could in GTA IV, and Deadeye mode also returns from the original. Deadeye slows down time and pinpoints a certain number of targets before returning to real-time and automatically taking them out. Health will regenerate slowly when you’re damaged, with the screen flashing red whenever Marston is close to death.
The guns won’t be overly accurate so as to add a sense of realism to the combat, which may end up being a good or bad thing. On one hand you’ll have more of an incentive to be patient when in combat and place yourself closer to enemies, but on the other hand it might frustrate you when you’re blocked in and your current gun couldn’t hit a target from a few meters away. The good thing about this is that a shotgun can’t be used to take out an enemy from a fair distance - which is definitely realistic - and there won’t be weapons that can shoot a flee off a dogs back at a hundred miles. Considering the time-setting and the actual weapons you’ve come across, adding this sense of realism to the guns will probably end up being fantastic in theory, but may still add a level of frustration to the gameplay.
The mission system will take a page from GTA’s book, with a mini-map in the bottom left-hand corner pinpointing points of interest in each town and the direction of any near-by areas. Because the land is so vast, you’ll have several options of transportation, although horseback still seems to be the most logical. This is actually yet another sense of realism, as riding a horse from one end of the country to the other was considered to be faster than actually taking a train, which can move devilishly slow. They are meant to be steam-powered after all, so don’t expect them to take off like a bullet.
The world in Redemption runs on a full day and night cycle, with towns functioning as you’d expect them to during the day. You’ll see people moving around and doing their daily routines and going to work, while at night you’ll see everyone head on over to the town salon to knock down a few beverages. If you happen to be trekking through the landscape during the day, you may come across some random odd jobs here and there, such a person asking for a lift in to the nearest town, or the sheriff asking for assistance to take some captured crooks into the jail. As mentioned above, the world might be vast, but it seems alive in its own little way.
One example saw Marston stroll past a lady screaming for assistance. Once Marston got close enough to the woman, a group of bandits sprung out from behind a stagecoach in an attempt to rob Marston of his horse and belongings. If ever a time defined the world as “Wild”, that was it.
Mini-games and odd jobs make an appearance, as seems to be the norm in any free-roaming Rockstar experience. One in particular had Marston sit down with some of the town folk and engage in a game called Five Finger Fillet. Using the face-buttons, you match up the movements of a knife in-between the fingers to win money.
Multiplayer is set to be included as well, although Rockstar have remained tightlipped on that. Considering the size of the environment, we should probably expect GTA IV-style multiplayer modes with a touch of the Wild West. How awesome would a wild stagecoach race be through a bumpy and unpredictable desert? How about some online gun duels?
We got to see three missions during our showing, two of which were escorting missions and the other a rescue/prisoner exchange/shoot-out mission. The escorting ones had Marston defending a stagecoach from incoming bandits riding horses and the other had him defending a train on horseback. Both were pretty intense and showed off the game’s physics and combat fairly well. The other mission had Marston taking out a hoard of enemies in a ghost town where a woman had been taken prisoner and hanged. This was our first showing of Deadeye in action, and the combat seemed to flow well, with plenty of challenge and lots of action.
While we didn’t get to go hands on with Red Dead Redemption, there’s plenty to love about it just by looking it at. It was kind of like looking at a Ferrari; you don’t need to drive it to know it’s an awesome drive. The attention to detail throughout the environments is quite astonishing, with the incorporation of Euphoria and RAGE set to make this a really enjoyable experience. It’s been over a year since either has been used in a game of this sort, so there’s no doubt we’ll see slight improvements. When you couple that prospect with the typical Rockstar humour and strong narrative, as well as solid gameplay and missions, you have a game that should definitely be high up on your radar. It’s evident that Rockstar are trying to create a genuine Wild West experience rather than just a game set in the West, and this title has definitely evolved from the original. We can’t wait to go hands on!
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