I'm your Huckleberry...

One of the titles I was most looking forward to seeing at PAX was Rockstar’s upcoming Red Dead sequel, Red Dead Redemption.  Thankfully, the GHR crew was able to get some face time and hands on with the game.  The Red Dead booth was a popular one all weekend, despite not having any real PAX swag to give away.  Every time I walked by, there was a line. When our 7PM Friday appointment rolled around, we were all eager see what the GTA folks had done.

Problem was, the show floor closed at 7PM.  We were able to get back in and get to the booth for a brief presentation before the PAX enforcers booted us.  Full_Tilt and I went back first thing Saturday during the media hour to get some play time in.  Boy was it worth it.

The game looks really good.  Still using the Rockstar proprietary RAGE engine – graphically it looks better than GTA4, which impressed me.  Obviously with Redemption we’re talking desert cactus, horses and ghost towns compared to Liberty City – but it all looked great.  Playing on a 360, I saw no problems with draw distance or pop-ins.

As far as scale, we’re told that Redemption is bigger than GTA San Andreas.  Yes, let me say that again – bigger than San Andreas.  For those of you that haven’t played it, GTA:SA is one of the biggest games Rockstar has ever made.  You could hop in a plane and it would still take you a while to fly across the map.  Redemption consists of three main areas, each one progressively unlocking as you progress through the main story line.  We also asked about multiplayer, and while Rockstar couldn’t give details, they did confirm that there was multiplayer, and they’re excited about it.  Look for more news next week.

When I finally got my hands on the controller the first thing I asked was how do I get my horse.  Up on the D-pad, and my trusty steed came galloping along.  The horse controls well, no complaints.  Tapping A, just as in GTA4, causes the horse to run.  Mashing A too much will get the horse upset with you and you will be thrown off, so beware.  Just as in GTA, the radar in the lower left showed a letter which represented a contact/mission start point.  I started to follow the path set by the map waypoint marker when I came across a bandit who had stolen someone’s horse and buggy.  Me being the nice guy I am, decided to kill said bandit.  I sped up next to the driver, and clicked in on the right stick to enter dead-eye mode.  Dead-eye is from Red Dead Revolver, the first game in this series, and carries over to Red Dead Redemption.  It is basically “bullet time” – where everything goes into slow motion, and you can carefully pick your targets.  Either shoot a bunch of guys in a row, or one guy a bunch of times in a row, whatever floats your boat.  So I proceed to paint a red x on the bandit (and one accidentally on the horse), and pull the trigger.  Bam bam, back to real time, bandit down, horse slightly perturbed at me (but walking).  I hop on the buggy and return to lady in distress who it was stolen from.  These non scripted events are designed to happen anywhere and everywhere throughout the game.  I got the impression that there is a lot to do.  There could be a train passing by begging to be robbed, or you could stop and shoot at birds, opening a hunting sequence.  Your character can hunt the various wildlife of Red Dead, skin the animals and sell for money.

The Rockstar dev we talked to wanted to convey that Redemption is not simply “GTA4 with cowboy hats”.  One of the things that seem to set it aside from GTA is the character development.  The promos we saw emphasized how you can control your character’s decisions.  Be a bad guy, and make more money, but people are afraid of you.  Choose the nicer path and get accolades from townsfolk.  Reminded me of Fable.  Rockstar is known for it’s interesting and well developed characters, so I’m anxious to see how this aspect of the game plays out.

I handed the controller over to Tilt, and after some awkward fumbling around trying to get on the horse (Tilt has a history with horses in media, ask me some other time) – he was off to the mission marker.  At this point the game really did remind me of GTA4.  Get to the waypoint, talk to guy, watch cutscene, start killing.  The mission was to help a grave robber get his treasure back.  The radar showed red dots for the bad guys, and you methodically worked your way from cover point to cover point, shooting baddies.  The weapons we saw were your standard, pistol, rifle, and shotgun, but it appeared there are more options.  The demo we were playing had unlimited dead-eye mode, which made the mission rather easy.  Tilt and I took turns killing bandits and making it to the treasure to help out our skeevy grave robber friend.

I may be a bit biased, GTA4 is the reason I bought my 360 in the first place, but I am really looking forward to Red Dead Redemption.  May 18th, Redemption is coming for you…