Red Dead Redemption

Rockstar's Red Dead Redemption, is better than GTA IV in my opinion. Or any other GTA game for that matter. I've never completed a GTA game before. What i tend to do is start on the missions, do a few then just mess around until i get bored. Then i hardly play the game.
With Red Dead it's different, i can't explain it, because like a few reviews have said, it's GTA in the wild west. The way the map is lay out, and the controls are very similar to GTA. So even though it pretty much is GTA in the wild west, i'm so addicted to this game. I love it. Over this last weekend, i've played it for 16 hours. I think i've completed the main story aspect of the game, but there is still loads to do. Outfits to unlock, strangers to help, poker to play, along with black jack, horse shoes, arm wrestling and more.
The graphics are stunning, the map looks so lush and vibrant, it's so nice to just ride through on horse back. There's only one thing i don't like about this game, some of the people i've been doing missions for, have a certain time or certain point in the day before you can strat your mission. Like there was one character where you had to be there between 7am and 6pm i think, and when i arrived there it was 9pm. So unless you want to go off and do other stuff to pass the time, i didn't want to have to ride off to somewhere on the other side of the map, to then come back when the time was right. So i ended up just waiting in one spot until the time was 7am. An hour on the game is a couple of minutes i think, but if you're waiting for a mission to get going, that 10 minute wait can be really tedious. So thats my only nit pick. Other than that, it's brilliant.
Oh, i forgot to mention theres the online lol. It's awesome. It's not like Call Of Duty for example where you just keep having matches on maps and waiting in a lobby. The online on Red Dead puts you in free roam, which is the map from the single player. Each free roam session contains 16 online players plus A.I characters. You can just do whatever you want in free roam, go shoot the online players, or go and attack a gang hideout filled with A.I characters. Or just go hunting if you really want to lol. You can form a posse, and just explore the map. Do what you want. It's such good fun. The other night me and one of my mates formed a posse, and we headed down to the Armadillo town, and there were 14 online players just holding us off from the saloon, they were on the saloon roof, opening fire on us if we got close. So we had to figure out how to get into the town undetected and take the saloon back. We did it i the end lol.
What i love about the online, is how much freedom there is. It's like a breath of fresh air.
If any of you out there are thinking of buying this game, go for it. Western themed games, or films for that matter have never bothered me before in the past, but i'm having a blast with this game.
Thanks for reading, hope this helped. "Draw!!!"

Amazing game from the start, straight into action, helpful tutorials from the start, dynamics and physics have been greatly improved from GTA 4.

A vast landscape to explore id say too big but still loads of fun to free roam in, atleast 4x bigger than the liberty city map from GTA 4, sadly a let down is that you cant swim! (Basically fall in u die...).

Great amount of missions to complete aswell as side missions, also MINIGAMES!!, for example, shoot a bird (vulture) and you'll trigger a mini game which is fun.

If you love the ragdoll effects from GTA 4 you'll love this, perfected killing body movement, if you shoot him off a horse he may catch his foot on the saddle and the horse will drag him for miles on end. No point to point triggers! all random! Yey, another example, as in the previous rockstar games if you pass a certain point an event will trigger, in this game its all randomized.

Scenario is all greatly designed but yet very very vast, alot of the buildings seen are now exploreable so you can walk in and around, what i found most fun was walking into the back door of a bank, immediate alarm and your wanted :D, a great chase from the sherif and deputies but a little unreal as i took out more marshal (law) than the population of the town...

Recommended to anyone who enjoyed GTA 4 and other western style games, but be warned, gory and blood awaits. i wont give a example as it may put you off buying, and this doesnt mean limbs falling off, no no not that gory lol.

Worth buying, Thx for reading.

Don't get the four stars wrong - this game is among the best there have ever been. I'll explain the missing star as we go on.

Single player
The single player campaign is pretty awesome. I've played for quite a few hours (15-18) and have completed about a third. As with GTA (IV, mainly - and, yes, the comparison is obvious) you can choose to follow the main story or just go about your day any way you feel like. I've been doin' both.

A pretty useful tutorial is included in the first shaky steps of your heroes tale, and make you feel comfortable with the way you move and the things you could do. If you've played 3rd-persons before, you'll get a hang of it right away. It presents a couple of the main NPCs and the cutscenes tells you alot about John; the man of the hour.

As the story unfolds it gets you to move around the impressive-sized map, and presents the many different things you could do (if you don't want to do just mission after mission) like hangin' in a saloon - playin' poker, Black Jack, dices or havin' a drink - or shooting different kinds of animals (collect the skins and sell them) or explore the map and meet all kinds of different people with mini-tasks for you.

As with the Fable-series and Fallout, for instance, the hero's progress and actions can be reviewed by checking the Honor- and Fame-meters. Honor is gained or lost by doing good or bad things (and people react different to you depending on the way you behave). The fame-meter is a result of what you do in a more neutral way - everything you do can make you famous; saving a prostitute from a drunk bad guy will give you fame-raise and honor-raise - gunning down an entire village gives you fame-points but decreases you honor.

There's not loads and loads of different guns to be used, maybe around 30, but it's good enough. When added with the other things you could buy or earn, the inventory is acceptable.

The gameplay is good. It's not perfect. In the beginning it could be a little tricky to control your horse while you try to shoot your rifle - but it actually just make the game more enjoyable. Some people have been complaining about the Dead Eye - and my answer to that is as simple as it is obvious: if you don't like it, or thinks it makes everything to easy, don't use it!

All in all you will enjoy the single player-campaign. For me, I will play it at least twice - one as a good guy, and certainly one as a bad guy. That makes the game last for quite a while...

Multiplayer
As many else have written, the multiplayer starts in the free roam-mode. You can roam the whole map freely, forming a posse and fighting either other players or the NPCs roaming around. Maybe go for a hunt or just some sightseeing?

If you don't get a kick from that, try the different kinds of multiplayer-matches. The classics are here: capture the bag (flag) and deathmath for instance. One funny thing about the mp-matches are that some of them start of with a typical wild west-shootout. Hey, Wyatt and Doc Holiday... feels like you're lined up behind the O.K Corral! Really funny.

Conclusion
But... I feel like a want something more. Yeah, the graphics are really good. Yeah, the single player is really good. Yeah, the multiplayer is really good. But... it could be grand, fantastic, totally awesome - EPIC! But it's not. With just a little more effort the game would be the best one ever created. Example: Why can't Rockstar allow us to create our own heroes? Why can't I decide to shack up with my family and become a farmer - only to sell my crop in the local village? Why can't I become a dreaded outlaw with an army of lowlife-comboys under my command?

It's so close to the ultimate action-strategic rpg... but it's not.

Once again Rockstar have performed. Red Dead Redemption is a huge, beatiful open world experience with never a dull moment. From hunting armadillos to bloody shootouts Red Dead has it all. Just some of the various side missions include poker, blackjack, horseshoe, nightguard, bounty hunter, hunter etc etc etc. On top of that why not go and take a few shots of whisky at your local saloon. Just don't try riding your horse after it. You also have random encounters with people in the wilderness ranging from tracking down cannibals to picking rare flowers. Of course let's not forget the deep and immersive main story which rockstar never seem to falter on. Gameplay is smooth once you get used to it which only takes a short while. With a handy weapons wheel (think mass effect 2) Theres no more scrolling through endless lists of weapons. And yes gameplay is slightly similar to grand theft auto but let me be clear this game is not a grand theft auto of the old west. It can't be compared to other games as it stands in a league all of its own. I haven't tried multiplayer yet but I'm sure that will keep me just as enthralled as the story mode. My final words are if you do not have this game then do yourself a favour and order it now. Guaranteed a good 100+ hours at least in single player never mind multiplayer.

Quite simply... You ARE looking at the Game of The Year....
The graphics are outstanding... Free Roam is excellent and the map is enormous.. and i mean enormous...
Any fan of GTA will love this game, i was roaming around on Free Roam with friends when a cougar jumped me on my horse... Ha Ha excellent, then my mate was savaged by a Bear... what game can offer this....
In my opinion this is a must buy for everyone... but this is only my opinion and some people will disagree.... if you do....I dont care ha ha... BUY IT!!!