Exploring the West....

I have been quiet recently and much of that has to do with my new obsession: Red Dead Redemption. The game is in a word: Brilliant. I have been drawn to sandbox games a lot in recent years. Mainly because it is more than button mashing or repetitive sports simulation. It is an actual movie that you get to play, and let me tell you RDR would make a good movie.

The vastness of the landscape is remarkable. The game is huge. I have heard from some publications that I read, that the game map is 3 times as large as Grand Theft Auto IV. And while driving around in GTA became laborious, riding your horse around in RDR is breathtaking. It's the wild west, so the pace is slow and more realistic. No bustling city, no 18 models of cars on the screen. Just a lot of barren land, a few wild animals, and every once in a while a tandem of other riders.

The controls and game play are a little buggy, but forgiven when I think about the sheer scope of the game. There is no load time when it comes to in-game play. I rode my horse from one edge of the map to the other, and it took about 12 minutes of real time. Not a single load, just beautiful desert and back town landscape.

Characters and story are very well done. Each character actually means something to the story and are interesting enough to make you want to follow them. I find myself always distracted from the main storyline missions. I have been picking flowers, hunting rare animals, and trying to up my sharpshooter level. So for giggles I went to the stats section to see my progression. I had played for nearly 15 hours and was 22% through the game. I was astounded that I had done so much, and yet had only registered at 1/5th of what this game had to offer.

So take my review as is. A guy who still has 80 percent of the game to go. But if you own a PS3 or an XBOX 360 go buy this game. I have been playing video games for the better part of 20 years and I have only had a handful of games blow me away. Those happen to be: Super Mario Bros. 3 (I was 6 so sue me), NHL 95 (Loved the Blackhawks!), GTA: Vice City (my first foray into sandbox games), Bioshock, and now Red Dead Redemption. So in other words, it is pretty awesome, and I am definitely getting my money's worth.