I enjoy the western genre a lot. I've watched some movies and read some tales abotu cowboys, gunslingers and outlaws. I first played a cowboy videogame back in the 2000's; "GUN". I spent so much of my time completing the story, playing around with horses and guns. Then, much afterwards, I played Red Dead Redemption 2 (RDR2) and it was great, specially the story. Now, some eyars after that, I played Red Dead Redemption (RDR).
The shiniest part of this game is the story; a famer that has to deal with his past as an outlaw and do some dirty work for the government. You play so much time as John Marston that you can't just not like him; a man that will do anything to get to his family, be it good or bad things. I played the "good" route, which was the one that made more sense to me given John's situation; not doing any crimes (as far as I could), helping people and just doing what was needed to get to Marston's family as soon as possible. By the end of the game, it is inevitable to get some feelings about Marston's situation: the amount of things that he had to traverse in order to get where he wanted is just absurd, and it really gets into you. I think that the narrative is amazing; it tells you bit by bit how John is built, dealing with all sorts of strange characters and situations, learning, helping others while helping himself, just so that he can see his family once more. The characters that you meet along the way are also great: they sometimes made me laugh out loud and sometimes I just despised them, and some other get in between this, of course. The range of personalities and traits between characters is a joy to get to know and brings variety to the setting; not everything is gunslinging, but also fake advertisement, revoltuion, graverobbing and plane-making. Thus, the story really pushes you to wanting to see what happens next all the time and you get to hold his gun all through out!
Mechanically is simple: ride your horse, get some cover and shoot to win, just like in the Wild West times, basically. That being said, it is quite fun. Of course, RDR2 polishes this basic gameplay even more, adding a smoother riding, some other mechanics and the like, but RDR really doesn't need more than what it got to make the game enjoyable: the shooting feels good, the riding is a bit awkward at times but for the most part is just fine, and the exploration and movement through the world is okay; the graphics are more than enough, and even beautiful, to display a late-1800's USA that is being modernized. This is to say: simple, but truly fun.
I did have some issues with some things, though. I felt like, sometimes, I missed something in between missions: it was like the characters met some time between the end of the last mission and the beginning of the next one and discussed some details regarding the situation; they talk about details that I never got to see. Now, these were just details, but they are important because they normally kick up the mission objectives. This happened mostly at the beginning of the game, but really startled me because I didn't understand why some things where happening. I also think that sometimes some mechanics are not that well-explained: breaking horses, duels and even some minigames lack the proper way to introduce them to the player. A "how to play" section in the menu would have been a great addition to the game, because the tutorials are shown while playing the game; you either pay attention to the tutorial text and lose the actual minigame or concentrate in the minigame to not lose, but miss parts or the whole of the tutorial. As an ending, I would like to say that also, sometimes, I failed missions or lost some of the immersion due to some random thing hapening in my sorroundings: sometimes people started shooting me or my horse for no reason, or sometimes I would bump into someone in a town and marked me as a public hazard, making me fail the mission due to "breaking the law", or losing access to a service due to a lawful or forced shooting.
But, at the end of the day, the game shows a great quality, balancing narrative, graphics and mechanics to deliver a product that can be enjoyed beyond the main story, giving the player the sense of diversity, freedom and options to take. Again, it has some issues, but the story alone is worth getting into despite this. Nice shooting, fine riding and one great experience of the world and its characters. I would like, someday, to replay this game, but with a more agressive and careless approach to honor, with the hardcore difficulty enabled, and maybe even get the 100%, so I can experience more of this great game.
8/10
