Red Dead Redemption 2

Red Dead Redemption 2 is finally out, or at least it finally came out last fall. I picked it up within a few days of its release and figure it’s about time I say something about it here for the blog. The new world of Red Dead Redemption 2 is extremely vast and impressive. I haven’t yet made it far into the game, as work and responsibilities keep me from completely indulging myself the way I would like to, but at about 20% of total game completion it’s enough to speak on the matter.

Most everything that was present in the original game remains for the sequel, just in updated form . The guns are great, the horses are awesome, and the clothing options are almost so much it’s overwhelming. In fact I would say if this game had any drawbacks at all it is that with so many options for clothing, for food, and for other such lifestyle choices that it can be a bit distracting from the adventure. This will probably come down to personal preferences for different gamers. On the one hand, you can really get sucked into living in the west, having to buy food, stay healthy, bond with your horse, feeding it and cleaning it as well as taking care of yourself , shaving, exercising, and doing chores .

All of these elements are mind blowing and downright amazing for anyone who wants to get a feel of living in the Old West, but at the same time, it sometimes feels like things are not moving in the same thrilling way that they were in the first game. This might just be a problem for someone like me who is totally enamored with the Old West lifestyle, and therefore I may spend a lot more time focusing on these little details than the average player. But, however you want to do it, the game certainly allows for your own personalized style of play.

One of the other things about the game that is a lot of fun is the fact that John Marston, who was the central character of the first red dead game, is a part of the outlaw gang in this follow up. Most of the characters involved with your gang are pretty well fleshed out and varying so it doesn’t end up feeling like a cheesy cliché. Around the camp you’re required to help out and to contribute, so this adds an extra dynamic to the game that wasn’t there in the first Red Dead. Whether it’s doing chores, or taking on jobs (such as robbing trains), and then contributing to the camp fund, you have to keep up relations and be a good part of things or opportunities to expand won’t come your way.

One of the issues I have with this camp mentality is the fact of some of the crimes that must be performed and I don’t really like being forced to commit as a player. The real outlaws of the West are certainly romanticized and fun too think about, but there are a few small missions in the game that I don’t like being a part of, and I do wish there was more choice in that.

One of the better improvements of the game is the horse selection and development. You’re required to bond with your horse and to feed it and keep it clean and by doing so your horse will become easier to ride and faster for you. This sort of application in the game helps to establish and feel the frontier nuances. And when it comes to taking care of yourself, if you don’t eat regularly, making sure to eat plenty of healthy food, you will see a general decrease in your characters abilities. Your health will go down faster, your ability to aim and shoot with precision will diminish, and your overall ability to complete game challenges gets more difficult. This is probably a fairly safe path for the game designers to go since I don’t think anyone has ever seen or heard of an overweight gunfighter.

If anyone is on the fence, though I doubt at this stage of things anyone is, I can safely recommend buying Red Dead Redemption part 2. It is another fantastic dive into the old frontier and will provide hours and hours of playability as well as more and more hours of re-playability.

 

Doc Holliday Wild West Game

Released in 1960 when westerns were in their heyday in American culture, the Doc Holliday Wild West Game was a simple opportunity to market yet another package of fun with no real depth to it. There’s nothing wrong with the game, but it’s a very basic spin-and-move operation that is designed with kids in mind; think 6-12 years old range. Designed for 2-4 players, each person takes both a Doc Holliday piece as well as a bandit piece, and then spin and move, trying to reach the final space before their opponents.

These days the real value of a game like this one is the collectability, but it can still be fun to sit down for a breezy session of classic board game competition. Through the 50’s and 60’s there were so many of these type of games produced that it would be pointless to spotlight them all, but take games like this one or the Wyatt Earp Life and Legend board game and you pretty much know what you got whenever you see something from the era.

 

 

 

Deadwood (Boardgame)

Cotemporary games focused on the old west are few and far between, but when one can be had I certainly like to give it a look. Deadwood is a fairly simple set-up to go with a fun looking board. Released in 2011, the object is to have the most money by the end of the game, which comes about once the train reaches town. Each player has a ranch and cowboys, and has to choose how to use them in order to come out ahead in the end.

A lot of the fun of this game is the progression of growth as you try to get ahead. Both the town and the rail line are growing, and this effects how you play. You build the town by placing buildings which each have different attributes, and through out the game you’ll have to decide to either leave your cowboys in a building and gain it’s special advantage, or return them to the ranch where they can be utilized as a resource for your next turn.

This is a great game, and a lot of fun comes in the box, so I really recommend getting it for you and your family or friends, whoever you play with. But now let me warn you of some pretty common silliness: the point of the game is to build the town of Deadwood before the train arrives, all set in a classic western desert setting. Obviously Deadwood wasn’t in the desert, not anywhere near it, nor was the train on it’s way at the time the town was being built up. And probably most of all, Deadwood was a gold mining town, not a cattle town. All of this is purely academic when it comes to sitting down and enjoying some table-top fun, but for any novice student of the old west, these things will probably stand out.

That said, it’s a great game, and these aesthetic discrepancies shouldn’t stop anyone from indulging the good times contained herein. It’s currently only twelve dollars on Amazon for a new copy, so it’s even a great price!

 

 

Wyatt Earp Card Game

The Wyatt Earp Card game plays a lot like Rummy but with contextual modifiers that make the experience a fun western challenge. There are gunfights, and bank robberies, cash and rewards, but most of all there are well-known real life outlaws that have to be captured in order to come out as the numero uno lawman.

It’s not the most complex of games, but it does require a bit of strategy. Players work both together and against each other in their efforts to accumulate the most reward money. You have to put together sets in order to get capture points, which allow you to eventually capture the bad-guys. Mixed in to the pile of draw cards are things like Hideout, Wanted, and most significantly, Wyatt Earp. These cards have special conditions allowing a player to do things like taking items from a rival, or drawing extra cards.

No one player gets to be Wyatt Earp, instead he exists as a special card that can be drawn from the deck and allows you helpful maneuvers. But for the historical buffs, there are seven true-to-life outlaws for the players to arrest and capture. These miscreants are Belle Star, Jesse James, Billy the Kid, Bob Dalton, John Wesley Hardin, Butch Cassidy, and the Sundance Kid.

The 2014 Re-release Version

It’s an easy-to-play game that doesn’t take long to catch on to, so if you sit down to play for the first time, everyone should be on board and having fun in a relatively brief time. You can find it on EBay or Amazon, but there is something to know if you do go looking for it. The first version was released in 2001 by Rio Grand, but then it was re-released in 2014 by Eagle-Gryphon. This is important to know because the original release sells for quite a bit more and might discourage someone who was hoping to make the purchase. But the newer release is a more standard price at about twenty-five dollars, plus shipping, depending on who you order from.

 

Red Dead Redemption (2010)

For those who are unaware, there is a sequel coming this fall to the greatest game ever made. Red Dead Redemption 2 is anticipated for release late this year, and so it makes me think that perhaps it’s time I start adding some game commentaries to this site. So why not start with Rockstar’s Red Dead Redemption? For those who are already aware, this may all be familiar ground, so I write with my thoughts geared towards the western fan who may not be the most video game savvy.

Red Dead Redemption is just about everything a fan of the old west, and especially fans of the wild gunplay, could ask for in a video game. One doesn’t have to be an expert game player to have a good time with this game. Right from the start you are immersed into a western world with varied settings and surroundings, as well as different types of people and animals you’ll come into contact with that all fairly represent the frontier realities. It’s done in a style that is called “open world” and this means that you are not obligated to move along a predetermined path at the mercy of the computer system. Beyond the fact that this makes for fun gameplay, it’s most valuable quality is that it let’s the player enjoy this frontier world on their own terms.

Right off the bat you are given objectives to complete, but you can do these when you want to. If you desire, you can simply mount a horse and explore; this can take up all your time on it’s own. Completing objectives are important for gaining improved resources, such as better guns and better horses, but you won’t be stopped from simply tumbling along with the tumbleweeds, if one so desires.

Let me paint you a picture, first, so that you can understand the canvas on which you exist. There are many different areas, and each with it’s own topography, all evoking classic western feels. There is America, and there is Mexico, divided by a river that emulates the Rio Grande. In Mexico you have red rock desert and small villages, as well as white stone terrain and Spanish style missions. North of the river you have a couple of towns, one a classic western locale with a saloon, hotel, bank, train station, etc. The other town is a bit bigger and more developed, representing a place such as Denver, though not nearly as big. It has multi-storied building of 3 or 4 floors, a cobblestone street, and even a theater you can frequent.

Each of these places is connected by riding trails as well as by railroad. This in itself is a wonderful plus to your time playing; you can ride your horse anywhere you want to go, or if you’re feeling nostalgic, just hop on the train and let it take you to your destination while you watch the scenery pass by. Not to be forgotten, of course, is the stagecoach. As long as you have the small amount charged for a ride, you can take the stage to any location accessible by a trail. If the trail doesn’t take you to your exact location, it’ll drop you as close as possible along the nearest trail spot.

So you can imagine that if this much detail is put into creating the world for you to run around in, that the actual gameplay and gunfighting must be pretty good, too. That would be correct. As mentioned, there are preset objectives you can work your way through, as well as side stories, and even random events to engage in. You may be out for an evening perambulation when suddenly you hear a cry for help, or perhaps you hear startling gunfire. You have the choice to get involved or not. It may be travelers being robbed by evil highway robbers, or it may be a local lawman trying to catch an escaped outlaw. You have the choice to help out or keep to yourself.

The gunfights are fantastic, especially once you collect a good sized arsenal. Whether you’re defending a fort or raiding a bad-guys’ hideout, the gunfights are arguably the best element of this game. The more time you spend playing, the better your accuracy will get, making it easier to gun down the bad-guys before they plug you. You’ll even get a slow-mo mode that allows you a brief time to super-focus and aim with great accuracy and deadly precision.

There’s plenty more that could be said about this game, but at this point it’s safe to say that if you haven’t played it yet, then you probably should. And if you have played it but didn’t get very far, then I’d also suggest giving it enough time to become a deadly gunfighter and really take out those gangs! And nothing beats strolling across the street when suddenly a gang of cow-boys arrives on horseback, firing their pistols and hurrahing the locals, then quickly drawing your six-shooter or rifle and taking control of the situation, immediately restoring order to the town.

It does have a few drawbacks, though not many. The horse steering when riding at a full gallop can be a bit touchy, but with a little bit of time at it you can quickly get the hang of the maneuvering. Also, the story takes place in 1911, but this makes it a bit anachronistic. It’s a slight item that never really becomes noticeable in the actual experience of the game, and my suspicion is that the developers just didn’t realize the small nuanced differences in the times. The game projects a feel of probably between 1875 & 1882, but, like I say, the purported date is not noticeable or impactful.

You can pick up the game for probably around ten dollars used, and even xbox 360’s are pretty cheap now-a-days, so if you don’t have any other reason or interest in video games, you could justify a purchase just for this game.

Red Dead Revolver (2004)

Red Dead Revolver was the first game in the Red Dead series and pre-dated Gun by a year.  And while Gun was able to improve upon what Red Dead Revolver did, RDR certainly deserves praise for what it did for the proliferation of old-west gunfighter games. Starting with it’s first person shooter dynamics to it’s focused targeting mode, Revolver showed what was possible in the arena for old west gunfighters.

It’s strongest attributes were the gunfights, in which you could take cover, and/or temporarily enter a slow-motion view. Once you cleared an area, or were in some other way able to make sure there were no more bad-guys lurking to ruin your day, you could advance forward to the next important area. Some of the areas made a little more sense than some of the others, but that leads to the next significant observation.

Red Dead Revolver borders precariously on the edge of being a vaudevillian weird-west story. Many of the characters are extreme caricatures of western tropes, utilizing names such as Bloody Tom, Ugly Chris, Pig Josh, Jack Swift, and Shadow Wolf. The game often times gives the feeling that the game creators were inspired by Clint Eastwood’s spaghetti westerns, and then they got high to complete the final touches.

The real significance to RDR is that after almost being abandoned for good, it was picked up by a new developer and finally released. This then led to the improvements in the genre, including Gun, released the next year, and then the Red Dead sequel Red Dead Redemption coming out five years later and blowing away video gamers everywhere. Which will, in turn, lead to the soon-to-be-released sequel and part three in the Red Dead series, Red Dead Redemption 2. Based on the progression of western gunslinger games so far, Red Dead Revolver deserves a nod for what it’s brought to fans of both gaming and the old west.

Gun (2005)

I won’t be trying to include every old west gunfighter game that was ever produced, since, unlike board games, they get dated pretty quick and become irrelevant, but Gun was a pretty cool title and still has some fun replay-ability. It was originally launched on PlayStation 2 and the Xbox original, but was also made available on the new Xbox 360’s. However, it was never up to snuff against Red Dead Redemption, for which its gameplay was a bit of a precursor.

At the time that Gun was released it was really pretty groundbreaking. It was the first time you could actually mount up, load your guns, and make your own decisions about where you wanted to go. In short, you could finally simulate free-roaming through the old west. Previous competitive titles had some nice features, but none offered the opportunity to simply wander the open ranges. With Gun you could roam and explore to your hearts content, with no directive that had to be adhered to.

Voice talent was one of the cooler investments in this game, featuring Thomas Jane as the main character Colton White, and Kris Kristofferson as his father Ned. Additionally, Ron Pearlman, Lance Henrickson, and Tom Skerrit each voice characters. Some of which are loosely based on actual old westerners. Along the way you’ll run into Clay Allison, Luke Short, Hoodoo Brown, and Dave Rudabaugh (may be some others I’m not remembering). It’s nice that they borrowed from reality, but the in-game versions are not strong in their resemblances.

All-in-all it’s a great game and if you don’t mind a game that isn’t the latest in graphics quality, this is definitely worth the time to play. You’ll engage in many shoot-outs, Indian fights, buffalo hunts, gold mining, and hero work in general.