5/5 ★ – RawMetal's review of Red Dead Redemption.

System: Xbox 360 Started: May 24, 2010 Ended: July 2010 Flashback Review Red Dead Redemption was my first Rockstar Game that I played entirely. At the time, I was actually in the mood to play a Western video game and for some reason, I have not played the previous western games that came out before it like GUN and Call of Juarez. Like all the other games that were released in 2010, Red Dead Redemption was also hyped and after playing through it, My thoughts on Red Dead Redemption is a classified masterpiece of an Open World Western game and still holds up as one of the best. Possibly the best Western video game. Sadly this is not a story continuation of Red Dead Revolver and I only played the multiplayer section at a friend’s house at one point in my life. Instead of Red Harlow, you play as Ex-Gang Outlaw John Marston and work with the government to locate and capture his former gang members as Marson’s family is held hostage. As you join with various partners and do crazy missions from Train Robberies, Raiding a Prison, and traveling South of the Border at one point. Since this is a sandbox game, you can do almost everything you want in this game as its Grand Theft Auto in Western fashion. You can play Poker/Blackjack, Arm Wrestling, Five-Finger Fillet, Capture Bounties Dead or Alive, Skin Animals and trade for cash, find hidden treasure and even do side missions or assist NPCs in need of help. It was also very innovative with its Bounty System at the time and it's always thrilling that bounty hunters and lawmen are going after you if your Bounty is high enough. Even the Story missions were well-paced as you can have an action shooter and using the extremely overpowered Dead Eye so you can easily win pistol duels. Multiplayer in this game was more fun and I did spend long hours playing multiplayer on this one than Red Dead Redemption II. Great Battle Arena setup for this game and had a blast playing free-for-all, Gang Shootout and Grab the Bag. You can still go open world in the story mode map and commit mayhem on actual players. Just make sure you gather up a posse so you can survive a little longer. I recently had to check to see if the servers for this game are still up and people are still playing the first game surprisingly. Small flaws for this game, notoriously the physics game engine can be bonkers as your horse will fly straight into the sky, you might even fall through the map and have to reset, strange pop-ins, clipped NPCs and forced mission/checkpoint resets. It's something you might even laugh at but it completely breaks the immersion altogether. Another minor flaw is mainly the ending for John Marston, but the epilogue sequence was great. Now I never cared too much about the gang members you hunt down and wished they expanded on that. However, Red Dead Redemption II solved that problem since it is a prequel and it focused heavily on Marston’s gang, which completely made up for my interest in these characters like Dutch van der Linde and Bill Williamson. However, Marston was inexperienced and dumb in Redemption II, but he changed throughout the story and this what made him likable as he is on his own in this one. If you never played a Western game and want to play one now, Red Dead Redemption is a brilliant game to start. But personally, I preferred Red Dead Redemption II for its expanded open-world gameplay, Outstanding Graphics and more in-depth story. But this one has the edge on Gameplay and its action pacing story missions while Red Dead Redemption II is slow-paced, but the game wanted you to stop and smell the roses with its graphics. I would recommend playing this if you are in the mood for early 2010 games and only want to shoot up baddies with a well-paced action shooting gallery.