Red Dead Redemption

Red Dead Redemption is a western, action-adventure game developed and presented by Rockstar San Diego as the spiritual successor to Red Dead Revolver. It was released for the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 on May 18, 2010 in North America, and May 21, 2010 in Europe.

Upon release, Red Dead Redemption was highly acclaimed by critics, scoring 95/100 on MetaCritic for both consoles, and receiving perfect scores from over 20 reviewers including GameSpy, 1Up.com, GamePro, Game Revolution and VideoGamer. It was praised for its plot, presentation, visuals and gameplay mechanics and as of 2013, has shipped over 13 milion copies worldwide.

The Xbox 360 version was made playable to Xbox One owners via backwards compatibility on July 8, 2016.

Synopsis
John Marston is a former outlaw looking for an all new life in 1911 America. When corrupt government agents threaten his and his family's freedom, Marston is sent across the American West to help uphold the law and to achieve redemption. His job is to kill or capture his former gang members, including his old friends and gang partners such as Bill Williamson and Dutch Van Der Linde. He must do this or his family will pay the ultimate price.

Along the way through frontier towns, deserts, prairies, mountain passes, and territories, Marston is given work as he freely explores the free-roaming sandbox environments. The game features thirty-six species of animals that can be hunted and traded for supplies and cash. Marston also participates in jobs, activities, and games such as Poker, Horse Taming, and Nightwatch.

Background Detail
The game takes place in 1911, which is near the end of the seventy-year span of the Western American Frontier (also known as the Wild West). As players see in the opening of the game, many new and "unfamiliar" people are moving into the West on the train. The town of Blackwater has noticeable modernized differences in architecture and technology compared to other gritty towns like Armadillo and Thieves' Landing. Electric line poles are also noticeable along roads. Even Marshal Leigh Johnson is seen fussing with a telephone in one of his mission cut scenes, showing the unfamiliarity with such technology people of his generation and likeness have.

Some people have a hard time accepting this new lifestyle, and many are willing to fight to preserve their way of life. Players can see the frustration many characters have with the Federal Government and eastern folk. Being so far away from the modern America gave the West a sense of self-reliance, independence and order which would have difficulty complying with the Federal Government. It was inevitable, as more and more people poured in from the east, that every part of the American West would be populated. It wasn't until the 1920s that the Wild West would become a famous and popular icon in American history and culture.

Information

 * Characters
 * John Marston
 * Jack Marston
 * Locations
 * West Elizabeth
 * New Austin
 * Nuevo Paraiso
 * Animals
 * Horses
 * Storyline missions
 * Weapons
 * Outfits
 * Activities
 * Random Encounters
 * Hunting
 * Transport
 * Multiplayer
 * Trailers
 * Trophies/Achievements
 * Cheats

Themes


Like Rockstar's crime epic Grand Theft Auto IV, Red Dead Redemption has many deep themes. The four main themes are:

The battle between an old world facing change from a new world. The Old West in the game is being exposed to industrialization and new technology such as automobiles, airplanes, gatling guns, water-cooled machine-guns, and armored warfare. Ultimately, the Old West must contend with the taming of its lands and the coming of "civilization." While some folk like those in Blackwater accept that change, other characters such as Dutch Van Der Linde, Bill Williamson, Javier Escuela, and ultimately John Marston do not accept it. The main two factions in the game appear to be outlaws and the government. Both sides are equally bad: the outlaws steal and kill to live their lives, and the government just steals from and kills different people while filling the peoples' heads with empty promises. At the ending of the game, John Marston holds his last target Dutch van der Linde at gunpoint on the edge of a cliff. Dutch tells John that he can't fight change, and even if the Old West is over, the Government will just find another enemy.

The second theme appears to be a question that falls under the moral choice of good, neutral, and evil. The government agents in Blackwater (minus Edgar Ross and Archer Fordham) believe they are good even though they usually ruin and interfere with the Wild West more than they help it. The outlaws in Dutch's Gang killed and stole from the rich, but then gave to the poor. This raises the question: Is it acceptable to be evil and brutal in the present in order to achieve a better future? And if both sides are evil, then that makes John Marston neutral to good and evil. John has killed hundreds of people, abducted people, and stolen from the government his whole life. But yet, he tries to restart his life with his family and forget about the past. He no longer cares which side is right, and that makes him neutral. Of course, the game does not answer this question and it is up to the player to decide if the question is right or wrong.

The third theme of Red Dead Redemption appears to be that there are no clean getaways. As stated above, John Marston lived a life of crime in his younger years, and now tries to put all of it behind him to start a ranch and to live a calmer life. However, there are no clean getaways from your past when you live the life of an outlaw, and the past always catches up with you. To get rid of his past, John must achieve ''Redemption. ''Justify his sins. And he achieves this in the ending when he sacrifices himself to let his wife Abigail and son Jack escape from government agents who have come to assassinate him.

The fourth and final theme of the game is shown through the character of Dutch van der Linde: self-destruction. The people from the New West are brightly dressed, own motorvehicles, and are bringing in new technology. While most accept this, Dutch van der Linde seems to want to destroy the new society. In Dutch's eyes, the world is meant to be brutal and a true fight for survival like it was in the Old West. This is also shown through Dutch's followers, savages who come from a bloody and brutal background. Dutch thinks that technology, social order, and government brings nothing but corruption, and this is why he sets out to destroy the town of Blackwater.

A subtext which runs throughout the game, including many Stranger missions as well as the main plot, is that of obsession, self-deception, and madness. This is most directly apparent in the insane graverobber Seth Briars and his singleminded quest for his "treasure," but can also be seen in, for example, Let No Man Put Asunder, where an elderly woman waits at an abandoned church, in her wedding dress, for her fiance who had died years before; Flowers for a Lady, in which a man treats his wife's cadaver as if she were still alive; Jenny's Faith, where a girl dying in the wilderness refuses rescue because "Jesus will save me;" and Deadalus and Son, Lights, Camera, Action, Aztec Gold, and California, obsessive and delusional quests like lesser versions of Seth's which lead only to nothing, or to tragedy. The theme also appears as a major plot device in the story of Luisa Fortuna's self-created and ultimately fatal fantasy in which the self-serving revolutionary Abraham Reyes actually loves her and is a genuine "champion of the people," and in that of academic Harold MacDougal and his Quixotic attempts to "understand" the Indians but only in accordance with his misconceived notions. But all of this unsettling background is there to reflect upon the main story and John Marston himself: not only his obsession with recovering his wife and son, but the self-deception under which Marston convinces himself that through the way of the gun he could ever 'earn' a normal, peaceful family life, or a son who wouldn't follow the same violent path.

Gameplay
The gameplay of Red Dead Redemption is vast. The use of guns in the game is very similar to that of Grand Theft Auto IV, another game developed by Rockstar Studios. There are a variety of pistols, revolvers, shotguns and rifles available to the player as the game progresses. Ammo can be purchased in stores across the landscape, as can other useful items. Prices for various items vary from settlement to settlement.

There are numerous ways to make money in the game. One way is through random encounter missions which present themselves as the player travels. Players can also accept bounty hunter missions, to capture or kill escaped criminals; play games of chance such as poker or blackjack, search for treasure or hunt wild animals (skins, meat etc. can be sold at stores). There are many animals available to hunt ranging from dangerous animals such as boar, bears, cougars, wolves, coyotes, and even legendary animals such as Lobo the Wolf or Gordo the Boar, to harmless animals such as rabbits, birds, raccoons and even beavers.

A change from Grand Theft Auto's system of a wanted level is the bounty system. As players commit crimes, their bounty increases. Certain crimes raise the bounty more than others: murdering a sheriff, for instance, will raise the player's bounty more than committing arson. Players with high bounties will be tracked down by either the Mexican Army or the US Marshals depending on whether the player is in the US or Mexico. Players can surrender themselves to law officers at which point they will have to spend time in jail. If players cannot pay the bounty, they will be sent on a bounty hunter mission (it is best to capture the bounty alive so the player can get more money to pay off their own bounty). If a player can get close enough to a law officer who is currently in pursuit of Marston, they can bribe the officer (for a much larger fee than that required to pay off a civilian). This will stop all officers from chasing you but your bounty remains.

Players can get rid of their bounty by going to telegraph offices and paying off their bounty piece by piece. Another option that can be used is to hand over a pardon letter, which eliminates all of a player’s bounty.

Development
A trailer of the project was sent to a select number of people at a Sony conference in 2005, promoting the release of the PlayStation 3 system. The trailer was a tech demo of RAGE set in a western setting referred to as Old West Project and a direct sequel to Red Dead Revolver. The trailer circulated throughout the internet. In the April 2005 edition of Game Informer, Red Dead Redemption was listed as being available for the PlayStation 3, Xbox 360, and PC.

On February 3, 2009, Rockstar Games announced the first official trailer. Resulting trailers showcased numerous characters, gameplay features, and multiplayer modes that were to be featured in the final release. Previews and beta releases included some features that were absent or changed in the final release.

Film
A half-hour feature film was released on FOX TV on May 29, 2010. It is directed by John Hillcoat. The story takes place on the alternate take in the storyline's first act. Shortly after release, the whole film became downloadable officially through Rockstar's official website.

Downloadable Content
Shortly after the release of Redemption, on June 22, 2010, Rockstar released the first DLC, Outlaws To The End. The content included six new cooperative side missions ranging from raiding a mine and stealing the gold to riding down a river to secure a town's weapon cache. New multiplayer challenges as well as new trophies/achievements were also included. The downloadable content is free for all users on PlayStation Network and Xbox Live.

Rockstar subsequently announced several more major DLC; in chronological order, Legends and Killers, Liars and Cheats, Undead Nightmare, and Myths and Mavericks. Several other minor DLC were released as well. A full list can be found on the Redemption DLC category page. In September 2011, a Game of the Year edition was announced that includes all previously released DLC (details below).

A Free-Roam pack had been announced earlier. It was initially going to be released for free, but Microsoft's and Sony's rules regarding the quantity of free DLC that a game can have resulted in the contents being incorporated into the Liars and Cheats pack instead.

Pre-Order Contents
There were three bonuses for those who pre-ordered the game. The content itself was dependent on vendor, as different shops provided different bonus content, with some even providing all three.

Box Contents
The original boxed version of the game includes the following materials:


 * Game disc on Blu-ray (PS3) or DVD (Xbox 360)
 * Game manual
 * Game map (approximately 29" x 18" or 72 cm x 46 cm) with a poster featuring Bonnie MacFarlane on the reverse side

Game of the Year Edition
On September 13, 2011, Rockstar announced that a Game of the Year Edition of Red Dead Redemption would be released on October 11, 2011. This edition bundles the game with all downloadable content released to date. This edition also brings the Solomon's Folly gang hideout and the Walton's Gang Outfit to the Xbox 360.

The Game of the Year edition adds a Hardcore single-player difficulty option that was not previously available for the game.

Reception
Upon release, the game received widespread critical acclaim from all over the gaming industry. Aside from a few graphical glitches (noted by IGN and other gaming sites), its presentation, sound, and multiplayer were universally praised. While others such as GamePro have criticized the "occasional pop-in and repetitive missions", they also said it "expertly captures the Wild West", with 1UP giving similar praise and complaints. IGN gave the game 9.7/10' GamePro gave it a 5/5 stars, and 1UP gave it an A.

The average score, according to Metacritic, is 95 out of 100 for both PS3 and Xbox 360 versions with 100% of critic reviews rated as "positive." The game won the title of "Game of the Year" from multiple publications as well as awards based on user and developer voting. Among these are the Spike VGAs 2010, Game Informer, Game Developers Choice Awards, GameSpy, and GameSpot. The soundtrack also received many awards.

GameSpy gave it 5/5 stars saying that Rockstar managed to create one of "the most impressive open worlds I've ever seen in a game, and it's telling that — even after playing for over 30 hours — all I want to do is get back on my horse and gallop back into the wilderness." VideoGamer gave it a 10/10 exclaiming "The game itself is absolutely spectacular... The sheer quality of Red Dead Redemption is evident right from the word go." They also said "it's a magnificent piece of work that everybody should play."

The game's most "negative" reiview was made by Eurogamer, who gave it 8/10, stating that it "re-clothes" the Grand Theft Auto series with its "distinct and expertly realised scenario".

Other reviewers such as Edge, GameSpot, GameTrailers, PALGN and Game Informer, gave the game scores ranged between 9/10 to 10/10.

Trivia

 * Red Dead Redemption is the first sandbox game from Rockstar that allows the player to enter an entirely different country (Mexico) as they progress through the campaign.
 * The ending to Redemption bears a striking similarity to its spiritual predecessor, Red Dead Revolver, in which the protagonist comes home, believing things to finally be good in life, only to be killed in a sudden government attack, leaving the son to achieve retribution.
 * Red Dead Redemption was very different during initial development, this can be seen here.
 * The ending is also similar to Rockstar's Grand Theft Auto IV, in which Niko Bellic carries out his final deal and attempts to leave his criminal life behind, only to have it taken from him with the death of either Roman or Kate at Roman's wedding. The final Mission, Remember My Family, also bears resemblance to Niko's revenge mission that he carries out after the wedding with Little Jacob to avenge a lost loved one.
 * The title is shown twice in the story - at the beginning during the first mission Exodus in America, and the epilogue, Remember My Family.
 * Unusually for a Rockstar (or any) game, the credits roll not at the end of the last story mission, but after a "side" mission which constitutes the real ending.

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