Red Dead Redemption: Eyes On

During a recent jaunt across the ditch, NZGamer.com was lucky enough to be shown through an early build of Red Dead Redemption at Rockstar Games in Sydney. If you're working from a base of "huh?", then Redemption is this generation's follow up to the 2004 western gunslinger, Red Dead Revolver. Redemption takes place much later than its predecessor, focusing on a time in American history where the campfire mythology of the wild west was drying out under the building heat of the machine age. Gamers will control John Marston, a reformed outlaw who after years riding with some fairly impolite gangsters wants to settle down and enjoy family life. But if things were that simple, Rockstar San Diego wouldn't have a game, so along come a few government agents to tell him... well, we don't know what. RDR's story is being so closely guarded the only thing we can say for sure is that he's called back to a life of hot lead, purple sunsets and square-mustachioed banditos.

Eyes glued to Rockstar's impressive gaming set up (alas, no hands on at this time) NZGamer.com was guided through a number of events, gameplay options and finally a scripted mission. The action opened with our hero waking up at his meagre campsite, and a short romp about on horseback displayed some truly impressive visuals, courtesy of Rockstar's Rage engine. The open world of RDR is unlike anything we have seen before - sure, Rockstar's previous gold medal efforts also have a similar non-linear gameplay structure, but in a cityscape the eye is only pushed so far. Here, we saw a wide, desolate mesa, gullies to the front, ridges away in the dim dark distance and a life-sapping sun and sky. Every shrub, rock and the ubiquitous cactus has been rendered as a 3D object, giving amazing depth and foundation to the world. Even the clouds behave more or less as they do in the real world. But enough about the graphical jackboot to the face.

After a short ride we came across a hapless fellow whose wagon was swarming with bandits. Using a rifle and the Dead Eye aiming system - returning from Revolver - our guide dropped them and gave the wagon owner a pass. He was so happy he gave us a reward, and it was explained that the reward system is just part of the overall exchange. First, there was nothing stipulating that the wagon owner should keep his life. If our guide had wanted to kill him, the wagon would have been ours to loot. However, leaving him alive to reward us, and tell the tale, gives us a nudge up the honour system.

The gaming mind goes instantly to the system in InFamous for reference. But, no: those are clear moral choices. One is right, one is wrong. You choose the line to hold and like Toto says, you hold the line. In the world of RDR, the moral fabric has been shot through with holes, and nothing is so obvious. Just as the historical period was tumultuous with dodgy politics and lawless lawmen, RDR is set in a time and place were your actions speak far louder than the few clipped words our character rations himself. Your honour is attached to what you do, but it all happens behind the scenes; you're not asked to choose option A or option B at any time.

A similar system in Redemption is set aside for fame. Having a hand (for good or ill) in notable events make you more well known, which can be both good and bad. Famous people sometimes don't have to shell out cash for stuff in shops, but famous bounty hunters might find themselves just as easily hunted by oily-faced Milky Bar kids with something to prove. RDR, we're told, doesn't have multiple endings or choose-your-own adventure type consequences. Rather, it's the sort of game in which you sometimes need to tread a bit delicately and think about your future before interfering in something like a government execution (which we saw in the demo - brutal), or even a domestic spat.

In Chuparosa we picked up a bounty hung on the wall of a building. Wanted posters appear frequently in RDR, leaving you to decide if you want to chase them down or not. The rewards are clear: ka-ching. But the risks are pretty obvious too. Chuparosa is a little town near the border, where everything from the buildings, to the peasants, to the shabby dogs build an aesthetic of poverty. In a shop we saw just how many items are available in the game (a lot). And we decided to rip down a bounty for a mongrel wanted for grand larceny.

Off we went out into the world to find our quarry, again feeling cold and alone when looking at the epic expanses of land it's possible to cover. Now, bounties aren't a necessary part of the game. If you're more the treasure-hunting type, then you can do that instead, and while on our quest for the thief our guide showed us how that works. Treasure maps in RDR are crude, coffee-blotched affairs, with a few hastily scrawled images on them. Usually a landmark will help point you in the right direction, but you really have to look out for it. Once you find the stash, there'll be another map buried with it, allowing you to carry on and locate the next haul. This can all be quite profitable, and the game will gear things based on what you like doing: bounty hunters will find more bounties appearing, treasure hunters will have their saddle-bags stuffed with maps.

Treasure safely stowed, we located our bounty. He was marked on the map with a red skull, so homing in wasn't too much trouble. Using a scoped weapon (all period, of course) our guide knocked off the bad guys our mark was travelling with, which flushed him out on horseback. Dead Eye came back to the party, showing our man three delicious lead-kisses. This particular character went to the great corral in the sky, but that doesn't mean you have to take all your bounties in cold. Using a lasso, should you get close enough, will mean you can hog-tie them and cart them into the Sheriff's office for reward. If you've just got a body, then you can go and take an identifying item which will allow you to get paid. If you don't want to go to all the trouble of using a lasso (although we saw it, and it looks like one helluva good time) you can always shoot out a kneecap.

All of this took place before we went anywhere near the game's scripted storyline. The preceding outline sits at the heart of what Rockstar San Diego have tried to achieve with RDR: an open world western adventure game that's so much more than "action adventure". Tipped to truly lift the game from one tired old genre and plonk it down in a nice fresh one is the incentive to explore, because nothing we've explained here happened by-the-numbers. Events in RDR occur in a very real, very seamless way. While there's the game's core story, and a set of actions and scenes that happen to kick the thing along, everything around it moves as freely as the game's believable ecosystem (including armadillos, wild dogs, goats, snakes and vultures, to name a few).

And how do gamers take advantage of all of that richness? By spending some time looking around. NZGamer.com was incredibly impressed by what we saw in Sydney, and urge all you Kiwi cowboys to consider taking up arms in 2010. Earlier this month, Rockstar released the game's latest trailer; that Tombstone aesthetic, those gravel-voiced wildmen, and the chilling sound of gunshots have us truly looking forward to April next year.

Thanks to Rockstar Games Australia for holding our hands through the demo.