Article by: FinalGamer 5/7/2010 2:20:04 PM
(YOU FEELIN' LUCKY!?!? [i]WELL DO YA PUNK[/i]!?!?!)
[i]CLASSIC GAMING[/i]
Red Dead Revolver
Developer: Rockstar San Diego
Publisher: Rockstar Games
Year: 2004
Genre: Action/Adventure
System: PS2/Xbox
Westerns are generally underrated in terms of media, largely for the fact that it's a pretty boring scene and it's always the exact same thing presented in too similar a fashion. Usually there's some kind of renegade wanderer, injustice is afoot, he eventually kicks some ass because he has to be reminded of how to protect people. Sometimes the Wild West movies mix things up like the vengeful chase of The Wild Bunch, or the slow-rising swindling empire of There Will Be Blood. Videogames have even less of the western genre to handle despite the setting making perfect videogame fodder.
But with Red Dead Redemption coming out later this month, and being that it is essentially Grand Theft Auto: Wild West (which is a seriously fucking awesome idea), let us go back to the precursor of this game which has absolutely no influence whatsoever story-wise on its namesake sequel.
Story - Our story begins with a young boy called Red Harlow, living with his Caucasian father and Native American mother who are comfortably well off from a wonderful prospect of a gold mine with a partner of Red's dad, and even getting his first gun to finally learn how to shoot like a real man, essentially a charming tutorial section. But then his home is attacked by a rogue Colonel's gang, his parents shot dead and Red himself surviving long enough to escape and blow off the Colonel's arm.
("MARCO!" "POLO!" *Bang*)
Years pass and he grows up into Clint Eastwood. Well sorta, he looks an homage to him obviously, and ends up in a place called Widow's Patch, dealing with a rogue gang who have taken the town under their control, as well as aiding the sherriff to head to Brimstone for a doctor and essentially working as a bounty hunter, dealing with various criminals across the area, as well as aiding several new-found allies such as Jack Swift the Londoner sharpshooter, Annie Stoakes the tough bitch ranch owner, Shadow Wolf who is a Native-American cousin of Red, and lastly Buffalo Soldier, an African-American U.S Army soldier.
Their stories culminate eventually into a battle for the town of Brimstone against a powerful governor with various malicious deals behind the town's back, resulting in what is perhaps one of the most climactic finales ever in a Western shooter. Think The Wild Bunch but set in a much bigger fancier place, and maybe a shit ton less bullets.
Then again I think there was a gatling gun in there somewhere so who the fuck knows.
(This motherfucker right here, best character ever. Also he can cut people with his face. He's that hardcore)
Gameplay - The controls at first are your basic third-person action-adventure shooter. You can move around and strafe with a lock-on mode with your weapons to shoot enemies. Naturally simple enough to understand.
You can shoot enemies in various parts of the body with critical hits even in the head to kill them or deal much more damage on bosses. You can choose a variety of weapons from a wide range of revolvers, rifles, and non-gun weapons such as dynamite, throwing knives or molotovs.
Weapons also have limited ammo and various reload times, all of which are shown in how fast or slow they are in their individual screens on the menu when choosing them, which can be done before setting out on a mission or, if you pick up any weapons during the mission, when you go into the menu.
The town of Brimstone acts as your hub where you largely just buy things of various interest, ranging from weapons to health increases to random shit that can unlock stuff in Multiplayer, which is really nothing more than a one-to-one showdown against another player using any character you unlocked via the Brimstone items buying or by finishing a mission with a certain level of accuracy and damage taken.
Money is obtained by either killing enemies expertly so and with combo kills, or by finishing the missions, which you are also allowed to replay if you're that much of a perfectionist (or as I like to call them, dicks).
Then comes the two most coolest parts of the game, the Duels and the special skills of each ally. Each character you play as has a special skill they can use once their meter is full enough. Red possesses the Dead Eye, which is basically Bullet Time. Not even bullshitting you. Bullet Time. And only being able to use it with a revolver is pretty damn awesome in firing off a sweet-ass six shots.
(Don't be fooled by the hat. He really is a giant chicken)
Jack Swift has perhaps my favourite skill which is literally a wall of bullets. He immediately has cursors on EVERY SINGLE ENEMY IN FRONT OF HIM and fires off a fucking shit ton of bullets within two seconds. He is that good a sharpshooter. Annie Stoakes possesses an explosive round in her rifle as well as Buffalo Soldier, which is pretty good to clear out groups of enemies.
Lastly Shadow Wolf has the worst skill ever, which is....lighting his arrows on fire. Yes the Native American uses arrows, he is the worse guy in the game even with an amazing amount of arrows to use, but really, you want to use guns, and thankfully you only play as him maybe once or twice.
Now the final, perhaps most advertised part of the game, the Duels. These are really just cool QTEs that only pop up at fixed parts of the game, and the showdown against someone (and at one point even three people at once) is not only damn difficult to pull off, but also incredibly cool.
Firstly when you draw, you have to pull the analog stick down to grab your gun and THEN upwards to fire, and when it enters the Dead Eye/Bullet Time mode, you get a cursor ranging from yellow to red signifying the power of the shot.
You have a few seconds to fire off up to six of them at the enemy at any part of their body that you can, with later enemies having less time to shoot at. A very cool feature indeed.
Graphics - The game does a fantastic job of emulating the old Wild West movies in its presentation, particularly with the graphics which always have this fantastic grainy feel all the time, and it never actually gets annoying, even when in the most intense of battles. The scenery is iconic, the characters are recognisably Western to the point of homage, it only pains me to say that I can't say much more of the graphics in this game because, well dammit it feels like you're playing a goddamn Western, at least back then.
(The horse would later convict her of insurance fraud. Soon after, he was placed on the Witness Protection Program with a new coat and a lucrative TV series career)
Because let's face it, it's 2004 and the graphics look....pretty bad, everyone has that wooden sheen on their faces which is partly covered up but not entirely by the grain so you have to forgive the game's age on that. But seriously, cowboys, didn't you always wanna do that as a kid!?!
I don't care if you wanted to be a ninja or a pirate, a cowboy was the transitional phase for every kid and this is pretty much playing out the dream of every kid who ever wanted to be a cowboy, grainy camera and all. But of course where would we be without the Morricone music?
Music/Sound - And just look at that, they even got that too! The music is fantastically reminiscent of old Westerns, to the point where you pretty much ignore it as background noise with very few truly uplifting memorable tracks, which on the one hand is rather unfortunate it's not exactly The Good, The Bad And The Ugly's theme, but on the other hand is better for the fact you aren't distracted during the fiercest shootouts.
The sounds are exactly what you want, gunshots and drawling grunts aplenty with some pretty good voice acting for the various characters from the snidely maliciously patronising southern gentlemen to the one-liner wanderer Red himself.
With very little competition to go against, Red Dead Revolver is the best Wild West game ever made, for now until its successor Red Dead Redemption may come to take its hat for its own. The only real complaints of this game is the fact it is incredibly linear with very little deviation other than the accepting of a few missions in Brimstone as well as anytime you play as Shadow Wolf.
Because seriously, bows are not as cool as guns. But either way, if you find it cheap somewhere and you always secretly dreamed of being a cowboy, give it a go, or wait for Redemption.
Fun and Innovation - 4
Replayability - 2
Gameplay - 3
Presentation - 4