Rockstar, the publisher who brought us the Grand Theft Auto series, have left mob life behind with its new game Red Dead Revolver. So it’s time to put down your modern side-arms and baseballs bats, renege on your allegiance to your mob boss and instead pick up a pair of six guns and holster, and swagger off into the vast frontier of the wild Wild West. (But don’t worry there is a new GTA game on the way this autumn!)
This game attempts to cash in on the popularity of the western cowboy movies in the same way that the GTA games have paid homage to mob based movies and TV series’ — the good news is that by and large this game succeeds.
The story is a good old-fashioned tale of revenge — boy sees parents murdered by thugs, boy picks up his daddy’s guns, boy grows up and seeks out the filthy varmints that butchered his kinsfolk. Red, the boy in question, is a bounty hunter with an agenda, he is always on the look out for his parents’ murderers — he has a score to settle. Red’s appearance owes a lot to the craggy good looks of one Mr Clint Eastwood in his ‘Spaghetti Western’ days.
Indeed the look of the whole game is severely indebted to the vision of Sergio Leone. The game is a third person shooter; Red is controlled by the left analogue stick, his camera review can be rotated using the right stick. Weapons are cycled through using
the d-pad, and are aimed and fired using the shoulder buttons.
Something about the way the character moves and is controlled reminded me of both the Duke Nukem series of games and, more recently, The Getaway. The controls are easy to learn and manage, it took no time at all for me to master the basic controls of this game.
The game has some interesting features that veer away from some of the more traditional third-person-shooters. The showdown mode that crops up occasionally in the game is good fun and a welcome break from the inevitable repetitive nature of this genre. When Red is challenged to a showdown by a villain, the game moves into a
slow motion mode; Red must prove he’s fastest on the draw but also that he has the marksmanship to match his gun drawing skills. When in showdown mode, the left analogue stick is first pulled back and then pushed forward to draw and point the pistol; when this is done, the cursor is controlled by the right stick, whereby you can
target your enemy or enemies. In the meantime, your opponents will be drawing and aiming at you. This is where the game most looks like a classic cowboy movie, the in-game camera repeatedly pans between shots of your enemy’s eyes and your own. You
can practically taste the dust and smell gun smoke!
Graphically the game is about average; there is nothing wrong with the rendering of the characters or scenery, it’s just that I’ve seen better. There are nice touches, however; the game constantly looks bleached out, very like some of the famous western movies. During the movie scenes of the game, the camera can often be out of
focus (like a projector in an old cinema) and lines and scratches flicker across the screen, like the game was being projected from worn celluloid.
What this game lacks in graphic and fancy animation it more than makes up for in game play. This game is definitely one of the most entertaining titles I’ve played this year. It’s hard not to smile when you first earn your twin pistols and realise that you can walk down Main Street at high noon, plugging villains on either side as they draw their old shooters!
The environments that the action takes place in are all classic western fodder. There is the shoot out in a canyon where you will have riflemen and Indians sniping at you, a showdown in an old, creepy cemetery in the ruins of a Mexican town, and what self-
respecting western wouldn’t have a shoot out on top of a speeding steam train?
Apart from the excellent story mode there are multi-player modes that are equally fun. The high noon mode allows you to practice your duelling skills against a friend (or enemy) and the card games are ‘poker with bullets’ — excellent fun.
This game isn’t quite up to the same standards as any of the Grand Theft Auto titles, but that said, I’ve spent many happy hours playing it. I hope that this game will prove popular enough to merit a sequel just so I can see Red ride off into the sunset one more time.
Red Dead Revolver
Requirements: PlayStation 2 games console
Rating: 92%
Price: €54.99
Contact: GameStop 01-8724305
27/09/04
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