Red Dead Redemption [Xbox 360]

A wonderfully immersive open world game that favors simulation over agency.

In other words, on the one hand it's richly designed and impressively alive within its technical limitations, while on the other hand there's no significant player choice other than the order of missions and whether to complete the optional "challenges". Dialogs are all cutscenes without even an option to decline mission offers. This is not necessarily a problem, it's just what the game aims to be: you're on a ride. Well, you can decide on whether to play "honorably" or not, but I did not find the honor system to be especially engaging or consequential. If you aim at proper roleplaying then your honor dial may go back and forth a lot. That's just how life is in the morally ambiguous wild west.

Its best aspect is the visual design. I played it 13 years after its 2010 release and it still looks amazing. On the Xenia emulator upscaled to 4K and >60FPS using community patches it could easily be mistaken for a new game. Well, except for animations that can be a bit wonky. But the diversity of terrain, towns, people, clothing, historical and cultural flourishes are often breathtaking, even though—as in most open world games—most of what you see is non-interactive window dressing.

Story, dialog, and characters are also superb and well integrated with the game's systems. There were several quite profound observations of human nature, or rather the specific recent North American instances of it. The main quest is excellent, if quite overdrawn, a true Western adventure full of colorful, cynical, and charmingly stereotypical characters. The combat set pieces are immersive and at times quite cinematic, though again it might be a bit too long and repetitive towards the end. Unfortunately, the "ambient" side quests are a real mixed bag. While some are intriguing, comical, and tragic, the worst are "challenges" that depend on randomly occuring events or resources, requiring you to grind and grind until you get what you need. I did not enjoy these very much. Worst are the mini-games: various competitions of card, chance, and skill. I found them all to be annoying. Seriously, **** horseshoes. Of course you don't have to complete side quests, but it's hard for dedicated gamers to skip them.

I'm not a fan of the controls. The horse can be annoying to steer and poor character movement and response can get frustrating during tense combat. I've failed missions many times because I couldn't get the controls to do what I wanted. It's easily the biggest weakness of the game, and all things considered that's a pretty good outcome.

I'm also not in love with the save system. No matter where you are when you quit the game you always start from one of the specific save locations, likely far away from where you were when you quit. Will you even remember what you were doing? Dying during a mission can also send you back to one of those save locations... except when it doesn't, because some missions have checkpoints along the way. It's very inconsistent. And if you quit the game in the middle of such a mission the checkpoints are forgotten and you're back to a save location, having to redo the mission from the beginning. Finally, don't just assume that the game was saved when completing a big chunk of quest. Make sure you actually see the save icon. This bit me in the ass a couple of times.

So, yeah, some awkward aspects to RDR, but what a ride. It's easy to understand the game's enduring popularity and I'm looking forward to eventually playing the sequel. Those bad guys won't just shoot themselves. Or, wait... am I the baddie?

By the way, not to brag, but I got 100% completion. It was grueling.