The "western" genre is one that rarely receives attention in the gaming industry. In 2010, however, we had an exception. Our good friends at Rockstar Games, known primarily for their satirical hilarity in Grand Theft Auto, revealed a grittier side to their developing range with Red Dead Redemption, Rockstar's own exploration into the past.
It has been known to be very easy to consider Red Dead Redemption to simply be Grand Theft Auto in the old west. For any who have followed the story in its entirety, however, this is very much not the case. They are two different games with different development teams. To put things in perspective, I like to think that if Hemingway was alive, he would more than likely appeal to a story such as this, whereas GTA would be more to the fancy of Mark Twain.
Rather than being set within the height of western days, Red Dead offers a more original and gloomy western experience in the year 1911. By this point the sign of the time is changing, and the great frontier diminishing. Our protagonist is a former outlaw turned bounty hunter named John Marston. As the title suggests, the story revolves around his own personal and legal redemption as he attempts to win the right to return to his family by catering to the demands of a pair of corrupt government agents. These demands tend to vary upon the agents' discretion, but revolve around hunting down John's partners in crime from his glory days. This conflictingly grim adventure amidst the historic wrestle between progress and tradition ultimately poses the question of whether the ruthless conquest of civilization is a consistent improvement on the primitive and untamed frontier.
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