Animated slowly against the harsh penetrating rays of sunlight, a tumble weed attempts to disrupt the slow march into town John Marston and accompanying gunmen are making. Captive in hand, the goal here is to swap one for another; the other being Bonnie and Bonnie being bound by a noose around her neck; a friend of Marston, I'm told, she is nothing more than a trade catalyst in this first look at Red Dead Redemption, but a catalyst nonetheless and therefore the chief point of reference and purpose.

The tumble weed is just the first attempt at disruption, but nature, in all her harsh glory has nothing on the machinations of man as the slow march into the aptly named town of Tumbleweed quickly turns into a fireworks show - guns cracking and striking in an altruistic expression of drama, action and desperation. It's a less than futile attempt to derail Marston, his companions and my Rockstar demoer, but this is the Wild West, and like some dust-ridden Robin Hood, both my Rockstar demoer and his projected self (in the form of Marston) make quick work of the disruptive rabble, thanks to a keen "Dead Eye", and after all, hanging by the neck in a tightly wound noose will only keep you breathing for so long.

Such is the first few minutes of my time with Rockstar San Diego's Red Dead Redemption, a seminal sequel to the co Capcom produced/developed Red Dead Revolver; a game probably best left not talked about in the face of what's on offer with Redemption. "Redemption" being the right term here also, because this new adventure tosses any arcade reference out the proverbial steam train window (at high speed). Red Dead Redemption is a truer tale as has never been told in the form of a videogame; capitalising on the success of the likes of Deadwood, or some of Hollywood's great Western tales (forget "Spaghetti") - this is not only the story of a man on a path to redemption, it's about the redemption of the world itself.

Transforming a lawless, gun-slinging culture and lifestyle into a coherent system of governed rules, morals and pro-activity creates as much a narrative backbone as the most heart-wrenching Hollywood Tom Hanks-starring story. Here, the sheer scale of intended change and adoption is almost too much to bear, allowing for plot representation in the form of righteous outcry; no one effortlessly accepts change, least of all a man forced to revert back to a state he'd hoped to leave as ghosts of the past.



Red Dead Redemption's proantagonist, John Marston, is the epitome of the Wild West. He's a hardened character scarred by time, sun, sand and his past. After attempting to thwart his indulgent law-breaking lifestyle, he's thrust back into the ways of the gun for narrative purpose and we're left with a videogame character who not only feels real, but stands as an accessible bridge between two worlds. The Wild West genre is still fresh and new to us so it's important developers craft accessible vessels - characters thrown into chaos and action unwittingly; allowing for a sincere option to relate, embody and celebrate.

He also looks like Wolverine and Clint Eastwood, which helps.

While this was only my first look at the game (and I wasn't allowed to touch), the scale of things Rockstar San Diego have developed left me gob-smacked. The game-world is massive. We're talking bigger than GTA IV and more tantalising in potential than both Oblivion and Fallout 3 combined. Walking Marston from the aforementioned town of Tumbleweed to Armadillo, one of the larger towns on the Frontier (Frontier being one of three sections of the game), showcased not only the range of the game-world, but also the level of detail and regard for immersion. There is a genuine ecological system starring real-world animals, weather and day and night. Dead bodies will attract buzzards, while snakes, rabbits, coyotes, foxes, bears and more litter the landscape - they even adhere to a natural food-chain where one is hunter to the other and you can literally sit and watch this in-game nature show run its course, if you were so inclined.

What's more endearing about this is the inclusion of Euphoria in all things alive in Red Dead Redemption. It was always going to be the case humans would sport the tech that made GTA IV so appealing, but seeing horses imbued with it and realising the intimate, unique effects for every individual action will be based entirely upon your single experience just adds to the character of Redemption which, upon my short time simply viewing the game, is already infinitely more engaging than GTA IV.



Traversing between towns also gave me a glimpse of life in the old West. Various random events were taking place such as two lawmen chasing and shooting at someone who had presumably broken the law, a train rolled by as did a few coaches on their way to somewhere. We were ambushed by a gang posing as a lost and broken down lady by an overturned coach while the aforementioned wildlife did its Attenborough thing. The potential to interact with all of this was goading me to a fit of desire - Rockstar's hands-off gameplay sessions are usually *just* bearable, but I can't remember a time I've been so drawn to a videogame.

Once our destination was reached, I was shown off the finer details of the game, such as the grimy, stained windows of the local saloon, which upon closer inspection also revealed inconsistent texture in the glass, as glass making in those days was clearly not as refined as it is today. The occlusion of sound also struck me; hearing footsteps on wooden floors, hoof stamps in the dirt from horses around the corner and gunfire off in the distance created an energy and ambience unlike any other game I've seen in a long while.

Most establishments are free to walk into and interact with, and you're able to sell items, gamble or take up jobs to make money. One such instance was to play a game called "Five Finger Filet", which is basically the game Bishop plays in Aliens (hand spread, you dab the point of a knife in between your fingers without stabbing yourself). Obviously being the Wild West, you're also able to dabble in cards and the like, but not a great deal about the money-making aspect was shown or described beyond what I've regaled here.



After being shown some of the life of the game along with its ambitious scope, I was given a glimpse at another mission, this time chasing a train on horseback. The goal here was to shoot any potential train robbers while keeping up with the locomotive. Horse-riding has actually taken its cues from riding Epona in The Legend of Zelda series in that you can spur your horse on to run faster, but only for a short period of time – if you ride your horse too hard it'll take a while before its stamina is up again.

While I didn't experience it first-hand, horseback fire-fights looked to be engaging and reasonably easy to do. There were a few worrying instances where the auto lock-on seemed to create confusion (due to the camera snapping too quickly), but these were very few and far between, and I'd likely venture a guess it'll be ironed out as development progresses. During this section of the mission, Marston also had some help from AI buddies who looked like they were actually aiding in a proactive manner, and the first mission I was privy to also had AI helping hands, which leads me to believe there'll be a fair bit of interaction between Marston and NPCs throughout the game-world.

The end of the demo was left with a sweeping view of the landscape from up on high. Marston sitting on his horse while the sun beat down on the harsh Western plains. I was told you can travel to pretty much any point in the game you see, which again just added to my desperation for some play time. Other tidbits that made their way out include the likes of multiplayer, real-world weapons modelled from the firearms of the era and a seminal moral system that allows for a good or bad direction based on your interactions with the game-world. But unfortunately, all of this is still shy of my eyes until the next hands-off session, which will likely prompt my immediate 'pistols at dawn' throwdown to Rockstar Australia with the victor taking the controller. Revel in what I've divulged here, because this is the game you'll want to be playing when it's released in the early part of 2010.

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