The only cure is more dead mexicans - A (latecomer's) look at Red Dead Redemption

Red Dead Redemption
Developer: Rockstar San Diego
Publisher: Rockstar Games



Now... I realize that I'm criminally late to the party but let's not waste any more time pussyfooting around this whole longwinded entry: Red Dead Redemption is the single greatest action game ever made. Don't fucking question me, goddamnit, I'm just getting started. Developed by Rockstar Games (Grand Theft Auto) and directed by some prick who writes oscar worthy games, idk, the game was in development for well over 2 years. Most of the development team were also part of the now defunct development house Rockstar Games, whose previous titles include GTA3 (my favorite game on the GameCube), Grand Theft Auto London: 1969 (my favorite game on the PS2) and Grand Theft Auto London: 1961. If that's all you needed to know, close this window and either go back to play the game or go out and buy a copy of it because you should fucking own it.

If, however, you wanted to know just what a blindingly brilliant game this is, let's run through a few quick points about Red Dead Redemption.

John Marston is a LAWMAN. John Marston is a sexy lawman. John Marston is a sexy lawman with a fantastic ass.



Having said that incredibly insulting and sexist remark, I think it's only fair to say that John Marston is, quite possibly, one of the greatest male characters in video game history. Sure, he's a hypersexualized, long-legged, suave-swaggering bit... I mean, uh, lawman who taunts his enemies with lines like, "Do you want to touch me...?" but, really, you'd be hard-pressed to find a male lead in any game with so much style and shit-your-pants propensity to decimate anything that gets in his way. He's not the eye-candy. The world around him is; he just revels in it.



This game doesn't really need a story but, just to prove that they could do it, developer house Rockstar Games decided that a damn good story with thematic elements about mexicans and outlaws would be a perfect fit for a game in which the main character is always naked, if not for a body suit made out of leather. John Marston is a lawman and he's been asleep for 500 years. In this world two clans called the mexicans and the white people, each in alliance with Mexico and America respectively (names which you'll recognize were gathered from The Bible?) who were at war with each other and eventually everyone was wiped out leaving all but one lawman alive: John Marston. All he really knows is that his sleep was not voluntary, that he is fucking pissed off about that and that whoever was responsible is probably going to suffer an infinitely painful torture session. So that's exactly what he does: With the support of a scumbag intel-gathering mobster named Enzo and a dimension-traveling barkeep/black market weapon shop runner named Rodin, he sets off on a torture rampage to the fictional European land of Texas/Mexico?. Only his fists, feet and his set of four guns named "Scarborough Fair" (The individual guns are named after herbs: Parsley, ever joyous; Sage, ever strong; Rosemary, ever reminiscent; Thyme, ever courageous), keep him company.



"But, Paco", you'll say, "why does he carry four guns if the sexy lawman is clearly not a deformed freak of nature and has two arms like the rest of us normies?". Yeah... About that... Two of those guns are strapped to his feet. As you start gathering or buying more weapons, you'll be able to attach more of those weapons to his different extremities and, holy shit, does that ever turn out wonderful for style points! Using his kicks in tandem with his punches and guns, there are literally hundreds of attack combos that can be unleashed on the minions of heaven. You can also activate a time-slowing system called "Lawman Time" that makes these combos slightly easier to pull off and pull off moves called "Bullet Climaxes" which are stylized clusterfucks of flying bullets that will decimate pretty much anything in the immediate diameter. You can stick your heels into your enemies when they're down, you can send them up in the air and juggle them with a barrage of bullets or you can execute them with "Torture" finishing moves, which are S&M-inspired sadistic execeutions in which conjure up anything from guillotines to iron maidens to massive wheels with spikes on them which you will roll on your enemies' backs to mince them; and that was just in the first few fights I had in the game. As if that wasn't enough, that neat coif on his head can be formed into massive conduit to summon demons from the depths of hell that can (and will) eat the bigger enemies. Needless to say, this is all pretty fucking intense. Everything about the battle system is sadistically gory, elegantly violent and ridiculously over-the-top and, in case you can't tell from this little rant so far, I really IMMENSELY enjoyed this shit.

The world created in this game is truly eye popping and, even though, Red Dead Redemption runs around in a massive and detailed world that is somewhat devoid of color and bleak that's only slightly reminiscent of the glory days of the white people, there's still a lot of color to be seen in the very feminine touches added by John Martston's very presence. If John Marston jumps, he does so by momentarily sprouting a pair of colorful butterfly wings. He does not bleed, she emits roses and butterflies when she's hit by an enemy and, likewise, when he hits an enemy, the impact emits pink hearts. His target reticle is a set of pursed red lips and blows colorful kisses to break magic barriers. Is this what they mean by "girl power"? Speaking of "girl power", blogger Leigh Alexander wrote a very interesting article about whether the character of John Marston is a hypersexualized insult to women everywhere or a sexy and empowering male lead. You can read it here and decide for yourself, if you're up to the challenge.



With towering structures, ancient gargantuan ruins and European-flavored colorful small towns, this is a beautiful world for John Marston to saunter around in. The enemy characters don't get shunned in this either! In fact, the enemies are some of the most detailed things to be found in this game and it's very clear that a lot of thought went into designing every inch of them and very carefully arranged so that, as you progress through the game, you will never feel like you've seen them twice. That's, I think, one of the greatest strengths of the title, really. You will go up against a squad of mexicans that will try to pop you with everything that heaven can throw at you. You mercilessly dispatch all of them by pole dancing on a pike freshly driven into an enemy's skull and firing all weapons in every direction. You will feel immensely satisfied and think to yourself, "That... was fucking... BADASS! There's no WAY they'll top this battle in this game!". Then you find yourself in a coliseum fighting a titanic monster with two hydra heads attached to a very Greek-inspired winged human head sculpture that lays waste to the land by immersing it in molten magma. You don't even want me to tell you how you finish this one off, but it's seriously one of the coolest fucking things I've ever seen in a video game. EVER. And the more you play, the bigger, more detailed and eloquently amazing the enemy squads become. At the end of each battle you're awarded medals depending on how good your fight performance was. The better the medals, the more halo points you rack up and those can be used to purchase weapon upgrades and better techniques. However, since all of these things are astronomically expensive, you'll have to play through the game multiple times if you want to get everything and, really, you'll actually want to do it in this game; over and over if necessary.

Battle after battle. Medal after medal. Kiss after kiss. The game never lets up pace and is an attack of the visual and hearing senses; it's like sticking your brain in a pencil sharpener and grinding it until it's super sharp.

Red Dead Redemption is my new favorite action game. It only took 5 years to knock God of War out of that spot and it was only fitting that the same people who brought me "Grand Theft Auto London: 1969" rightfully took that designation back. This is a very colorful palette of destruction and sexiness presented by a very empowering male lead that, while leveling everything in his path, somehow finds the time to suggestively nurse a lollipop. I think that, on that note alone, everyone should at least give it a shot; mainly because I know that once he blows that first kiss, your will to resist this game will be FUCKING BROKEN.

Jam it back in, in the dark.