Practicality has also been taken into account as well this time around. You now have the ability to setup camp in the wilderness, and use the camp site as a means of saving, traveling and changing outfits so that a trip to town isn’t always necessary. You are also able to call your horse at any point in the game with a quick press of the up direction on your d-pad, ensuring that you aren’t stuck without transport like the GTA games.

On a technical level, Red Dead is one of the most impressive current-gen games to date. As mentioned previously, the world is ridiculously huge, and when it comes to that sort of scale, you expect other corners to be cut badly but this really isn’t the case. Characters models are smooth and texture quality remains high. The game features full day/night cycles and even has full dynamic weather, with clouds that build up, lightning storms and puddles that form all over the world when it’s raining.

Catch a sunset from a cliff as the clouds build over for a stormy night and you will catch yourself literally gaping at the beauty in front of you, it really is a spectacle.

All of this is also complimented by magnificent sound, with ricocheting bullets and howling wolves that feel like they come straight out of an old-western. The soundtrack is subtle but very effective, with the only real let down coming from the sometimes wooden voice acting of John Marston himself.

The engine is not perfect though, as you will have occasional bugs arise, mostly due to the open world or dynamic physics system that may cause people to bug out, or fly. There is nothing game breaking though, but it does leave a bit of a stain on an otherwise solid game.

With the single player offering weeks and weeks worth of play, it’s almost unreal to think that there is still a world of multiplayer options to keep you going for even longer.

As in the GTA games, your lobbies come in the form of a free roam mode set in the entire world. What makes it different is the plethora of activities and challenges to do while playing. You can form a posse, and even travel around public free roam worlds with other posses. Your multiplayer character is completely separate from your single player game, and is linked to a leveling system that allows you to gain XP and unlock items and challenges as you increase.

Posses can take out gang hideouts or join together to go on hunting challenges, herding animals towards each other or working together to sweep areas for plant life. You can even set yourselves up in a tavern and start shooting innocents to kick start wanted levels that open even more outlaw challenges such as being most wanted for certain periods of time.

From these free roam lobbies, versus multiplayer modes can be started, and these modes are a whole lot of fun. Some of the modes are as straight forward as deathmatch, but modes such as Grab Bag will have up to 16 players running around levels trying to collect bags of gold and get them back to drop-off points. A very creative and ridiculously fun addition to the multiplayer is that every game starts with a shoot-out. All players are placed in a circle, and given a target to kill. A time counts down and then havoc ensues as everyone takes a shot at everyone else. The multiplayer game starts the moment the stand-off begins, with the surviving gun-slinger getting a head start while the other players all respawn. It really is inspired.

Conclusion:

Red Dead Redemption is undoubtedly one of the best examples of amazing value for money to almost anyone. The single player campaign is massive and offers near-endless amounts of fun, be it in burst or otherwise and the multiplayer is an entirely different beast altogether.

The craziest thing of all is that Red Dead Redemption feels like more than just a game. It feels like a legitimate historical experience of what it was like to live in the west in the early 1900s.

There is almost so much to talk about in RDR that I am almost certain that I have left certain features out that are worth a mention, so if you have played it, give us your input in the comments below.

For fans of: Grand Theft Auto, Gun, Westerns, Mass Effect

Scoring (not an average)

Gameplay: 9.0

Solid combat, cover and “vehicle” controls that are fun to use and feel natural.

Presentation: 9.5

Absolutely gorgeous.

Sound: 9.2

A bit of strangely fake sounding voice acting from the lead character, but the rest of the cast as well as the effects and soundtrack are top notch.

Value: 10

Amazing value from a great game that is fun to play for hours and hours on end.

Overall: 9.5

A technical masterpiece combined with great storytelling and tons of fun to be had.

[Reviewed on Xbox 360]