The world of Red Dead Redemption is huge, which is both a major strength and a minor flaw. Given that much of the game takes place over small scattered towns throughout the region, you will be doing a lot of traveling. Doing this on foot would take forever, but riding on horseback is more reasonable as it takes only a few minutes to get from one place to the next and you will find ’random encounters’ along the way to entertain you. Or if you’d rather not bother, you can pay a small fee to get a stagecoach ride (with the option to skip ahead in time to ’instantly’ arrive at your destination)... or even ride a train. You’re even able to ride up to a train on your horse, jump aboard, and rob the passengers if you want, or come up with more creative plans. Players can even go hunt a variety of wild game, which can be amusing for a short time and has its rewards since you can sell the meat and skins for a decent price.

Perhaps the only serious issue with all this is the controls. Much like recent Grand Theft Auto games that this title shares similarities to, you’ll find your character is somewhat clumsy and odd to maneuver. This rarely becomes a problem for routine tasks, but heavy running and jumping with any real precision is difficult. Horseback riding works much the same way, and there are many times where you would expect your steed to jump over something and they instead briefly get stuck against it, then turned at an odd angle and leaving you to get disentangled from the resulting mess. Likewise trying to ride and shoot at the same time is a little difficult, though by no means impossible once you get used to the motions and controls needed for that.

Despite those control issues, Red Dead Redemption makes a great single-player game. They could have shipped it with just that content and it would have been fine, but there is also online multiplayer to be had. Rather than using a specific ’matchmaking lobby’ system, multiplayer sessions are put in the same sort of ’free roaming world’ that offline play is. The main plot is disabled, and instead you have a variety of gang hideouts to assault as well as other tasks you can fulfill. Various fast-travel locations are sprinkled throughout, as are areas where players can meet up to trigger other game modes. Thus the world itself is your ’lobby’, which is a fascinating idea. It can be a co-op game if you like, or a free for all killing spree, or you can compete in various modes with objectives to them. While there have been some technical issues with the online play, a very recently released patch has improved some of those problems and the developers deserve credit for being on top of the issue.

You’ll definitely get your money’s worth out of Red Dead Redemption. The online play is essentially a nice bonus on top of a great single-player story that can plausibly keep you entertained for dozens and dozens of hours, and the presentation helps this game come across as a loving tribute to western films. While it does have some flaws, they are vastly outweighed by just how immersive and entertaining this game is. Red Dead Redemption is a success on nearly every level, and lives up to its hype.