* An analysis of the ending of Red Dead Redemption, strong spoiler warning *

Finally, Rockstar have come up with a game that wants us to be good. Playing as a reformed outlaw in a graphically gorgeous title combining almost every aspect of the Wild West we’ve come to recognise through films, TV shows and folklore, the most surprising quality of Red Dead Redemption – even more impressive than the amazing attention to detail –  is the enforced morality and, in line with the game’s title and its central theme, redeeming qualities of the main character. John Marston, contrary to those previous incarnations of Grand Theft Auto and other Rockstar Games’ antiheroes, is not seeking success and wealth through crime; he is aspiring to be good for the betterment of himself and his family.

As in previous open-world games the players themselves are free to do as they wish, inevitably leading to a sandbox environment of carnage and chaos as the he/she sees fit. In Red Dead, the option to be ‘good’ or ‘bad’ is presented – do you capture criminals alive to collect bounty rewards and shoot the weapons out of people’s hands instead of killing them, or decide to go renegade by robbing the innocent and, as an homage to the classic Western cliche of moustached villainy, tie a woman up and place her on railroad tracks? Despite your decisions in these situations and regardless of your own personal play-style, the most striking thing about the main story missions is how Marston always, from the start of the game to the finish, chooses the honourable route.

Blackmailed into hunting down his former brothers-in-arms by a pair of lawmen who have his wife and son held captive, Marston is sent out on a quest to essentially rid the land of the last surviving remnants of his own criminal past as the violent era of the American Old West comes to an abrupt end. Marston chooses to deal with hostile situations by speaking with restraint and politeness instead of pulling out his gun, and his actions throughout the story are often heroic, albeit through unavoidably violent means. So outside of the story missions when players may utilise their freedom to go out and commit evil deeds should they wish, it all seems a little inconsistent – hypocritical even – when compared with the predetermined intentions of the character during the game’s cutscenes that drive the plot forward.

* Spoilers from this point on *

By the end when the violent and bloody missions are seemingly over and the police allow Marston to be reunited with his family, the game gets you to play through mundane chores tending to his farm, herding cattle, and spending quality time with the wife, Abigail, and estranged teenage son, Jack, who is more interested in reading than holding a weapon. It is quite the contrast to the majority of the game and, accompanied with a chillingly ominous score that haunts these segments, there is a feeling of impending doom: that this peacefulness is too good to be true.

It is no real surprise then when the lawmen return to betray and murder Marston and his family; on the contrary there is a sense that this is a true calling. A life as a simple rancher is not something John can adapt to, regardless of his intentions, and there is an acknowledgment at this stage of Red Dead that not only can this videogame character never escape his outlaw past, nor can the player escape from the violent dynamics of the game by which they are now well-accustomed to. John is deadly, remarkably efficient in killing those coming for his family – his prior sins have ensured that he is in his element when with a gun in his hand.

Marston manages to send his wife and son away on a horse with tears in his eyes and, having said his goodbyes and surrounded by the army and the police with no chance of survival, realises the price of true redemption – not for himself, but for his family – before taking a deep breath and accepting his fate. But the real tragedy of this finale is that, when his death should have marked the end of the Marston family’s affiliation with its dark past, it is actually through his passing that the once-innocent Jack seeks his own revenge, now controlled by the player 3 years later in the game. Violence begets violence and the son follows in the father’s footsteps; exactly the sort of future John Marston had tried to protect Jack from.

The feeling of surprise and shock when playing as Jack deliberately merges the player’s experience with this new character: Who am I? What do I do now? Not only has the player lost all their invested emotional connection with John, but so has Jack. And it surely says something of the impact and tragedy of the story’s conclusion that, when assuming the role of the son, I immediately travelled across town to hunt down the policeman who ordered the execution – a bonus mission in the game – and going on a random rampage against the law looking for revenge instead of redemption, a pointless, empty lust for blood so commonly found in the genre which conflicted with and was completely contrary to the values John Marston had strived for and realised through his sacrifice. The Wild West was dying, and so too was that young Jack’s apparent incorruptibility.

For all its technical qualities in creating a believable world outside of the player’s influence and overlooking the flaws – namely the many unnecessary, superfluous supporting characters and, especially, the disappointing and drawn out missions towards the end involving Marston’s former gang leader - Red Dead impresses most in its subtle morality tale behind the familiar GTA-template, told through an excellently-realised and ultimately sad journey that lives up to the game’s tagline, ”Outlaws to the end”.

~

Red Dead Revolver (PS2/Xbox) review

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~

A trigger takes me back

to a precious moment I’ve kept dear

The mere thought of which elicits a tearful sadness

alongside a warm sense of comfort and safety

~

Revisiting a golden time and place from long ago

with a fresh wonder and joy for a world so new

That innocence and purity of my exposure to life has since been lost and replaced

by knowledge and language too descriptive, and needlessly complicated

~

I feel the pangs of mourning for a homesickness of my youth

accepting that it is impossible to appreciate the richness of existence again through such a cherished, simple perspective

-

What is that very first moment when you know you’re alive?

Is it the vision of your mother, seen through your

fresh and never before used eyes?

Perhaps your existence begins when your mind comprehends the soothing sounds of kind voices heralding your arrival into the world?

What is your very first memory?

And how early into infancy can you travel when a single object or mood

triggers a special childhood sensation, locked away from long ago but still

influential and ever-present in your life – governing who you are to

this very day?

It hits me only now that this image I’ve had of my mother, all this time

Has long been affectionately biased by the rosy tint of these youthful eyes

~

I am now at an age, corresponding closely to that time when she had me

Faced with a similar prospect of our lives changing ever irreversibly

~

I’ve known her only as my mum, an enriching role model for an only son

It makes me wonder how she was as a young woman and how we would have gotten on

~

Adulthood is thrust upon us so soon, often catching us unawares:

Not fully ready to undergo that morph into a generation of greying hair

~

The funny thing is that it was me who made her “mother” – a role she grew into perfectly

Almost as if we’ve educated each other in this life cycle of humanity

~

And through her constant love with all her wisdom gained and shared up until here

This next stage of existence an awakened latency, and one I needn’t fear

~

Business Booming For Rent-a-Friend Agencies

~

I am a best man, an old friend, even a husband

For those who need that special someone

I never judge their motives nor their reasons

I am happy to put on that predefined face

~

For friendship isn’t just a case of reciprocity

Neither is it a process of bartering

It’s a sense of security that you feel when it’s there

A loss all too revealing of oneself when not

~

Family then is a different thing altogether

A knowledge of a comfortable home and a formal awkwardness

Where things that need to be said often never are

A festering buildup of internal disciplined frustrations

~

It’s often too uncomfortable, isn’t it?

To have society and friends and family on your back

That’s why I offer you my shell

To shield you from the strain

~

So call me Bob or Jack or William

I’ll be whoever it is you need

My going rate is fairly reasonable, I think

Allowing you to focus on only who you want to be

What if it was just that one little thread

Which meant the difference between him going to her instead of me

What if it actually never happened

Existing only as another ‘what might have been’

~

What if I were to weave this thread in my tale

Diverting it into a vacant and adjacent stitch of fate

For me that’d be a far more refined resolution

Than the tears that run down when all is too late

~

Copyrighted image belongs to Sharon Smith (portfolio)

They say you should never judge a book by its cover; but what about those particularly obscure macho sporting DVDs usually found in the ‘Specialist’ section of a DVD store right next to the awkward softcore pornography section (rather ingenius target demographic product placement if I do say so myself) or deep down within the ‘Under $10′ Bargain Bins beneath never-ending piles of Steven Seagal’s latest works and other miscellaneous rubbish? Surely these DVDs are, unlike books, with their terrible covers perfectly summing up their equally terrible content, just begging to be judged? Well the moment I got my hands on a copy of this beauty at a friend’s house over the weekend, graciously saving me from the need to purchase it myself, I knew I had hit the jackpot as far as potential gold for a cynical review goes.

And before you ask, no, I did not watch it; does one even need to with a cover and title as good as this? Plaudits must go to the great choice of colour scheme, harking back to the years of old when Hypercolour t-shirts were ‘in’ with an outrageous splash of yellow-purple spectrum with all the colours in between masking what is, most probably, an eruption of blood and sweat gushing out of the head of the guy copping the punch. Note how the punch has been photoshopped in complete with speed lines just to further emphasise the impact on the best photo the designers could find matching the criteria of ‘a picture of some poor bastard with jelly lips and mouthguard about to fall out’ as a Google image search of that last line yields unsatisfactory results, otherwise.

As for the title itself, if you didn’t know this was about boxing one could easily imagine it being a compilation of amateur footage from an adults-only version of Funniest Home Videos lasting just under two hours (two hours!), but for it to be most definitely about boxing, and the naively rudimentary image I have in my mind of any boxer not seeing a punch coming in a sport based solely on punches and the strange satisfaction my brethren derive from wild hits to the head, well. It just makes me chuckle a bit on the inside, which is perhaps the appeal of boxing in the first place. Now onto the back cover:

Probably the best back cover out of any DVD I have ever seen:

Who needs 10 stars when you can have two rows of nine? I’m also pretty sure that a ‘full frame 4×3′ picture ratio translates roughly to ‘Eighties footage for old television sets before remote controls were around where you had to change channels and adjust the volume with dials, and if the picture was still fuzzy then a few hits to the top of it would make those wrongs right, boy’. Man, I miss those old TVs. It’s also nice that we are told next to the approximate running time that this DVD will, indeed, be shown in colour, and in addition I’m absolutely a hundred percent certain that ‘All Region NTSC’ is a complete contradiction in terms, but hey, let’s not get too pedantic here.

What also really gets me is the start of the second paragraph:

“To enhance the experience, you will get a slow-motion replay followed by multi-angle views and finally, experts will dissect the punch in detail”. In other words, the footage you are about to see is, veritably, a rehashed recording of the match when it was previously broadcast anyway.

Something that’s always amused me with boxing matches has been that, should your gaze ever wander from the carnage on show to focus on the crowd behind the fighters, right down low between the ring and the rope closest to it, you will see the audience’s heads and there will always, always, be someone laughing (and/or mouthing an F word). Behaviour that sums boxing up perfectly. Specifically, this guy:

And that is why Punches They Didn’t See Coming: 70 Classic KOs is the best DVD cover ever made. Actually, in talking it up throughout this review, I am now left with an overwhelming urge to watch it; all I need is an old school DVD-compatible wooden television set to maximise the enjoyment in glorious, full-colour 4×3.

Got any other bad DVD covers that need reviewing? Send them in!

Or the fear on people’s faces

It’s all about me returning

To my most natural and comfortable state

The rewards may be plenty

Allowing me to live that ‘normal’ life

And yet, on the contrary

The appeal is in the danger of losing it all

It’s the adrenalin that surges through me

Entirely organically and through mere circumstance

Not coaxed or tricked by a bungee jump or sky dive

Pumping through my veins as a simple matter of fact

My gun is pointed at no one

It is just an extension of me

For behind the balaclava you might see the eyes

Of somebody in bliss; alive at that moment

A candle doesn’t need to be lit

In order to be a candle

A candle doesn’t need to be of its original appearance either

So long as it can still be lit

Melted down into trails of dripping wax

Solid now and preserving a state of what once was

Warm or cold and in any shape or form, I will light you if you allow me

For You, my dear, are my candle

I am helpless to catch them all as my eyes search in a flurried desperation to recall my key moments in existence before they are all gone for good.

The things I used to love and the essence of myself leak out through opened veins where once they circulated, travelling round through a roadmap of my thoughts and always accommodatingly available to be pulled up into consciousness at any time of my choosing, but now no longer.

They all leave me, the faces of my past, the earliest of which I have long since forgotten along with those most recent whose names are still linked with the firmness of a handshake just past; they are all now faceless, anonymous – evicted from their adopted homes in my head where they were kept warm and always welcome regardless of my ability to ever identify them all via synthetic names and titles.

Separated too are the feelings I attached to these once detailed and multifaceted characters of one’s life story; not only are they now being erased in quick certainty of their very beings, but no longer do I either connect their avatars with even a hint of affection or disdain.

The mirrored shards shrink away until they are but specks in what was formerly the contents of my brain, now neutralised and reduced to but splatterings of bits and pieces of empty, useless, sponge.

The idea for this originated from a series of strange thoughts at 12.30am all about, and I acknowledge the oddity of this, what it would feel like when a bullet is about to enter your skull and suddenly you find that you’re in the midst of a cliché: your whole life flashing before your eyes. One would think that such a flashback would have to occur in quick haste before the brain is expunged from its rightful place: with smatterings of images and emotions being sent flying and tumbling out of one’s cranium in a million directions. However, ‘Lobotomy’ captures very much the same sentiments, really, and it sure sounds better than ‘Your life flashes before your eyes right before a bullet to the head’.

Aware that it was still too early to get up yet also too late to stay up, she laid in her bed hugging her spare, often unused third pillow not daring to check what time it was. Her thoughts swirled around and whether they had been influenced from her already-vanished dreams or not, currently revolved only around herself: her own being, and of the people closest to this fragmented conceptual image of herself.

Her father and her sister, standing there next to the bed staring at her in the blacked-out apartment, their faces young and how she remembered them from her childhood. The looks on these faces brought a sense of calm over Rose as her fingers clamped the edges of that third pillow, sending a serene tickle through her palms and an overwhelmingly palpable sense of sadness to her chest as she lay there on her side.

Rose’’s breathing pattern slowed down in speed and increased in intensity, taking in the fresh early morning breeze whistling gently in from the small opened gap of her sliding balcony door of winter-chilled glass. The smell of settled rain entered her nostrils as her attention switched to yet another familiar face from her past; a best friend from high school who had also come for a long-awaited visit.

Mary, whose name nor face had not occupied her consciousness for so many years joined her immediate family, the three of them now suddenly present and watching over her as she lingered in this mock state of sleep. Mary’s long and wavy shiny brown hair dangled neatly down to her shoulders, and it surprised Rose to recall such a vividly beautiful detail which had always somehow failed to grasp her attention as a teenager; only coming to prominence now long into the future.  Rose remembered the conversations they shared and the support they provided for one another, wondering how and why she never kept in touch after she had to leave [TOWN] upon graduating from [INSTITUTION].

Uncomfortable with these guests coming for this uninvited visit at such an unsociable hour, Rose turned her body away from them so that she was now lying on her back, pulling her hair out from underneath her neck in order to feel the coolness of her favourite, main pillow pressed against the bump on the back of her neck. She placed her hands gently on top of her stomach, but not before quickly pinching Theo’s waist gently just to check that he was till there on her right. Sure enough he was, back turned to her and snoring ever so slightly that it would have been hard for anyone else to have noticed, not even Mary, Dad, or her little sister, persisting in their presence within such close proximity.

Shifting herself again so that she was now lying on the opposite side of which she awoke, Rose wrapped her left arm around Theo’s midriff, sliding her right hand up to the back of his neck as if she were holding onto a double bass. She felt like kissing him on the base of his hairline but could not find the energy nor the right angle to do so, imagining that kiss instead and even pouting her lips in the act. Reassured by his presence and feeling safe from her ghosts in his company, she managed to quietly mouth out a small, incorrect whisper, “Evan,” completely unaware that this name stopped Theo’s snoring and coaxed his eyes open as her mental visitors left the room and returned outside through the thin balcony door opening into the darkness of her solemn past.

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