~

* 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

~

RPGs tend to always intimidate me before I start one: upon estimating the hours I’m going to need to commit towards understanding the equipment system, not to mention navigating all those menus and grasping the fictional history as well as figuring out the combat tactics, it worries me ever so greatly and yet, strangely, I am never sufficiently put off enough to avoid the genre altogether. The worry stems from a selfishness: a concern borne out of a fear of what will happen to me if I actually like the game. Or rather more specifically, what will happen to me if I actually, sincerely, love the game.

Despite all the great reviews DA:O has received, that wariness still existed in the back corners of my mind, particularly after my last attempt at an RPG – the ever-frustrating Lost Odyssey -  ended with me angrily cursing, switching off and trading the game in after having to put up with one too many twenty-minute-long ‘random encounters’ despite my best efforts to excuse them. The short story ‘Dream’ segments unlocked in the game were amazing and beautifully written, but they were way too few and far between amidst such an archaic turn-based RPG gameplay system filled with uninteresting, lacklustre characters and a completely forgettable plot seemingly incongruent to those bonuses.

Dragon Age Origins, on the other hand, was developed by Bioware, responsible for completely captivating me with Mass Effect and many others prior with the Baldur’s Gate series and that ever-mentioned beloved acronym, KOTOR, and I really should have seen the impact of DA:O coming from a mile away given the developer’s reputation as I picked the game up more out of curiosity than anticipation: an epic story, well-written and realised characters, and most impressively, an entire backstory of Tolkien proportions. So amazing in fact that it’s produced yet another variation of that RPG fear of mine: a simple question of whether I will have the time to play through as all the different races to fully experience all the variation in the titular ‘origin stories’ this game has to offer, not to mention going through all the DLC… and then there’s still that Mass Effect 2 second playthrough I’ve been meaning to get through continuing to tease and tempt me in the background.

I adore a great story and the experience of a quality game. I love being transported into that fictional world, becoming as one with my on-screen character. I get disappointed when game stories are terrible, akin to awful Hollywood movies all about explosions and visuals without even a hint of a soul in sight. A soul, you ask? In a game? Perhaps I do have unrealistically high expectations of video games and am often left pondering their true power as a medium, but then something like DA:O shows up with not only a soul, but also a heart in the form of its characters and an entire in-game history to be studied.

And I mean studied, too. Given the number of codex entries in the game, even dwarfing that of Mass Effect, I couldn’t help but realise that this was the digital equivalent of Tolkien’s Silmarillion. Indeed, the main story and Darkspawn enemies are reminiscent of Lord of the Rings, but it’s how all those individual story elements and themes are brought together for Dragon Age – the races, the mythology, the history; the way it all collides and the conflict caused as a result – which has really touched me. Every single aspect of the game comes with its own explanation and backstory where discussions on racism and discrimination (both across as well as within races), religion, and class are all presented from both sides of the coin and presented in the form of difficult decisions accompanied with much moral conflict, with it being up left solely up to the player which path they wish to choose. As a result not only has my faith in quality RPGs been restored, so too has my belief that the medium can continue to achieve an unmatched form of emotional power.

The relationships you form with your recruited allies is incredible thanks to excellent voice acting, with the conversations and interaction between all the 3-plus-yourself combinations of party members a particular standout. Taking a break in-between quests at your party camp not only offers a reprieve from the often-difficult but rewarding combat itself but also serves as the perfect opportunity to get to know the characters in the game. Even non-playable characters possess charm and presence, my particular favourites being Wade the armourer and his impatient shop-assistant in Denerim. There is a deep sense of attachment in DA:O which improves on what was offered in Mass Effect 1, but is sadly missing in Mass Effect 2 as the latter game favoured action setpieces ahead of the original’s purer RPG character development elements. Not to say that ME2 is lacking story and character-wise, but playing it after DA:O I do feel as if ME2’s characters and their motivations weren’t as well-defined or expanded upon as they could have been.

Dragon Age Origins is the kind of game where pictures, or in this case screenshots, cannot do justice to the content on offer. The impact it’s had on me is really something I didn’t expect, and never have I felt so touched in a video game as during the Urn of Sacred Ashes quest when the Guardian revealed the very essences of my character and those of my party, in particular, Leliana. An Orlesian bard who had placed her complete faith in the Chantry – i.e. a female songstress who had given up a shadowy past to become a devout believer of the Maker, the game’s representation of the Judaeo-Christian God and its delivery through Catholicism – and being told that her faith was misguided, deluded and selfish, was an incredibly powerful and almost soul-destroying moment. It was also the instant when I understood how deep this game really was.

Similarly with the game’s choices, never before have I come across a title which has really nailed the idea of consequence and regret. Fallout 3 almost did it to me when Dogmeat died and I felt compelled to load up my last save game and lose several hours of play just so he could live again, and also when Jericho was finished off after we were ambushed in the Wasteland by multiple albino radscorpions, but ultimately it was too personal and individual a game in that everything I did essentially only affected myself and my own feelings and style of play. Mass Effect 2’s imported files from the first game offered little more than brief cameos of the outcomes of my actions in the first game as the sequel focused mainly on the new story. In both cases there was no tangible sense of dwelling on and acknowledging that a mistake had been made if or when the repercussions came back to haunt me.

By the end of my first playthrough as a ‘good’ character I had become so attached to my party members that all of my choices were based entirely on a sense of responsibility which had slowly evolved over the course of the game, whereas the second time round in being a ‘bad’ character my poor and inconsiderate decisions led to Leliana and Alistair leaving in disgust, several others rebelling, and me greatly regretting the course of my actions. To compare it to Mass Effect, these harsh consequences were no doubt inspired by the confrontation with Wrex in ME1, but even considering the finale of ME2 where the lives of your crew were at stake, there was never that fear throughout the game that you could hurt or offend someone so irreversibly that they would hold a grudge against you for good. In other words, being responsible for lives being lost is one thing. Being responsible for betraying someone you had become attached to while they still lived is quite another.

For a game to make me believe in the fantasy and to then make me feel something from it is a rarity. My choices were hardly ever beneficial for everyone concerned, and there were many occasions where I wish I had said or done things differently because of the consequences that followed. That fear of playing an intimidatingly large RPG has translated into a fear of hurting a character’s feelings, and it is a credit to the game that multiple playthroughs as different races produces a different experience as, for instance, background characters encountered in previously end up being your close friends the next time you encounter them, completely changing the context of your actions. To be drawn to the story and the characters so much that choice becomes an emotional effort rather than a curious novelty of the game is Dragon Age Origins’ greatest strength, leaving me with yet another important decision: determining when next to dedicate the time to play through it again, just to see what other outcomes and ramifications are on offer.

Selfish housemates getting on your nerves? Time to move out?

Well ahoy there!! I, Landlord Lucantile of Alexandria Arms, am extremely pleased to offer you – YES YOU! – the investment property opportunity of a lifetime!

An absolutely stunning three storey complex. Of course, only one of those floors is operable and there isn’t much of a ceiling, but hell, THREE STOREYS!!

Situated in a pleasantly quiet spot next to the motorway, this home offers shrubbery and plenty of parking space but, MY WORD! It’s the fully furnished interiors that’ll really get your mouth watering:

A classic antiquated and mint-condition rug in the bedroom, along with smoking area

And who has time for wardrobes, seriously!? I, Landlord Lucantile, am also willing to part with all my own garments and hat collection for your comfort; to make this offer sound just that little bit more enticing!

“Pfft!! Why would I want to wear your blood-stained clothes anyway, you fool?!” I hear you exclaim pessimistically. Well then, how could you possibly say no to my collection of Nuka Cola Quantums? Similarly friend, how could you even humanly – you’ll like this one – bear the thought of rejecting the beautiful prospect of your very own Rumpus Room filled with – yes! – teddy bears and beverages?

Not to mention my library of bedtime reading materials and, the true gem of this offer overlooking the magnificent cityscape: the Weapons Cache (plus pitching machine)

Okay I know what you’re thinking: “With all those goodies in there, what about the raiders then?” I’ll be straight with you and confess that, yes, the place has had a single incident of burglary in the past, what with, in hindsight, the previous complacency in security measures.

You’ll doubtless be pleased to hear that the culprit was apprehended.

And that a new, cutting-edge system of home protection has since been installed!

An ingenius, custom-made Home Anti-Burglar System governed by Owner Recognition Software (made up of no less than 531 sensor modules – FACT) which makes entering these fine premises absolutely, perfectly safe, as I shall demonstrate for you now.

Similarly, the Weapons Cache has also received a complete security overhaul.

And if none of those above methods prove successful, then this piece of artwork on the way up the ground level stairs is bound to put off any would-be home invaders.

So there you have it, friend – and I, Landlord Lucantile, will proclaim it happily to the Wasteland: “It’s the deal of a lifetime!!!”

* Landlord Lucantile is open to offers this coming Saturday from sunrise to sundown, with the property expected to be sold for offers of 750 thousand bottle caps and above, or 100 slaves and over. We ask that you do not bring weapons, however if you choose to do so then please DO NOT fire them around the Weapons Cache. Or at Landlord Lucantile. The safety of all applicants on their way to and within the home is not guaranteed by Lucantile Properties, and Lucantile Properties will not be held culpable for any injuries or crippled limbs visitors may incur during inspections of the residence. Should you wish to purchase the property, Lucantile Properties is not responsible for any retaliation you may receive from Wasteland Regulators.

… when such an historic, worldly significant day like this

…just makes you think, immediately, of this…