The Old West made new again.

I rarely buy games until I’ve heard plenty of good buzz about them (namely from Chris Pranger). Not only did I buy Red Dead Redemption blindly, I picked it up on opening day. The word “juggernaut” is appropriate, as apparently 550,000 other folks put their cash down that same day. But this game has a high level of detractors; the first game in the series was mediocre, the mechanics of this one look a lot like Grand Theft Auto IV, and certainly nothing could drag game fanatics away from Modern Warfare 2, right?

You guessed wrong, friend. This here is a dandy game, and I’ll bet my spurs that 9 out of 10 adult gamers would agree.

Story- 9 out of 10

I must separate my standards for a good plot and good characters. There’s a mighty big difference between a fantastic plot (period) and a fantastic plot for a game. Red Dead Redemption’s plot and characters are quite garden variety for any Western adventure, and essentially it boils down to this: badass goes looking for jerk-wads, finds lots of odd jobs along the way.

Sounds like the usual Rockstar sandbox game, correct? Well, yeah. It pretty much is. But the praise I have for this game is less about the events depicted…and more about the mind-blowing story structure. Usually in a game, you start with easy jobs, learning the controls and features through ham-fisted tutorials (some annoying sidekick character can always be found screeching irate advice at you). Then you get the usual, medium-difficulty stuff that makes up the bulk of the game. Then you get the big, multi-tiered battle royale finale that sees you mowing down an impossible amount of baddies, expertly wielding the controls and collecting every item available.

And hey look at that, you have gun duels. Good on ya for that.

Red Dead Redemption tells this structure to go hang itself. I won’t ruin anything, but I’ll say this: You feel like a Western hero immediately, and there isn’t really a “work-your-way-up” structure. This is absolute gold for the experienced gamer, who is undoubtedly sick of being told what to do by some pixilated yahoo. Oh, and the last act of the game is genius storytelling, but DO NOT LET ANYONE RUIN IT FOR YOU.

The characters are pretty paper-thin Western tripe, including John Marston, who you play as. Marston is an ex-outlaw who wants a peaceful farming life with his family, but first he has to tie up some loose ends from his sordid past. Sound familiar? Along the way, he meets the quintessential strong female rancher, the maniac treasure hunters, drunken thieves, and burnt-out old heroes with no one left to save. They have plenty of good stories and quips to share, but we’ve heard most of it before.

The dialogue is predictable throughout most of the game, but it never gets cartoonish with the Old West vibe. You may tire of Marston calling everyone (including dead animals) “friend” or “mister.” The real gold in writing comes from reactions. Many times during play, I growled something at the screen, annoyed by my rotten luck. Then, Marston agreed with me by grunting, “To hell with this.” When Marston gets double-crossed (a frequent occurrence), he reacts the same way that the frustrated gamer would: He’s incredibly cheesed off, and ready to shoot something. Such double-crosses and traps are so painfully predictable that they belong on the Schrodinger’s Cat list of video game moments. Also, when Marston discovers something horrifying out on the lone prairie, he becomes unnerved, and a little suspicious of his surroundings. You do feel for this protagonist more than most video game characters, because he (like you) hates certain characters and likes others.

Gameplay- 9 out of 10

Here’s some hyperbole for you: in this game, you can do anything. Play the main storyline missions, those are engaging. But do everything and anything else; you can help strangers with their small tasks, attack gang hideouts singlehandedly, break wild horses, go hunting for any species, and gamble on card/dice/knife games. You can even herd cattle or hunt bounties. The possibilities seem endless.

While the options are stunning and fun, there are mechanical problems with some things. For instance, the cover system during gunfights is a little jumpy. One wrong twitch of the left stick and you get stuck (with your head exposed, for added frustration). On top of that, the horse controls are slightly inconsistent or hard to control, depending on the class of horse.

But hey, horses are tough to control in the real world, too, so consider that.

As far as the minigames, some are beyond addictive. If there was a portable version of the poker minigame, I’d buy it for thirty bucks…especially after finding the Elegant Suit, which allows you to cheat (don’t worry, boyscouts, I’m pretty sure those lily-livered punks are cheating too). Liar’s Dice is fun and easy, horseshoes takes some getting used to, and arm-wrestling is flawed. The game tells you to pay attention to your opponent’s face to see when you should strike. This is useless. The real frustration comes with Five Finger Fillet. Anyone who has seen the movie “Aliens” knows this one. You stab a combat knife in between your fingers to a specified pattern, like a bloody DDR between greasy cowboys.

A real delight for me comes with collectables. I squealed like a little girl every time I got a new, cool outfit like the Mexican Poncho, Brown Leather Duster Coat, or the U.S. Army Uniform. Collecting animal pelts, exotic flowers, and buried treasure is enough for a full-length game in itself.

Graphics/Sound- 10 out of 10

The landscape is jaw-dropping. I’ve never seen anything so beautiful in a game. An HDTV really makes a difference. The characters are about on-par with any other modern game in terms of voice-acting and modeling. So far, there have been many visual bugs in Red Dead, including ghosting of character models in cut-scenes. Boy, it does ruin the mood when a character is implored to escape on horseback (and they obey) and at the same time they stand in the background repeating a minute movement.

A beautiful, if gruesome touch, is that you can shoot animals and people, and they fall in logical, anatomically correct ways. Then they crawl or limp away. This is the fabled Euphoria engine that was created for Star Wars: The Force Unleashed, but here it actually makes a difference.

Just take it all in for a moment or two. Then get back to outlawin'.

As for sound effects, every firearm discharge sounded powerful and accurate, which was welcome. The animals each make different noises, most of which are appropriate for the species (some exceptions do apply here). Nothing is more unnerving than a long gunfight, followed by the tell-tale hiss of a hidden rattlesnake. The sound is a huge aspect of the game, and without a good ear for danger, you’re a dead man.

Some Frequently Muttered Judgments

Is it Grand Theft Auto in the Old West? Meh, not exactly. That’s an over-simplified view of this game. It borrows from GTA IV heavily, including the Havoc engine’s brand of third-person shooting. While I had trouble with GTA IV’s aiming system, Rockstar found a decent fix with Dead Eye. The cover system from GTA IV was very underdeveloped, and unfortunately the same problems found their way to RDR. And as far as the choices you can make as the protagonist, in both games it seems like a moot feature, as your choices do not affect much.

The great step forward from GTA IV is that RDR demonstrates a truly unforgiving landscape that you can play in. GTA IV, despite being so alive with activity, seems claustrophobic and unnaturally safe for a crime-rampant city of psychos. The renderings of the American Southwest and Mexican border towns in RDR contain hundreds of characters and thousands of animals, and they don’t value your life. You do have to rely on your wits and your tools to survive some encounters, but like any frontiersman, you learn from your pitfalls.

Conclusion

All in all, I had so much fun with this game, and it goes down as my favorite of the year so far. I give it 9.5 out of 10, because it isn’t perfect but it is raising the bar. It is rated M for Mature, so don’t buy this for kids. Buy it for yourself. Instead of following me on Twitter, find me on Xbox Live in a Free Roam session. Gamertag: KR Martinak. I’ll be the idiot riding a donkey, asking politely that you not kill me.

No seriously, you've seen this game before.

I called it. I’d only played the demo for Dante’s Inferno but that was all I needed to figure this one out entirely. Now that it’s been out for a week or so, let’s take a look at Dante’s Inferno as it plays as a game, though I could probably just tell you to go play God of War and get the desired effect. Whoops. Let’s start.

Creating New Games Must Be Hard

As I’ve already pointed out, Dante’s Inferno is absolutely a God of War rip-off. There’s no denying it, even if you want to. The games both have main characters seemingly tricked by dark forces and require you to battle your way through hordes of enemies with hack-and-slash controls and Quick Time Events, ultimately leading to a resolution that entails fighting a god or Satan or whatever.

So for this game, Dante, based off the classic Italian poet of the same name but not of the same anything else, must storm all nine circles of Hell to reclaim his love Beatrice, taken from him by Lucifer for some reason or another. It’s all supposed to be based off of Dante’s Inferno from The Divine Comedy, but we know better, don’t we?

You deserve every ounce of punishment you receive, Dante.

The game does play smoothly enough to be played, and it has a heck of a lot to look at much of the time. The first third of the game throws some truly messed up enemies at you that relate to their respective levels, such as Gluttony or Lust. Problem is, after that these enemies begin showing up again and again in circles other than the ones they make sense in. Right there is where Visceral Games loses its credibility when they say, “We used the poem exactly for inspiration.” No, you got lazy.

What makes this all worse is that the final third of the game consistently throws you into battle after battle on a platform without any real innovation or anything new. You just fight enemy after enemy for the finale stages of the game. That’s not good game design; that’s once again a sign of laziness. And of course the ending leaves itself open for a sequel. Looks like this is going to be a whole franchise if it sells well enough. So let’s try not to let it sell well, okay?

I just can’t get past the game’s two defining characteristics: It’s resemblance to God of War, and it’s use of a classical poem as a backdrop. I realize making games can be tough, and thinking up an original concept is even tougher, but just taking two already successful things with nearly no relation and deciding, “Yes, this is what our next game shall be,” well that just doesn’t work for me.

Maybe you’ll really like Dante’s Inferno, though. It’s not a terrible game. It’s just a game that’s two elements have been done before and done a lot better. Either go play God of War or read The Divine Comedy. Rent this one if you absolutely can’t resist.

Oh yeah, forget those video games because things just got awesome.

I’ve been hung up on video games a lot lately, and I apologize for that. There’s just been an abundance of games getting released in such a short time frame. Plus, it sounds as if half the US has been snowed in for a while. To make up for all this sitting around in front of the TV, I think it’s time to take a look at the complete opposite here and talk about getting those kids outside and on something that moves. No, not a car, not even a bike, but one of these handy active outdoor toys. Grab your helmets and kneepads and let’s talk about some popular ride-on toys.

So first off, the products I’m about to bring up are entirely safe for your child, but there will no doubt be numerous scrapes and bruises caused by using said products. Don’t worry! This is actually a good thing! Why, when I was a child, I’d injure myself on a regular basis. You ask any parent and they’ll tell you they nearly destroyed themselves as a child with the amount of outside activity they participated in, but would they change it? Of course not. Like I said, remember the helmet and you should be fine.

Some Toys Never Go Out of Style

Some of you might remember the big Razor Scooter craze that set in a few years back. Did you know that Razor Scooters are still one of the highest selling ride-on toys at this moment? It makes sense, too, as the lightweight scooters are only around $50 and provide simple entertainment for the energetic kid. I had one a few years back and found it to be pretty snazzy, despite my lack of skillz. It is a great way to get exercise and encourages families to go to parks and wander around for a bit.

Expect your kid to build at least one ramp after getting a Razor Scooter.

You want to know another ride-on toy I’m happy is still selling well? Radio Flyers. Heck yes. Also known as a little red wagon, the Radio Flyer brand is just built to withstand the test of time. Every kid worth his snuff needs a Radio Flyer at some point for either transporting mischief or racing down steep inclines towards doom and more scrapes. And that’s the way we liked it! A no-hassle Radio Flyer can price just under $80 if you know where to look.

For the more advanced kids out there, the option of the magnificent pogo stick is readily available to increase the chance of phenomenal wipeouts. Pogo sticks can cost anywhere from $30 to $150, but as long as it pogos you’re in for fun/frustration. The only thing deadlier on a frustration level is a paddleball toy.

If you can figure this thing out, congrats, you've surpassed me as a true kid.

I don’t particularly care what you’re riding as long as it’s outside away from TV’s and such. Oh, and no cheating kids! The iPod counts as a TV if you have videos on it, so no using those either! Time for fresh air and scrapped knees. If I don’t see more scraped knees by the end of the week, I’m going to be disappointed in each and every one of you.

The best way to funnel this natural creative drive is to provide toys that allow them to let loose and learn new skills at the same time.  Creativity, ironically enough, is at its best when bounded by strong rules.

To start with, consider art toys for channeling that creative streak (without streaking the walls in the process).

Let’s start with art toys, since most people associate creativity with drawing and painting.  Drawing is a natural inclination for children and one of their favorite activities.  So make it easy for them by providing your little artists with toys like magnetic drawing boards and Etch-a-Sketches.  These are no mess solutions that are certain to be a hit.  They are also perfect for traveling.

In the middle of the mess-spectrum are washable markers and crayons.  These are good for household activities but require more adult supervision.  Lastly, there are the ever-popular but incredibly messy finger painting kits.  The joy that children get out of finger painting is definitely worth the havoc.  The trick is to prepare by laying down newpapers (several layers) over the tables or floor.  Smocks don’t hurt either, especially if you don’t have a lot of throw-away clothes.

Keeping it under control is the goal with all art toys, but that doesn’t mean that your kids can’t color outside the lines.  Next time let’s consider other kinds of toys that help kids express their creativity.  After all, art is not the only way to be creative.