Red Dead Redemption

Hands on with Rockstar's open world western epic. PLUS: New gallery of screenshots!

We recently got a chance to sit down and actually play some Red Dead Redemption.

We've seen a lot of gameplay before now, but always with someone else at the helm, so it was with great pleasure we rocked up to Rockstar's Sydney offices and eagerly took up the controller to get some saddle time of our own.

Our mission starts simply, in a cut scene. John Marston - your character - is talking to a local sherriff, and ends up offering to help the man take a criminal into custody. It's obvious this is just one part of getting the local law on John's side, and it also shows off the excellent voice work in the game. Rockstar's always had a talent for going all the way with great voice acting, but RDR is already looking set to make even GTA IV look like a bunch of mumbling primary school players - it's that good.

After a small chat, off the two of you saunter, walking up the town's main street to see what the villains are up to. It's apparently possible to approach quietly - not for us though. We blame the fact that we ran out into the street on the fact we were still getting used to the controls. Having spotting a seemingly spastic man with a gun flopping about the street, our target mounted up and took off for the hills - it was up to us to pursue.

A lot of recent games have made claims of the best ever mounted movement, but RDR's putting all those to shame. You need to whip your horse into motion, and maintain that to keep up speed - though you can also lock onto a friendly target to follow them, which makes missions like this much easier.

So off we gallop through the scrub, until we come upon the bushwhacker's hideout - a shack sitting on a hilltop. At last, we get to draw down and throw some lead!

The combat feels more fluid than any Rockstar game before. Moving from cover to cover, targeting, and weapon selection all feels much smoother - which is good, for a game that focuses on gunfights a lot more than GTA ever did. The character animations stand out, too, and the death throes of those unfortunate enough to come under your sights have been tweaked to be much heavier now - shoot a man dead, and he drops like a stone, rather than flopping about in an over the top rag-doll fashion.

The guns feel the part as well, from the handy six shooter to more accurate rifles, with excellent gunshot sounds.