Red Dead Redemption: near perfection on a horse

It's also very in keeping with the overall flavour of the setting. Red Dead Revolver, RDR's unrelated prequel, was way too over the top - or, possibly, far too Golden Age in a cinematic sense - in its take on the Western genre. It was an act of clumsy shoe-horning, to be entirely honest, and the real skill in Rockstar's second effort comes from the decision to not so much cram a western in all its permutations into a game, but rather to make a game fit inside a western.

It's a subtle difference, but readily apparent when you look at all the mini-games and side-activities in RDR. While you go about your job of getting back at old Bill Williamson, you can gamble, hunt, break horses or even engage in the odd bit of herbalism on the side, and as much as we normally hate most seemingly pointless mini-games, these ones fit. Sure, we're only out west to take down a murderous bandit, but that doesn't mean we can't enjoy a drink at the bar, or try to win a few dollars with the odd game of Texas Hold 'em. In fitting with the genre, there's a different pace at work in RDR.

Big game hunting
Put simply, everything that seemed honed to open world perfection in Grand Theft Auto IV now seems clumsy by comparison - certain fans will even claim that GTA is a mere prologue compared to Red Dead. And it's hard to argue otherwise.

Combat - which is probably what you'll spend more time doing than anything else in the game - is perfectly paced. There's an auto-aim feature ,which you can turn off if you want, but it only works if you're already aiming close to your target. This auto-aim is so good, so satisfying in its execution that you won't want to turn it off. We don't get it either - it's almost exactly the kind of thing we hated about Splinter Cell Conviction, but it just seems a lot more natural in RDR.

For increased accuracy under pressure, there's also the Dead Eye feature, effectively a Wild West bullet time function that lets you mark targets and blow them away as you fan the action on your revolver - and, again, you'd think we'd hate it, but it too fits. But it's also not nearly as overplayed as it could be. In fact, it's easy to forget it's there at all, as most times quick thinking and good use of cover will see you through any fight.

But for those moments where you know you're going to be vastly outnumbered, or when a low-life has his gun to some poor woman's head, it's a literal life-saver.

The weapon selection is great - all the standard movie-western classics that were still kicking around the actual west in the period are in the game, but in addition there are semi-automatic pistols, high-calibre scoped rifles, pump-action shotguns and more. And there's dynamite, too, which just never gets old.

You can resort to knifeplay if you really want, and some achievements are heavily based on this. You can even use a lasso to incapacitate your opponents, as well as to capture and break wild horses. Many games have tried to simulate this inherently complex action, but we've never seen any do as good as job as RDR. Roping a horse or fleeing gunman from horseback is not only satisfying, but really well depicted in the game's engine.

But then again, you could say that everything's well depicted in the game's engine.

Perhaps the one feature that RDR really needed to nail, however, was mounted play - many games have tried to really make it believable, and few games succeed. Now, however, RDR has truly raised the bar (and leapt over it). The horses look and move great, and Rockstar's taken the tap-to-run mechanic of GTA and made it a real gameplay element - to maintain optimum speed you need to spur your horse. Spur too much, and your horse loses stamina, and patience with you. Cock it up and you'll get thrown, but get it right and the sense of speed as you gallop across the plains is a truly unique experience.