The direction of the popular Red Dead Redemption is confusing to me. The story concerns the reformed outlaw John Marston chasing down his former gang members, but the fun of the game is found in causing mischief and committing crimes. The world is full of towns, bars, saloons, and an assortment of urban settlements, but you can't even talk to people. You can sit down and play poker or horseshoes, but the people you play with are just NPCs. You can pull a gun on them, but they won't do the same to you. The game has taken great care to represent its time period with graphical finesse, but it's all for naught when the game descends into blasé third-person shooter conventions and countless bodies pile up.

The most fun I had in the game was hunting animals... probably because it is the least pretentious aspect of the game. Sloshing around in harsh terrain, tracking mountain lions, skinning them, and bringing them back to town on my horse to earn dollars to buy better guns with which to hunt larger game exhibited a novel simulation, and it wasn't tied to any melodrama, either. The sequel expounded on these activities greatly and, consequently, it felt more evocative of a time and place.



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