Yes RDR would be spectacular as HD remaster. Truely underatted, stunning game...
Just for you Haze... Grab a coffe, here was my review of it. ( one of the first reviews i did )
Intro
In the dark days of PSN outage, what better remedy that to strap on your six shooter and go out into the wild yonder of Red Dead Redemption.
Story
In RDR you play as ex gang member John Marston, blackmailed by the government to bring to justice his old gang members who left John for dead, so that John can go back to his wife and son.
Along the way a good cast of characters help or indeed hinder John to find his quarry, in this epic story.
I really enjoyed the story for RDR. It has a good narrative, script, acting and a lot of characters. Once again it shows that a bit of effort put into the story by the developers will turn a good game into a classic game and RDR delivers.
Without wanting to give any of the plot away, i felt the story was padded out a little too much in act 2, so much so even your character Joh Marston, said quote " Ahhh when is this gonna end? " and even he started to get annoyed with the people on screen that he wasn't getting any closer to his goal just as you the gamer weren't too.
With some wonderfully tense cut scenes, and some with humour and wonder in how the story will end, RDR's story will keep you playing for many hours in one sitting.
Graphics
There is no 2 ways about it, this game is stunning to look at. Sharp detail in textures, lighting, effects, and a panoramic scenery, it's beautiful to behold. You can quite easily be distracted from doing what your supposed to, by doing nothing more than finding the nearest vantage point and just having a look at the view... it's THAT good.
Up close things are equally as detailed, except for the average character model's in the cut scenes. Even so, the facial expressions are captured and annimated extremely well.
There was a fair amount of texture popping, and as i've got a lot to mention in gameplay, i'll mention here in the graphics there were occasions of appalling frame rate issues. These happened especially when approaching large built up towns, but thankfully not in the gun fights in the main gameplay. It's hardly suprizing to have to suffer this slight inconveince considering the vast gameplay area, and no loading times, but in some cases the graphics especially the frame rate suffers for it.
That aside, character animations of not just the protagonists, but of the animals and the physics of both are animated extremely well.
I think the highlight for me was one mission, riding across the Mexican countryside, in the middle of the night, in the middle of a thunderstorm. The effects were incredible!
Audio
The audio does a fantastic job of setting the scene with it's true spagetti western music score at every turn, you can just imagine Clint Eastwood will appear at any moment, complete with cigarillo and poncho. The voice acting is delivered to a high standard arcoss each and every character ( even though some characters were highly annoying ) which adds to the gavitas and weight and depth to the already engrossing plot line.
The envoirnmental effect's in the game are captured for the highest quality of realismn. The distant howl of a lonesome wolf, the echo's of gun shots, the rumble and tinkle of a speeding wagon train with the horses snorting in protest at the effort, the thunderous boom of a double barrelled shotgun in a cave, or the thunder of hoofs as a posse chase down their target.... it's all here to the point you think you can even smell the sweat of the horse your riding... ( nope that was me in the end LOL )
Gameplay
This is going to be extremely hard to keep short. There is an INCREDIBLE amount of variety of gameplay to be had in the story missions of this game let alone other activities. I don't really want to list out what you do, as no doubt i'll leave something that was exciting and thrilling out. In short, you can do pretty much what you'd be able to do if you were actually there.
What i will list out as much as i can remember, is what you can do outside the story missions.
Playing parlour games like Poker, Blackjack, Horseshoes, arm wrestling and five finger fillet. You can go hunting, collect flowers, complete side missions for strangers, watch films, do jobs like night partols, horse breaking, or if you want, just general ****ing around!
The story missions alone have a suprizing depth of variety i could spend the whole review writing about trying to remember what i did different. All i will say is that in 20 hours of gameplay, pretty much just sticking to the story missions, there were very few times any mission felt exactly the same as the last or to what i had done previously. There were a few repeat things, but in the main every mission was slightly different to the rest. Plus these missions will have you doing more than just shooting, and even the shooting ones are in a huge variety of locations.
What's quite amazing is the mechanics to do all this variety of things in and out of the story are all handled well. For example the poker playing is as good and as well done as the PSN game Vegas poker.
What you will do most though is shooting, and again the mechanics for this are great. My only gripe is the lack of a quick change, ie when i was out of bullets on my main rifle, i couldn't quickly change to a sidearm, i'd have to wait to reload my rifle or try to qucikly bring up the gun radial to choose my weapon. This was especially annoying when in some instances your trying to capture someone alive, but have to shoot them to bring them down and then lasso them. Quite often by the time i'd made the shot to wound, brought the laso up, they would be on a horse riding off or already back on their feet shooting at me again! But as a 3rd person, cover comabt system, and enemy AI goes, this again is top notch.
The way the game progresses is up to you as each area your in has characters in different locations to prgress the story. Which order you go to these locations is up to you, but you only move on to the next area of the map, when all the story threads in the area your in are complete.
You can also replay each misson again and each mission is timed so you can if you want challenge yourself to do the missions quicker and quicker.
There is also the option via the in game Social Network link to have challenges downloaded to your game via the ROCKSTAR server, to keep giving you different things to do in the SP game for free.
With an open sandbox game, there is also a lot of travelling, but thankfully, there was only 1 or 2 occasions of a mission leading you all the way to one side of the map, for you to have to go all the way back. There are quick ways to get from a to b but they cost you your hard earned dollars.
Conclusion
It's quite easy to see why RDR won awards and was in the running for game of the year 2010. Engrossing story, excellent gameplay, graphics and audio. I was dissapointed with the technical issues, especially the frame rate issue, and the slightly awkward weapon dial with no quick change available. Other games look just as stunning and detailed, like Just Cause 2, and don't suffer from this frame rate problem, but RDR makes up for this in spades with the variety of what you can do and a story with gavitas, if a little padded out too much.
Whether you think it is padded out or not you'll certainly get your monies worth.
So at the end of the day RDR does what it says on the tin. It doesn't just play as another 3rd person shooter with missions to just kill kill kill, it immerses you and assaults the senses on every level so that you feel like your living the life of a cowboy in those times via your TV screen, and it gives you many reasons to come back for more. Quite frankly i felt like i whizzed through the 20 hours of the story missions which is a testament to the game.
It's pure quality escapismn to another world at it's finest!
Rating 9/10
Frame rate issues happened far too often and started to distract, and a slightly drifting story in the middle section slowed things down a little. Rating would have been lower but the stunning variety of gameplay in and out of the story missons bring this back up as a must play game.
