Red Dead Redemption stars outlaw turned government agent John Marston. The Clint Eastwood-like spaghetti western plot revolves around Mr. Marston trying to live a quiet farm life with his wife and child. "The Agency", a new government force, then forces him to hunt down his old bandit chums. Despite the generic story, it is absolutely everything you would want in a good western and it works very well.
After only spending three hours with this game, so far, I can easily tell you Red Dead Redemption is a very successful sandbox game. It does what every good sandbox game should do. That is create an awesome, believable and vivid environment with plenty of things to do, people to meet, and places to see. I've barely played the main story because so far I have not needed to. While a good story is very important to a lot of games, it is generally secondary in a good sandbox game. I'll come back to this later though.
On top of that, one of the other things you'll notice about Red Dead Redemption is the incredible graphics. Easily rivaling anything that has been currently released. The proprietary engine Rockstar has refined looks beautiful and works well. In my play through, so far, I have noticed no frame rate loss nor any graphical hiccups. From the moment the intro starts and the wonderful bloom effects come up on screen, the visuals will suck you in.
Equally as impressive as the graphics is the audio. From the cliché, but appropriate, steel guitar and harmonica soundtrack to the spectacular voice acting. The audio in Red Dead Redemption pairs very well to these incredible graphics.
As I mentioned before, I haven't spent much time playing through the main story missions because I haven't had much desire to as of yet. Of course you have to start with the obligatory tutorial missions, but after that I've had as much, if not more, fun tearing across the prairie on horseback, picking flowers (every game should have an awesome flower picking mechanic), hunting game, playing poker, throwing horse shoes and meeting the denizens of the early 20th century Texas.
RDR is really a perfect storm of successful sandbox elements. A cohesive environment that is stylized, consistent, and interesting makes for hours and hours of fun. Throw in a lot of varied elements (like the herb gathering, hunting, etc) and people and you have an immersive sandbox to play around in. The most critical element to this success is building the story around the environment, and not the environment around the story. The world must feel like you are one small part of it, not the center of the universe.
Throwing a sandbox environment into a game is becoming way too common these days though. Why go through all the cost and effort to slap together and open environment you may ask? The answer is simple, because developers and publishers are afraid of linear gameplay. Look on the back of the box (if you didn't download the game from a digital distribution source) of the last five games you bought. I am pretty sure at least three or four of them will tout freedom, choice, non-linear gameplay, or open world as key features of the game. From Mass Effect and the sequel (two of my favorite games mind you), "...and embark on an epic adventure in an immersive, open-ended storyline." It works sometimes. A lot of times choice in a game can ruin it (or at least hold it back).
I like to use the example of Brutal Legend. Here is a high concept game that left me, upon completion, thinking about what this game could have been rather then what it was. It had a sandbox world that was unique, but with nothing to do other than boring scavenger hunts. There were not that many unique puzzles or people to meet. It also held back what should have been a story focused, linear game. I finished the story of Brutal Legend and was about 87% towards completion in under eight hours. That's really pathetic compared to sandbox greats (read GTA) that can take 40+ hours to get to that mark. I think to myself, "Would a game be better if instead of spending a lot of time crafting a unique and small world to play around in they spent more time and money on the story and polish to what is a very basic and unrefined gameplay." In Brutal Legend they built the world to house the story and not the other way around and it cost them a much better game.
Getting back to my point, RDR is successful because it is a very believable world that really feels like it shapes your character and the story. Plus it is fun to take out the frustrations of a losing poker hand six ways, if you catch my drift. All in all a must buy.
