Red Dead Redemption

While open-world games are usually poison for backlogging purposes, I've found that a game that doesn't require you to do anything but the main campaign to progress can be pretty fun if you just breeze from one mission to the next, not stopping to smell the roses. It's what I did with L.A. Noire, and it's what I just did now with Red Dead Redemption. This was not a hard game, and thus the lengthy 57 mission campaign managed to be completed in just a few days. As expected, it's basically Grand Theft Auto meets the Old West. Grizzled ex-con John Marston is seeking his 'redemption' in the eyes of the government- they have taken his family, and Marston needs to turn in or kill several key members of a gang he used to run with to set them free. This sets up a series of Western-stylized missions- duels, shootouts, train robberies, stuff like that. What I found most interesting about the game was the lengthy 'epilogue' of sorts. After Marston spends the whole game talking about how he plans to "leave this life behind" when the government gives him his family back... he does. And you play through it. The game gets a little less rated M and a little more Harvest Moon as Marston stops with all the gunfights and goes back to missions herding cattle and teaching his boy how to hunt. That kind of stuff at the start of a game feels like needless padding, but at the end it set an interesting tone- could John Marston really completely give up his old life to become a basic rancher? Play the game to find out, or read Trev's post if you're lazy.