Howdy pardner. In this here review I�m gonna spin ya a yarn about a cowpoke named Red. After some no good varmint outlaws killed his parents, Red grew up to become the rootinest, tootinest, and shootinest bounty hunter in the Wild West. So pull up a chair and set a spell, city slickers. Here is the tale of Red Dead Revolver and why, despite not being the fastest horse in the barn, it is still definitely worth taking out for a ride.
Red Dead Revolver started off as a Capcom title but got handed over to Rockstar when it acquired Angel Studios. If you have played anything by Capcom or Rockstar in the past few years, it is pretty easy to spot the influences each company has had on the game. The arcade-style gameplay is Capcom through and through while the copious amounts of blood, twisted enemies (like a troop of midget rcus clowns), and great presentation are evidence of Rockstar�s involvement in the project. It probably would have been better if it hadn�t of been passed around so much, but it is surprising how well RDR turned out after being in development hell for so long.
RDR is one of the few games I have come across that can have a ton of problems but still manage to be extremely entertaining at the same time. To put it simply, this is the most enjoyable crappy game I have played in a long time. Despite the problems, the simple shooting and Wild West setting keep me coming back for more. I feel compelled to keep playing even when I�m fighting the controls, camera, uneven difficulty, or retardo AI, and that is something that not a whole lot of games with so many problems can accomplish.
The gameplay in Red Dead Revolver is typical third person action fare spiced up a bit. You move around with one control stick and aim with the other stick, just like any number of recent shooters, but you can also activate a slow motion feature called Dead Eye that lets you mark points on enemies and Red will then fill them full of lead automatically. The shooting is fast paced and fun, and the hit detection is very forgiving, so you don�t have to slow down too much when you find yourself surrounded by midget clowns. You can also hunker down behind rocks and other objects to protect yourself and then jump out and squeeze off a few rounds before diving back behind cover. RDR relies kind of heavily on auto aiming, but I don�t think that is such a bad thing since it allows the game to keep its lightning fast pace.
Popping up every now and then is a duel mode where you have to draw your weapon and fire before the enemy. In these situations the game goes into the Dead Eye slo-mo and you have to push down on the stick to reach for your gun, push up to draw it, and then you have to mark points on your enemy to shoot at. These duels are fun and satisfying, especially when you are going up against more than one enemy at a time. I just wish it had used more often.
As you play through the game you meet up with other characters and are then allowed to take control of these characters for a level or two in order to flesh out the story a little bit more. An example of this is when Red saves a British sharpshooter from a band of circus freaks. The next level features the Englishman as he goes on to finish off the leader of the circus. These frequent side trips away from Red keep the game fresh and do a good job of telling a more complete story than would have been possible otherwise.
The level design is pretty linear, but there is enough variety that the game doesn�t feel too repetitive. Some memorable levels include a train that you have to defend from robbers, a canyon that you have to climb up in order to collect a bounty, and a level where you have to ride a horse in order to catch an armored train. Strewn throughout the levels are set pieces that were ripped directly from every spaghetti western you can think of. The rest of the game is fun, but these scenarios are what make RDR stand out as something more than just another shooter.
Red Dead Revolver is not without its problems, though. For one thing, the camera is not automated at all so you have to constantly play with it. Also, the difficulty fluctuates wildly from one level to the next and it gets kind of frustrating. You can breeze through several levels and then hit one that takes eight or nine attempts before you beat it. The super difficult levels just feel cheap instead of challenging and the way you usually end up beating them is by taking advantage of the not so intelligent AI.
The enemies are all pretty much morons, so as long as you are patient you can hide behind cover and take a few potshots every now and then and eventually you�ll come through. Something that is inexcusable is just how dumb the bosses are. Two examples that really stick out are a fat man with a dynamite fetish and a renegade woman with a ton of friends who want nothing more than to shoot you. The fat man is absolutely deadly if he catches you, but the way I beat him was to stand on top of a building and shoot him as he came out from cover. This pattern repeated over and over where he would come out, I would shoot him, and he would walk back down the hill from where he came. He never approached me and I never took any damage. The woman was a tricky boss battle at first, simply because there were so many other enemies around, but the way I beat her was to hide behind a waist high chunk of rock. The woman would walk up to me, attack and miss because I was three feet lower than her, and then I could jump up and blast her without taking any damage. The bosses are difficult, but extremely stupid and are easy to beat once you find some way to take advantage of the crappy AI.
Another problem with Red Dead Revolver is that it just sort of feels half-assed and doesn�t even come close to living up to its potential. The shooting could have been tighter and more precision based. The levels could have been more open. The graphics could have been about a million times better. The list goes on and on. With a few tweaks and a coat of polish, RDR would have been absolutely awesome instead of just fun yet flawed.
Graphically, Red Dead Revolver is a mixed bag. The overall look of the game is appropriately gritty and dusty and earth tones dominate the color palate. The environments lack detail and the same textures are repeated over and over again on buildings and rocks and everything else. The characters look good enough but the animation is borderline horrible. Also, some of the enemies are hard to spot because they blend in with the background. The graphics should have been a lot better because you can only use the �old timey� filter to cover up your lack of effort so much before the overall look of the game starts to suffer.
The sound, on the other hand, had a lot more care put into it than the graphics. The music is spot on and sounds wonderful. Who doesn�t love the music in old west movies' Also, the voice acting is generally pretty good. Red doesn�t sound quite as rough and tough as he probably should, but he doesn�t sound bad by any means. The sound effects are also very well done.
I reviewed the PS2 and Xbox versions of Red Dead Revolver, and just like pretty much every other multiplatform title, it all comes down to graphics and load times. The content is exactly the same in both versions, but the Xbox has noticeably faster load times and sharper graphics. It can be argued, however, that the PS2 version actually looks better because the softer edges and more washed out look is more close to the subject matter. Whichever one you choose, the game plays pretty much the same and both versions are equally enjoyable. I would recommend the Xbox version, but you won�t be disappointed with it if you are a PS2 only type of gamer.
So, if ya�ll are lookin� for some fine western themed shootin� (not to mention rootin� and tootin�), then Red Dead Revolver is worth having a look see. RDR ain�t the purtiest, quickest, or smartest, but just like the ugliest duckling, slowest horse, and stupidest person at the village idiot convention, it serves a purpose in this world and shouldn�t be cast aside so quickly just because it isn�t the best. Despite its flaws, RDR is a fun experience. Because it is flawed, and because it isn�t the longest game around, I can�t recommend it to everyone for a purchase, but it is absolutely worth a rental. Now, if ya yellow bellies would excuse me, I have to get back to being the shootinest, fightinest, roughest, toughest, horse ridinest, (insert generic cowboy term here), ride into the sunset cowboy that ever lived. Yee haw!
Eric Qualls (06/16/2004)