Red+Dead+Redemption

Red Dead Redemption
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Red Dead Redemption is a third person shooter that puts you in the role of John Marston. Marston is a former outlaw in the early 1900's whose family has been threatened and captured by the federal government. You need to help the agents throughout a variety of quests in order to gain his family back.

The video to the right does a great job summarizing what the basic game is about.

First few minutes playing the game

 * Note: I have played this game before and 100% beaten it, but I wanted to re-start it to get a feel for how it begins. After putting so many hours into it I forgot how it initially got me to learn.
 * Opening scene getting off a boat to blackwater (The first town in the game). Very nice comforting music. A car gets off the boat as well. Being walked by the federal government people. We see a train go by. Really setting the mood that you are in the old west with all the new technologies just occuring.
 * Train ride Ends, you start out. Given directions how to walk and run. You have a mini-map in the corner of the screen with a yellow dot directing you where to go.
 * You meet Jake and get a horse. Shows you how to ride a horse and now you are going to follow Jake to your next destination. Horse movement is like human movement just faster
 * Your horse has stamina that shows you how long you can spur it to get it to go faster before it bucks you off.
 * Beautiful horse ride with a sunset really helps you buy in to the mood.
 * In the upper left of the screen as you are playing it gives you information on how to do something. (Hold B to look at important things. Press A to run, Y to mount a horse.)
 * Cut scene setting up the story
 * Now setting up the basic learning.
 * Movement, horse riding again.
 * Slow enough that you get the feeling of the era, bit not slow enough to bore.
 * Get shooting instructions. Tough at first, but you get the hang of it as time goes on, just due to trying it so often.
 * Shooting while on a horse very difficult at first, but got a lot easier.
 * First Save of the game by sleeping.

At the start of the game the game leads you to understand the button controls and initially it seems like a simple few buttons that work in a variety of ways. By the end of the game you hunt animals, collect plants, be a sharpshooter, and do treasure hunting. Within an hour of playing the game you learn how to do all those things. So there is not a whole lot of new mechanics that you learn as the game progresses instead you tend to get better at those mechanics as the game goes on. The game itself does a great job representing the time and feel of the early 1900's and you can really get immersed within that world.

There are quite a few kinds of feedback that the game gives you. You progress the story by completing missions. There are achievements within all 360 games that you are tyring to accomplish and you can access a menu to see how you are progressing toward each objective. You earn in game money that can be spent for better weapons and different items that help you along your way. At the start of the game it walks you through the game controls, but other than that you just learn by tougher competition and getting better at it.

While there is a lot of learning in this game some of the main principles of learning associated with Red Dead Revolver are...
 * Achievement Principle** – The mini-games as well as the 360 achievement progress help directly here with the achievement principle.
 * Practice Principle** – You are continuously shooting, riding, and collecting for a variety of reasons that get progressively more difficult. Practice makes perfect.
 * Multiple Routes Principle** – The story is free flowing with a variety of choices you can make and which order you would like to go in.
 * Transfer Principle** – This goes hand in hand with the practice principle discussed earlier.

There is also an extensive Multi-player element that I actually have not explored but is very well liked within the community.

Online Community
There is an extensive wiki devoted to the red dead series here. Rockstar games has a social club in which has a lot of achievements and tracking for all of their games. There is a lot of conversation regarding the multi-player and the different things you can do and within the game. Being an open world game each persons experience are so different that the experiences are widely shared.

Reflections
Rockstar games is the creator of Red Dead Redemption and they also created past Grand Theft Auto games. While GTA 4, Mass Effect, and Alan Wake have some of the best stories I have ever played, Red Dead Redemption is the first game I completed to 100% completion rate. I find it to have a really engaging story, a great game play mechanic, and an amazing setting. It really feels as if you are experiencing an open old west world. The character acting is excellent and the mood is perfect. I think as far as enjoyable games go this is about as high as they get. The combination of things that they do is as good as a game gets. It is very accessible, and fun.