Whatever Rockstar Games touches seems to turn into gold: With Grand Theft Auto, the developer set new open-world standards, the strengths of which can also be applied to the Western world of Red Dead Redemption transmitted. Released in 2010, the adventure sold over 20 million copies and was even re-released for PlayStation 4 and Nintendo Switch in 2023.
Red Dead Redemption 2 was even bigger and better: The sequel had sold over 61 million copies by February 2024. On the rating platform Metacritic The PS4 version of the open-world adventure has an average score of 97. In short: Red Dead Redemption 2 (2018) is one of the ten biggest and best games of the past decade.
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But while the two Redemption parts are often referred to as showcase games, hardly anyone talks about the forefather of the series: Red Dead Revolver.
The action game, released in 2004, didn't set any new standards, but it showed that western games can reach a wide audience. Without Revolver, Redemption might never have existed. Reason enough to take a look back at the beginning of the Red Dead saga!
Gold, betrayal and revenge
Red Dead Revolver begins as you would expect from a good spaghetti western: with a revenge story. Everything is actually going well for the Harlow family: Father Nate and his partner Griff earn a fortune while prospecting in the Bear Mountains.
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But Griff betrays his friend to the corrupt General Javier Diego to save his own skin. Diego sends a hit squad under Colonel Daren. Young Red Harlow witnesses his family being murdered.
Source: Take-Two Interactive
In his anger, Red grabs his father's revolver, which has fallen into the fire, and shoots the colonel. While the boy suffers a burn in the shape of a scorpion, the shot separates the soldier's left arm.
Red Dead Revolver then takes a leap in time: more than ten years later, Red is a merciless bounty hunter who is caught up in his past and sets out to hunt down Colonel Daren and Javier Diego. The story of Red Dead Revolver is not a masterpiece from today's perspective, but it motivates you to continue playing with crude characters and a lot of animosity.
During the course of the game we not only control Red, but also supporting characters such as the British trick shooter Jack Swift and the farmer Annie Stoakes. Decision-making options or dialogue options are not necessary here. Red Dead Revolver is straight-up action fare for adults.
To create the right spaghetti western atmosphere, Red Dead Revolver relies on an authentic one Licensed soundtrack. This contains over 20 pieces from well-known films such as Django and the Gang of the Hanged Men (originally: Preparati la bara!) and The Right and Left Hands of the Devil.
There are even two compositions by the musical grandmaster Ennio Morricone – known, among other things, for the music for Play the Song of Death with me. Together with some of our own creations, these pieces significantly underline the mood of the game and create a very direct, emotional connection for film connoisseurs and western fans.
This still works excellently today. As crude as the character models of the Xbox version we pulled out are, the music pieces are just as atmospheric. Because in contrast to the rest of the technology, the tracks do not age and are still a guarantee that the spark will quickly fly with Red Dead Revolver in 2024.
Source: Take-Two Interactive
Playfully solid, technically mixed
The gameplay itself turns out to be average from today's perspective. We control Red and Co. from the perspective of the pursuer. At the touch of a button we aim at enemies and pull the trigger. Aiming seems comparatively difficult in the first few minutes of the game. But once we get used to the existing latency, we serve the advancing minions one shot after the other.
The hit feedback is first-class: If we hit our target on the leg, they stop and struggle with the pain. On the other hand, if we hit the skull, we can even blow our victim's hat off. The Western game repeatedly integrates dynamic effects into the battles: If we shoot a shooter from the balcony of a saloon, he immediately takes the entire barrier with him and falls into the depths.
Although, the word “spectacular” in this case must be put in quotation marks. You can see that Red Dead Revolver is now 20 years old. The game is now characterized by angular figures, rough proportions and, above all, a very low depth of color and detail. It is always difficult to identify targets precisely, especially at a distance.
We also miss the now standard enemy radar, which shows us where we are currently being shot at and where our opponents are. The lack of overview was already criticized back then, and there were even some serious bugs in our retro session. For example, at one point we fell off a moving train, only to be immediately beamed back to the top of the vehicle.