Red Dead Revolver - Xbox Game Review

"I feel very close to the western. There are not too many American art forms that are original. Most are derived from European art forms. Other than the western and jazz or blues, that's all that's really original." - Clint Eastwood

If you love the Western genre as much as I do, then you'll probably love Rockstar Games's Red Dead Revolver for the Xbox. (I think it's available for Playstation 2 also, but I don't know for sure since I don't play on a Playstation 2.) The atmosphere for Red Dead Revolver is about as true to a genre as any video game I've ever played. The main character is appropriately grim and silent, and the supporting characters are appropriately interesting.

Red Dead Revolver is third-person shooter revenge story set in the Old West. The main character, Red, sees his parents killed by bandits early in the game, and you get to play out the scene where they're attacking the family farm. Red's a prodigy of sorts with a handgun, and you get to shoot lots of bad guys in this part. It also serves as the main training level for the game, although there are a couple of other chapters that offer training too.

One of the more entertaining scenes in the game is when young Red shoots the arm off one of the bad guys. Which of course means that Red is going to be looking for a "one-armed man" for a good bit of the game.

The soundtrack for Red Dead Revolver is stellar (which is no surprise since it's a game from Rockstar Games), and the graphics are good but not great. You actually feel like you're watching an old Western movie while you're playing the game. In terms of fun, this game gets high marks from me. Like Grand Theft Auto Vice City, it's so damn much fun that you don't mind that the game designers didn't take full advantage of the graphics capabilities offered by the Xbox platform. I'd rather play a fun game with average graphics than a game with great graphics that isn't fun any day of the week.