Red Dead Redemption Trailer

Here at NDG we don't spend a lot of time and energy (doing anything?) focusing on games that have yet to be released. We eschew responsibility to "break stories", or "make news",  or "take bribes" and have, all very intentionally and with great philosophical grounding, taken the stance to leave the maintenance of the game-hype-industrial-complex up to the forum hawks and news sites; the leaders in the inter-gallactic plot to turn gaming into a list of future promises, pics of Halo 3 collectors toys and stale "specs": graphics, features, control schemes, etc. 

Despite this, I was unable to avoid the first official trailer to Red Dead Redemption - a sequel to Red Dead Revolver -currently in production by Rockstar San Diego. While all Rockstar games have been relatively professionally produced, and more or less unique (at least in style and execution, if not in premise,) it has always seemed that the GTA series held a special place in their... budget. With the release of GTA IV last summer, this trend appeared only more glaring. What GTA IV made even more obvious however, was that Rockstar is no fucking slouch and GTA IV was no Missile Defense System and as a result, you may have heard, Grand Theft Auto IV made enormous amounts of money ($300 million on the first day, $800 million in the first week, and with current sales figures at somewhere over a billion.) Judging from the trailer to Red Dead Redemption, Rockstar has apparently thrown a bunch of those dollars at their  new "Sandbox" style take on the Red Dead series, and in doing, look poised to change this "GTA and the rest" character. More importantly however, Red Dead Redemption looks as hot as a panfried flapjack.

So what makes Red Dead Redemption look so good? The graphics, which are so legs open in the trailer, are very impressive, but honestly, lots of games look great these days. The gallant cinematic feel is nice for a trailer, but we all know we aren't going to be getting Western Gear Solid VI or Final Tumbleweed XXXIV.  What makes Red Dead Redemption seem so promising is the hope of a game world half as richly conceived and ecstatically executed as GTA IV, with a bow legged, hunched-back ambling gate, a subtle snarl and a slow drawl - the pace of freedom, boredom and Morrowind; the pace of stories by the camp fire, chewin' on straw, and walkin' a horse to water. Red Dead Redemption proposes to breath the air of the fantasy of the American frontier West, and from the looks of this trailer, you'll hear a low crackle at the back of its' throat from the hard years in the dusty desert. Gruff, quiet, tense, and terse - this trailer is sweet.