Hands-on: 'Red Dead Redemption'

The turn of the 20th century heralded massive change in the world, not least in the American West. The advent of the automobile, along with improved technology and communications, meant that the days of prospectors, wagon trains and gun-slingers were seriously numbered. Rockstar Games' Red Dead Redemption - the follow-up to 2004's Red Dead Revolver - admirably takes this period of seismic transition as its backdrop for an open-world adventure. After mounting up for a few hours of the game's single-player campaign, Digital Spy found that there's plenty of life left in the Old West.

Set in 1908 around the border of America and Civil War-threatened Mexico, the game tracks the "death of the West", taking its cues more from Sam Pekinpah's The Wild Bunch rather than Sergio Leone's Spaghetti Westerns. Players become the gnarled John Marston, who drinks hard liquor and does his talking with a six shooter. After being left for dead by his gang buddies in a shootout, Marston gets a second chance to clean up his act, settle down and make a family. However, a visit from agents of the fledgling FBI results in Marston having to hunt down his old gang, including their fearsome leader Bill Williamson, or see his family introduced to old friend Mr Bullet.

So Marston is thrown back into his previous life of gun-slinging and poor dental hygiene, but he'll need to use brain as much as brawn in the changing world around him. While the core premise of Red Dead Redemption has been explored in various guises over the years, the dark plot is primed to burrow deep into the black heart of the dying Wild West. Powered by the Rockstar Advanced Game Engine (RAGE), which also underpinned Grand Theft Auto IV, the game represents Rockstar's first crack at an open-world title set in a predominantly rural setting. The three main regions each have their own towns, outposts and terrain, as typical burnt orange desert mixes with coastal areas, snow-capped mountains and verdant greens.

At its core, Red Dead Redemption takes the same structure as the GTA franchise; mixing open-world exploration with missions triggered by non-playing characters. Most missions involve heading to a location, killing everyone in sight and then retrieving an item, but there will also be stealth and vehicle aspects. For example, the retrieval of a Gatling gun from a mine shaft involved taking down heavily armed miners and then hopping on a mine cart to steal the weapon.

The controls feel nice and weighty, as though genuinely pulling on a six shooter. The weapons feel industrial and really pack a real punch when fired, with the free aim approach fitting well with the combat. The sticky cover system feels a bit twitchy at times, but never gets in the way of the action. Unlike GTA, health in Red Dead Redemption is regenerative which makes the game slightly easier but also frees up the action as there is no tiresome searching for food to refill the health bar.

Returning from Red Dead Revolver is the Dead-Eye targeting system, which involves pushing down the right analogue stick to slow time for a moment, enabling a few precise shots. Later in the campaign, players can chain shots together in Dead-Eye, which allows cross tags to be placed on multiple targets for Marston to rapidly execute upon pulling the trigger. Dead-Eye combat remains a visceral thrill, with a meter to access the power being easily refillable with further kills.

Navigating the vast world involves using a main map screen, along with an in-game mini-map similar to GTA IV. Indeed, many strong features developed for Rockstar's last big open-world title can be seen in Read Dead Redemption, which is certainly not a bad thing. Players can still set SatNav-style way points and purchase safehouses for new save locations. A day and night schedule - constituting around 25 minutes in real time - also features, alongside well animated weather changes.

The vast world, similar in size to GTA: San Andreas, is made easier to traverse with a train travel system for quick journeys, along with taxi rides in wagons. However, horses are the main mode of transport, and the range of steeds is impressive, including the way they realistically freak out around gunfire. Riding is well handled, with options for trot or gallop by tapping a button. Anywhere in the world, players can whistle for their horse by pushing up on the D-Pad, which will hopefully avoid any moments of wandering blindly through the desert.

As with GTA IV, the real star in Red Dead Redemption will be its world and the people therein. The game features hundreds of unique characters, each with their own stories and personalities. The level of immersion is impressive, with characters living their own routines and patterns. For example, a merchant will get up in the morning, go to work, finish up, head to saloon, sleep it off and then go back to work the next day. There really is the sense that this place is alive, and also very deadly. During our demo, a random kerfuffle in a saloon ended with a man viciously stabbing a prostitute. Needless to say, we doled out some lead-based justice.

Characters will often run up to the player to offer side quests, such as chasing down a robber or retrieving a lost horse. These quests can be ignored but will bring benefits if tackled. Aside the humans, there are 40 different animals in the game, including bears, wolves, buffalo and vultures, which can all be hunted, shot and gorily skinned. In a full ecology system, the animals interact with each other and the environment, such as vultures turning up for a meal after a big gun fight.

In the absence of urban sprawl, Rockstar has worked hard to ensure that the world offers plenty to do. There is loot dotted around for collection, along with treasure maps to find items and bounties available for capturing outlaws in exchange for cash rewards. A full economy system features in the world, with merchants buying collected treasures or skins and also selling better guns or equipment (although there is no weapons upgrade system).

All player actions in the world will affect Marston's "honour", a moral barometer affecting how characters react to him. Be good and honour goes up, leading to people being nicer and more amenable. Be bad and honour goes down, but it could result in more riches. The dynamic system provides some interesting gameplay avenues, with both merciless and merciful players able to experience the game differently. Marston also has a "fame" meter indicating his level of notoriety. Completing heroic or dangerous deeds will make people aware of him, but that could also attract unwanted attention.

Players can still embark on trademark GTA killing sprees, with whole settlements able to be turned into ghost towns if desired. However, the loss of honour involved could result in unexpected and possibly troublesome circumstances. Add to the package some quality dialogue, strong voice acting and well drawn character models - particularly with their ruddy-faced skin and poor teeth - and Red Dead Redemption's Old West becomes a world that lingers long in the memory.

Rockstar expects the finished game to run at around 30 frames per second, which is solid for an open-world title of such scale. Aside the main campaign, which will take around 30 to 35 hours to complete everything in it, the game includes a multiplayer component. Rockstar is staying tight-lipped on that for now, but expect to see something similar to the modes offered in GTA IV. In Red Dead Redemption, Rockstar appears to have applied its impressive open-world experience to a powerful Wild West setting. The interesting premise, strong control system, immersive world and wide range of things to do bodes well for the game's release in April.

Red Dead Redemption will be released on April 30 for PS3 and Xbox 360.