Red Dead Revolver: Hands-On & Videos

Buckle up, partner! We spend time with the latest build of Rockstar's promising Red Dead Revolver, offering new impressions and gameplay footage.

To date, Red Dead Revolver has been most commonly praised for its revival of the wild west theme, a setting largely overlooked by game developers - yet one particularly fitting for potentially stellar gaming action. After our playtest with the latest, near-final build of the game, we're happy to tell you it's going to be praised for a lot more than that, when it's released at the end of the month for Xbox and PS2.

Originally a joint development effort between Capcom and Angel Studios, which was acquired by Rockstar's parent company Take-2 last year, the third-person viewed, shooting heavy action game has been doing the rounds at trade shows for a couple of years now. After Angel became part of the Take-2 family, and renamed Rockstar San Diego, the studio has been reworking, expanding and enhancing the project into the high-quality, visually spectacular videogame it is now.

Our story begins in the late 1880s. There is no Red Dead Revolver, just Red, a young kid living with his family on the western frontier. His family strikes gold-strikes it rich in fact-but it is not long before news of their good fortune reaches the ears of General Diego, a rogue Mexican general, who sends his bandits on a mission to massacre Red's family and steal their gold.

Red's family is slaughtered before his eyes, his mother burned, his father shot down. Red has only revenge on his mind. He quickly picks up his dad's gun - which fell into the fire - burning his hand and leaving an imprint as a permanent scar. Now, many years later as a man, Red's prepares to act on his lifelong thirst for revenge.

You'll play as a total of six different characters throughout the game, including Diego himself in a 'flashback' level from twelve years ago, but the central character is Red Harlow, a good man who craves revenge for the brutal massacre of his parents when he was young. He's a man with a heart, "more a Clint Eastwood than a John Wayne", Rockstar explains, and must find those responsible, traversing the planes of the 1880s West, to bring them to justice.

We start off near the start of the game, as a story scene kicks in and an unsavoury "Ugly Street Gang" bandit shoots your dog! All hell breaks loose, and the level ensues - the mission is to survive, a prerequisite just happening to be killing everyone in sight. This was the first level we played, and not getting hit was an impossibility on our first attempt, with enemies positioned at all surrounding buildings, windows and bars - but there's nothing like being in at the deep end to learn controls quickly.

Fortunately, the controls are relatively straightforward. The two analog sticks control movement, holding down L1 draws your weapon, at which point the right stick controls your aim, R1 is shoot, and the left stick enables you to strafe left and right. The main buttons basically do everything else, a pretty intuitively executed list of jumping, rolling, diving, climbing and so on. As you might imagine, taking cover is a fundamental technique throughout the game, which you must learn right away to survive.

The controls work very well in what has become a more accessible, arcade focused blast fest since its last public showing, although we'd definitely like to see the addition of a button function that resets the camera position back behind the character, to make certain situations feel a little more natural.

There are more diverse skills on offer too; each character has a special ability. Red's special skill is known as "Dead Eye", a sort of Virtua Cop 3 style 'slow-down mode' that avoids the cheesiness of outdated bullet time dross by serving a purpose, allowing you to target multiple enemies, and multiple parts of an enemy, whilst buying some reaction time - not to mention looking, and sounding damn cool. See it in action in our gameplay footage.

There are over thirty weapons including a shed load of different guns - pistols, rifles, shotguns, even the Gatling - along with bows, knives and other assorted death tools for good measure. You'll find new weapons as you progress, and steal them off your downed foes, cycling through your arsenal with the D-pad.

Moving on, and the next level we played - Chapter 13, "Traitor", sees Red in jail as we take control of law officer General Diego, who was present when Red's family was killed. The huge open level, a massive riverbank with bridge type setting, is most impressive to behold, but deadly if you don't work out what you're supposed to be doing quickly.

The arcade style gameplay quickly becomes sophisticated in levels like this. The level, an ode to The Good, the Bad and the Ugly, requires you to wipe out scores of Yankee troops running riot around the river stream, protecting your own soldiers, killing enemies, avoiding devastating cannon fire, taking out the cannons across the bank one by one... and all at the same time! This is a huge test of skill - taking cover behind rocks, strategically positioning yourself, and the sharpest of sharp shooting, is the only way to success. It's also imperative to use Diego's special skill - a missile-launching type technique, to take out the cannons. Apparently you have to destroy the bridge afterwards - but Rockstar is making us wait to see that bit. You can imagine the level of intense on-screen action during this scene. And it's so darn pretty.

The other level we played - Chapter 19, "End of the Line", requires you to stop a large train hurtling through the countryside at full speed. Riding your trusty horse, you've got to jump onto the train and begin to separate carriages, jumping back onto your loyal companion to move onto the next carriage, while taking out the bad guys. Eventually you use the awesome Gatling Gun to blow the whole thing up with style.

Red Dead Revolver is a visually tremendous game, without doubt one of the finest looking action titles on PlayStation 2 (the version we played), with the Xbox version apparently looking marginally better. A warm hazy sun effect, sand blowing in the wind, splashing water, fire and smoke, explosions - it all looks totally top-notch, with an appealing visual style, all running at a solid thirty.

Open outdoors, for example when the train is speeding through the countryside, is not quite as graphically rich or detailed as more enclosed areas in the other levels we saw. But basically, RDR is a visual treat.

The package is all the more appealing with its absolutely top-notch presentation - beautifully created real-time cut-scenes that unfold the dramatic story, an awesome score and soundtrack (from what we've heard so far), authentic environment and sound effects and some quality voice acting. Even the pause screen has been stylishly and lovingly crafted.

We're really excited about Red Dead Revolver. It's Rockstar's biggest game until San Andreas turns up. It looks ace, promises an epic story and accessible, dynamic, challenging gameplay. Whether you're a fan of westerns or not, if you're not looking forward to Red Dead Revolver, you probably should be.

We'll be delivering our verdict closer to the game's release at the end of the month. For now, enjoy the footage.

Adam Doree
Director, Kikizo.com