Since we now live in a world where the perfect Batman game exists, all we need now is the perfect wild west game. And next year, Rockstar Games may just deliver it.
This week, a lengthy demo of the game was shown at the Penny Arcade Expo in Seattle and Holy Christ - it is really starting to look promising.
While it's a sequel to the PS2 game Red Dead Revolver, it bears little resemblance in story, gameplay and pretty much everything else. Former outlaw John Marston (!) is the dude you control and the game is set in the very early 20th century. In a reportedly massive open world (Rockstar themselves have said it's the biggest game they've ever made), there seems to be all the trappings of a western genre you could want. Horseback is your main mode of travel but there are also stagecoaches, trains and steamboats. Camps, settlements and towns litter the landscape and apparently they are all ripe for the taking by Marston. If the player so desires.
He looks pretty much tough as fucking nails.
The towns themselves have their own economies. Banks, saloons and general stores are all fully useable and it's totally possible to start some shit in every single one of them. But, as with the Grand Theft Auto series - a wanted level is in place if you break too many old-timey laws. Authorities appear on the street and try their best to subdue Marston with lasso ropes and of course, gunfire. Marston himself is on his own personal mission of course. After giving up a life of crime, the government threaten his wife and child with something horrible unless he hunts down his old gang. Those goddamn yellow-bellied sumbitches.
Hands up who wants this game like, right now.
One of the most interesting things to come out of the demo was the horses. You can kick them with your spurs to move faster but not too much because they can buck your off their back. If this happens, you may have to try and lasso a wild horse, break it in and saddle it to make that nag your own.
Not since Law Of The West has there been a completely solid wild west video game (yes, even Sunset Riders). If someone can do it, Rockstar can. Have some faith. Some guys from the UK just made the perfect Batman game, so now anything is possible. We just have to wait until the first quarter of 2010 to find out.
They be some big shoes to fill, y'all.
