Red Dead Redemption was a phenomenal game back in 2010 but wasn't released in time for the first edition of the 1001 list. It grabbed my attention, and I've played it multiple times since. I knew there was an earlier Red Dead title, but heard it was a little weird, a bit iffy, and certainly nothing like Red Dead Redemption. I never tracked it down to see it for myself.
But Red Dead Revolver is on the 1001 list. It's been released in many versions across both PlayStation and Xbox systems. It's not hard to find, so why haven't we bothered? What are we missing? Is it anything like the Red Dead series the vast majority of us know about, or does it just share a name?
Strap on your boots and don your cowboy hat, because it's time to find out.
Fun Times
I've got the PlayStation 2 release of Red Dead Revolver, and it opens with some style. The atmospheric look of this clearly spaghetti western-inspired game comes across in an introduction video showing off the cast of characters we'll be getting familiar with in due course.
It's fast, it's covered in filters, I'm not sure what I see half the time, but I am looking forward to seeing where this one goes. I never expected this amount of detail. I thought it was just a simple western game. I think I might be wrong.
The first scene of the story hammers home how serious the developers are taking this title. The dirty look of the cinematic matches this family's situation, alone in the middle of nowhere, waiting for the sun to shine once more.
The future looks bright as the conversation starts. There's gold in these here hills!
In celebration of his find, our father and his partner got themselves unique matching revolvers. That means we, Red Harlow, get to take Pa's crappy old pistol for ourselves, and we're let lose to practice.
Holding L1 brings up your targeting reticule, and you can move it with the right stick while you move with the left. Line up your shot and hit R1 to pull the trigger, and before you know it, you're a sharpshooter.
It's a good job we practised because we're getting raided already. The rain descends, and visibility is next to nonexistent. You often only know you've hit if the reticule changes colour, and you can't be sure an enemy threat has been eliminated until you see them hit the floor. I found myself emptying a good few rounds into each guy until they finally went down.
Getting hit comes with an alarmingly visual spurt of blood and a brief stumble as your character does nothing but react, but actually seems to barely scratch your health bar.
The cutscene reveals our parents' health bars haven't fared so well, however, as a mysterious general-looking figure approaches us. We don't take too kindly to his words, and seeing our father's fancy revolver on the ground, in flames, we take the risk to get revenge there and then.
That's quite effective. Took his arm clean off at the shoulder. Thankfully, everyone is too stunned to fight, and we get to end the level.
It's definitely weird to see a Red Dead game chunked up into levels, and for it to keep track of stats like accuracy and time, but this actually happens in all the missions for the Red Dead games that we do love so much. There isn't a whole lot of difference, save for the massive open-world available on the next generation of console hardware.
Time passes, Red grows up, and now travels the plains as a gun for hire. A bounty hunter needs some weapons, and this dealer is a welcome sight, I'm sure - until we see his wares. A costly burnt gun case? A knife? It's better than nothing, I suppose.
It's a dangerous place, the West. Wild, you might say, and we have to be ready for a fight at a moment's notice. We can attach ourselves to cover with a press of the square button and peek out to fire at targets near and far. Switching between weapons with the D-pad allows us to pick the better tool for the job, and a rifle works better at long range, so we make use of it.
The ruckus brings out some bosses to fight, and we're introduced to the deadeye ability. Pressing R2 when aiming slows down time, allowing us to paint a few targets on the enemy before firing them off in rapid succession.
It's a bit tricky to use, actually, and I found myself running backwards and firing wildly for the most part. That doesn't strike me as the best strategy, but it's working.
In between levels - and so far, the levels have been little more than an arena for a fight to occur in - we get the option to purchase some basic weapons and items. Why there is a stethoscope in the shop, I don't know. Flavour? We also learn that our weapons can be repaired and upgraded, though I'm not entirely sure how. Not important right now, however, so let's push on into the story. It's so easy to do so, with levels this quick.
Frustrations
Does this look a little dark to you? I'm not talking about these guys killing a dog because it pissed on someone's shoes, but the overall look. There are filters, and there are lens caps. This is, in some sense, really stylish, but it's entirely ineffective at showing me what's going on.
I can only hope this is a quirk in emulation. I should try it on the original hardware to compare, but, you know, it's all the way over there, I'm already here...
Further Fun Times
The gameplay is nice and bright, though. By God, is it bright in places. I actually like the look of it as a whole. The filters and lighting sell the hot, dusty nature of the west. It's like watching a movie, only someone has broken it up into ten-minute chunks and uploaded it to an early YouTube. And between each part, you have to wonder if you've missed something. But you watch it anyway because there's something about it.
After a short fight or two, we're taught how to have a duel, and it too plays much like the later Red Dead games. Draw your revolver with the right stick, and use the slow down to line up as many shots as you feel it is safe to do so before your opponent shoots you. Do take note that it's easier to explain than to do.
Another boss fight ends the level. This guy takes human shields, and can only be damaged when you stun him, which you do by shooting him and not his hostage. So basically, you just shoot him until he's dead, and the level ends.
The story just brings us from one set piece to the next. We've got no choice as to where we go, and we're roped into taking this old guy to Brimstone on the train.
It's almost strange how we're doing all the same stuff that we'd be doing in the Red Dead Redemption titles, but have no choice as to when we get to do them. The only option we have right now is who to talk to on this train.
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| Funny you should mention that, because in 15 years... |
Alrighty then, time to put our duelling skills to use and protect this train from bandits.
Yeah, I did say it was harder to do than it was to explain. I thought I did everything right. Maybe I didn't do it quick enough. Let's hope the second attempt goes a lot better.
It does, and now we (obviously) find ourselves running the length of the train, shooting bandits off the roofs. Why? Because it's a western game and we're a gunslinger on a train. Don't question it, just get swept up by it.
Further Frustrations
By now, you should be familiar with how Red Dead Revolver doesn't exactly control brilliantly. I don't know how to explain it, because it's not sluggish, but it is a little cumbersome. Again, maybe that's because of this Xbox controller and the sensitivity settings, perhaps not. Just know that I was often bumbling through fights.
And now I was tasked with dodging beams and platforms on a moving train. I have just been told that the X button can be used to climb things, and now it's used to jump, while L3 is used to crouch. How many attempts did it take me to get to grips with these simple controls?
A few, let me tell you, but we're here at the engine at last. It's only after falling off the train multiple times that you start to say to yourself that you've got to learn to love old controls. Otherwise, you'll get nowhere in this game.
You can actually fall off the train and jump back on it if you're lucky. Often better to just try again from the checkpoint, though.
The bandits have the engineer held at gunpoint, presumably to make sure the train keeps moving. I don't know their plan, despite having made all sorts of train robberies in RDR2.
The action doesn't stop, and we now have to protect the engineer for a full three minutes. I don't know where all my ammunition is coming from. Presumably, it's all dropped from dead bandits, but I've got a couple of hundred rounds to last three minutes. It'll be easier than jumping over platforms - I know how to shoot.
It was quite easy, actually. There was an awful lot of dead time in these three minutes. Not exactly a life-threatening situation if you can chill out on the coal pile for half of it. Anyway, the train is due to arrive in Brimstone, finally.
Further Fun Times
And just like that, I'm back into liking where this game is going. We're in sunny Brimstone, the Sheriff has said he might have some jobs for us, and we're let loose on the town.
It's not open world, but we've actually got some agency here. We can go where we please. We can talk to the locals.
They're all kinds of stereotypical, but we'll take it. I'm enjoying the fact that they aren't immediately shooting at me, like seemingly everyone else we've met in this game so far.
I spy the barbershop and think "No... They didn't have customisable hair in Red Dead Revolver, did they?"
No, but they do have general stores full of all sorts. An umbrella that unlocks a journal page. What's a journal page? Don't tell me that excellent RDR2 journal has its roots in Revolver...
I didn't look for a journal but did see the Sherrif to progress the story. I'm on the hunt for Pig Josh. I'm used to then going out into the wider world and tracking this outlaw down, but that's not how Revolver does things. The cutscene immediately plonks us into Pig Josh's hideout.
Levels are much the same. Here's the place you'll be fighting in, now fight until there's nothing left to kill, and the boss makes himself known. With the aid of a mounted chain gun, we thin the herd of... dwarven clowns?
Finally, Pig Josh pops out of his caravan, and boy can he sprint.
It took a couple of attempts, but again, the boss fight was just a case of learning what stuns an enemy and then shooting them as much as possible in that window. Hide from Pig Josh, shoot him to stun him, shoot him to injure him, run away and hide until he's dead.
I'm aware at this point that I'm going through what seems to be quite a bit of the game. I'd usually find a spot to stop (often, but not always, when I give up at some task), but despite the short levels, Red Dead Revolver isn't really giving me one. It doesn't stop, despite its segmented nature. I just want to see what's after each and every end of level screen I come across.
I'm glad I kept going because now I'm the Englishman Jack Swift, in a small, eerie green town. You'll recognise it from earlier, which begs the question of how often levels are used multiple times, but with the amount going on right now, I can't think about that too much.
Jack mostly plays the same as Red, but his deadeye has a ridiculous number of shots that find multiple targets with ease. Unleashing twelve shots in a second looks mad, and then you get mad having to reload to them all while running away from anyone you didn't kill.
More boss health bars than grunts this time it seemed, but this mysterious fella soon introduced more than I could get on top of, and it wasn't long before I struggled. This guy teleports and disappears when you get close or hit him once. I don't quite know how to stun him, and I've little time to find out when there are a handful of dwarven clowns charging and shooting at me.
I decided at last that this is the point where I stop playing Red Dead Revolver. No, thanks, I won't retry on this occasion. But you're in the back of my mind now. Something to look into...
Final Word
I always thought of Red Dead Revolver as janky, a little goofy, and something only for the die-hard Red Dead fans to care about. I never came across it when it was released initially. I've absolutely no memory of it being something I could have played. No hype for it, no marketing. Granted, I don't remember every advert I came across in the gaming magazines, but the point is that, to me, Red Dead Revolver was a mysterious game that feels like a rare, lost treasure - but not one to worry about playing.
That must have changed now, I'm sure. I was as stunned by the presentation in front of me as the many bosses were stunned by my first shot in their direction. I wasn't expecting this much atmosphere. I wasn't expecting Red Dead Redemption, albeit in bite-sized, walled off chunks.
Is this anywhere close to the greats of the PlayStation 2? No. It's nowhere near. It is, perhaps, forgettable, until you look at it in the context of those later games in the series. They don't make overt reference to Revolver, being very much their own stories, but I think you can see here the very early signs of what the developers wanted to achieve.
I'd recommend playing it and seeing if you're swept up by it. If you're not, I wouldn't force yourself to play it. If you are, I hope you enjoy it. Multiple characters, strange opponents, stylish settings. I'm not sure what to make of it, other than that it is something I want to see much more of.
Fun Facts
Development was initially shared with Capcom, who wanted to take the game in a stranger direction - more arcadey, more supernatural. Rockstar San Diego wanted to stay more accurate to life and toned down the weirdness when they took over development. Toned down with an awful lot of dwarven clowns and teleporting weirdos...
Red Dead Revolver, developed by Rockstar San Diego, first released in 2004.
Version played: PlayStation 2, 2004, via emulation.