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Can Rockstar make the “Wild West” cool? Yes, yes they can. Rockstar Games has a history of making cool games. You know? The kind of games that casual gamers aren’t afraid of talking about to their friends. Surely, everyone has heard someone talking about their rampage in GTA: Vice City or their cruise in Midnight Club. Red Dead Revolver had some worried because it didn’t originally begin as a Rockstar game. Instead Angel Studios was developing the game for Capcom. When Rockstar bought Angel Studios (now Rockstar San Diego) they essentially picked up Red Dead Revolver. Still, Red Dead Revolver is a solid entry in the Rockstar Games catalog.
The game is an arcade-shooter at heart, though it attempts to do a bunch of other stuff. You command the lonely Red in his quest to avenge the death of his family. The game is a third person shooter for the most part and you’ll use everything from knives, dynamite, rifles and guns to take care of everything. There are two different shooting systems. The first is called “Dead-Eye.” Here you can slow down time to take down the tougher enemies. The second is called “Duel.” You’ll need a quick finger to draw your gun quickest and is used mostly to enter boss battles.
Shooting people will earn you some cash and even more if you get them in a row. You can also attempt to play the levels again to get a better time and kill ratio. Using cash or skills you can unlock various new characters, locations, weapons and upgrades.
Most of the levels in the games are based on shooting enemies, shooting tougher enemies and finally fighting the boss. The bosses aren’t even all that difficult and heavily pattern based. As always, as soon as you figure out what to do, you’ll easily win the battle. Rockstar San Diego manages to keep things fresh by allowing you to ride horses and bar-fight. Would this be a Rockstar game if you couldn’t steal a vehicle? Of course not. You will enter the towns at some points and gather information from the citizens but nothing too major.
Once you’re done with single-player its time to get three friends and enjoy the game in multiplayer. You can partake in three different modes High Noon, Sundown and Bounty Hunter. They are all variations on the standard shooting, however. Rockstar San Diego also included card games like Poker. The frame-rate suffers a bit on PS2 with three other players, but it isn’t too bad.
The game’s visual style is excellent. Red Dead Revolver very accurately represents the West. The character models fit the game very well, and have that badass design that Capcom games are known for, so maybe this aspect of this game was already finalized. Most of the areas in the game fit in wonderfully, but there are a few that make you wonder. For example, the towns look great but some of the outdoor areas lack the detail found elsewhere in the game. Technically, the game doesn’t fare as well. The frame-rate drops a bit too often on PS2 and there are a number of collision detection problems. Widescreen is supported but progressive scan is not.
The sound effects are excellent as is the very western sounding soundtrack that is safely at home in Red Dead Revolver. Unfortunately, the PS2 version suffers from slightly worse sound quality than its Xbox counterpart. Nothing too noticeable, but still present.
Red Dead Revolver is a solid shooter that works very well. If you’re been wanting for a good Western shooter for a while now, this is definitely something for you. -- Jose Liz, PGNx Media
---- May 8, 2004
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