Red Dead.

I beat Red Dead Redemption today. And I'm feeling bummed about it hours later...

Spoilers. Be warned.



The fact that John Marston died was not that suprsing from a narrative perspective. It made sense, I realized he was being set up for tragedy from the get-go.

Once I killed Dutch and returned to me farm, I thought maybe they were letting John off easy, I even thought that once I was reunited with my family, it would just roll credits after a quick cutscene. But instead there was a whole sequence on the farm where I rebuilt my life. Instead of killing and adventuring and being a hero, the quests were downright quaint. I taught my son to hunt. I herded the cattle with my uncle. I visited an old friend with my wife.

It's so obvious that they are letting you do these tasks to make a connection with the thing you've been fighting the whole game to be reunited with before they take it from you permanently.

What a bummer. I was actually totally bummed, and not really in an "How awesome. It was sad but still totally satisfied" kind of way" I was 1/2 sad and 1/2 mad.

Mad for two reasons: First of all, it seemed like an easy way to punch you in the face. The they threw in the worst ending possible just because they could. Also, I really, really liked John Marston's voice actor and character model. He looked awesome, his face looked 10 times better than any other character's face. And his voice was PERFECT.

So I was mad that the game lets you continue playing as John's son Jack. At first I didn't like Jack Marston. He looks like a little baby face with sleeze-mo facial hair, and his voice reminds me of some teen mid-pubescent kid.

I rode around for a minute as Jack. I had challenges, stranger quests, all that jazz left to complete. But after a couple minutes I decided maybe I was just done. I didn't want to be Jack.

The more I was away from the game, the more I thought the about the ending and everything that went down, and the more I felt like it was pretty awesome. The game's setting and era fit perfetly with the admitedly not-revolutionary story. Technology and government control was on the rise and the age of cowboys and outlaws ending. There's no place for people like John Marston, and he can't escape his past. Everyone told you that through the entire game... and sure enough the ending reflected that. Harshly.

I felt it coming when Dutch died, saying if you kill him the government and it's minions will just find a new monster to justify their wages. After returning to the farm and doing slow, simply chores to build up a relationship with your son and wife made me say "something very bad will happen". So when it did, it didn't feel cheap.

So I decided I liked the ending a lot. And because I liked playing as the character John Marston, and the game takes that away from me, it actually made his death more effective. But it still felt unresolved.

And it was. Sure enough, I went back looking for more and found one final quest. It's story, relatively simple and pretty quiet. So I beat the game. For real this time.

Afterward I was like "NOW I feel better about this ending," And now I feel ok about Jack too. I might not play much more since I really did a lot in the game and there's not a ton left, but I'm OK doing it as Jack now. Although I'd still rather spend my time with John.

So Red Dead Redemption was great. Maybe the missions got boring here and there. And although good on the whole, the writing sometimes fell more in service of explaining away the gameplay than advancing the plot, but I loved being in that world. A lot.