Saturday 23 October 2010

"Ye Ate Ma Daddy!"

Well goddamn!

Rockstar sure know how to put a trailer together, don't they?


You know, I absolutely adored Dead Rising 2. I had more pure, unadulterated fun with it than I have with any other in 2010 to date... but if you're going to review with any hope of objectivity, any notion to speak of the larger thing over - or as well as - your own particular experience of it, there are other things to consider than enjoyment, I think - elsewise I'd be casting my vote in favour of Geometry Wars: Retro Evolved 2 or Pacman Championship Edition year in and out. There's storytelling, there's design, even presentation plays a part. And by that more cumulative measure, my favourite game of 2010 is Red Dead Redemption, hands down.

So it was with some trepidation that I met the news of the first single-player expansion for that old west work of art. Because --- well, I don't recall there being any zombies in the history books I was taught from, and one of Red Dead Redemption's greatest triumphs is its invocation of a remarkable period of time not yet run into the ground, which is to say the back end of the old west, when capitalism, industrialism and all the ways of life we know so well came a-knocking. It seemed to me that to throw a horde of the undead in there would be to rather reduce the currency of Red Dead Redemption's setting, and by extension narrative and character; the very things which made is such an incredible piece of work.


And then I saw that trailer. I heard John Marston (oh, John, how I've missed thee) saying "I've seen husbands eating wives, mothers eatin' sons, graves poppin' open and the undead risin' up," and call me a pushover - whatever - all my misgivings fell away. Take my spacebucks, Rockstar! I was never going to make into space anyway...

The Undead Nightmare expansion is going to be available to download the week of Halloween, y'all. That's just a couple days from now!

Come on, now... you know you want it. There are undead bears, didn't you see 'em? :P

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