Fed Dead Redemption

[dime_novel_hero]

I received a PS3 for my birthday and the first game I have been playing is Red Dead Redemption. It is, in basic format, Grand Theft Auto in the wild west. Now, I don’t mind the piddling little missions so much (the herding cattle, bucking broncos and other things that seem more "Little House on the Prairie" than "Wild Bunch"), and I’ve even gotten used to the way-the-hell-gone riding all over the empty game map (I know it can be bypassed but it’s a lot like my morning bicycle commute, a cleansing experience) but what has begun to annoy me, even just a few hours into gameplay, is the anti-government whining of just about everyone.

In every cut-scene someone is bitching about how the government is meddling in peoples' business. The marshal, who complains that the railroads that pay his salary require him to turn a blind eye to their burning down settlements, says the government has brought nothing but trouble and taxes. The thieves and bandits say the government is a bunch of crooks, and I suppose they should know. The rancher calls the government a worse menace than the “plague” of outlaws terrorizing the whole county by murdering whole ranches of people and hanging their de-fleshed corpses from the barn rafters.

The government is worse than that? Really?

And when they are distrustful of the protagonist, it’s not because his face looks like road pizza and he’s a convicted murderer and bank robber who used to run with the monster who is terrorizing the whole county by murdering whole ranches of people and hanging their de-fleshed corpses from the barn rafters. No. They don’t trust him because the government sent him.

You’ve got cattle rustlers. Stagecoach robbers. Murders. Thieves. Arsonists. Terrorists. Bandit lairs in every box canyon in the state. You’ve got cannibals in the hills, for crying out loud! Is this your self-reliant libertarian utopia? It looks to me like you have been own for a while now, have completely failed to bring anything even remotely resembling civilization and you have screwed up so badly that the government has little recourse but to send a killer in to clean up your mess.

At least, that’s how I’d like to play it.

Unfortunately, this is not my story but theirs. I’ve read enough apocalyptic patriot militia screeds to know where this is going. The protagonist will kill the bandit and earn his reward. Then, inevitably, the government that blackmailed him into doing their job for them will betray him and he will go down in a hale of Waco-like gunfire.


 

Comments

[dergeis.livejournal.com]

I was riding along a road and a lawman call out to me for assistance. Two criminals had escaped from a wagon, killed his deputy, killed the horses and were making a run for it. As I was attempting to be a good guy I rode off after them. It was an easy matter to rope and hogtie the first, rundown the second to do the same and then bring back each of them to dump them with the lawman.

And then he shot them? Two guys lying bound and helpless on the ground and the lawman puts a bullet into each of their skulls. WTF? Is this the kind of law you guys have around here?

[dergeis.livejournal.com]

Herbert Moon is the shop keeper in Armadillo, plays a lot of Texas Hold-em, is a world class bigot and is immortal. You are likely to encounter him behind the counter when he assures you that nothing he sells has been manufactured by Jews. If you go over to the saloon to play cards, you will likely encounter him at the table where he will continuously spout off more anti-Semitism.

“The railroad company is just a front for the Jews.”

And here’s the thing, to unlock a game achievement you must beat everyone at the table. That could mean spending real time hours sitting at the virtual table with Herbert Moon continuously regurgitating his hatred. And if, for example, you get caught cheating, you may think you could end this nonsense by meeting Moon out in the street for a duel. But, after putting a bullet in his head and leaving him a bloody heap, you can then walk over to the General Store and find him behind the counter. The next day, return to the back room gaming table and he’s there again as if nothing happened.

“The Jews killed Lincoln. That’s why there’s a triangle on the money.”

Now, if you were to go to the game developers and complain about the overt, un-escapable and un-killable anti-Semitism in the game, I have no doubt that they would respond that such racism was common at the period and it was just part of the realistic game environment. Yes, they are correct in that, but they could have given those sorts of attitudes as a throwaway line in the saloon or by someone in the street. An attitude that you would hear occasionally like the momentary dialogue of prostitutes propositioning you as you walk by of a guy in the saloon drunkenly exclaiming how he’s seen ghost riders in the sky. Instead they gave this hate filled monologue to a character that you are likely to spend hours of game time with. No other character in the game, even the libertarian anacro-tea-tards, get the sort of soap box that Herbert Moon gets.

“I hear that John Marston is a hired killer for the Jews.”

That sort of repetition is not for realism’s sake and is no accident.

[dergeis.livejournal.com]

So, I have finished with the first “book” of Red Dead Redemption and moved on to Mexico. I cross the border and in the first town I enter I am accosted by three locals who immediately begin provoking me. One asks if I speak Spanish and I reply in Spanish that I speak only a little. I ask if they speak English.

“Sí, gringo, Hablo mucho inglés. Hablo "filthy fucking bean eater." Hablo "slippery little Mexican." Hablo "little piece of shit." ¿Comprende amigo? ¿Comprende?.”

They don’t know me for anything but being across the border and already they are assuming that I am a racist bastard. I didn’t say any of those things and, of course, it is absolutely clear where this is going. It is, however, played out as a cut scene and I don’t actually have to touch the game controller to shoot all three of them.

At which point, a guy steps off of a nearby porch to berate me.

“Oh, very good. Very good indeed, sir. What a great way to improve border relations. An illiterate farmer crossing the river, coming into this civilization and butchering the local peasants. Thank you very much, sir.”

This is Landon Rickets, a retired gunfighter. He looks like Sam Elliot and sounds like Lee Van Cleef, which should be awesome, but instead he’s just being a condescending jerk. Didn’t he just see that I walked into town, minding my own business, when these three locals started harassing me simply because I wasn’t from around here? They were obviously itching for a fight and were not going to back down or let me walk away. (Again, this is all cut scene so I, as a game player, had no choice in the outcome.) And “illiterate farmer?” Gunbelt. Rifle. Bandoleer with ammo enough for a small army. Heavily scarred face. Clint Eastwood squinty eyes. Farmer? Really?

Rickets: “You kill peasants, you become a peasant.”

Marston: “I never aspired to be anything more.”

Rickets: “Ah, a socialist, huh? No wonder you left America.”

Landon Rickets needs to look up in a dictionary or something as to the definition of “socialist.” Or rather, the game developers are forwarding their own limited and wildly inaccurate view of what socialism is and who socialists are to advance their anti-government agenda firmly established in the first chapter of the game.

Rickets then goes on to belittle my gunfighting skill

Rickets: “An angry man, a long way from home. A man who handles his gun as sloppy as you.”

Marston: “I can handle a gun okay, partner.”

Rickets: “Yeah, as long as you're killing quail or peasants. But if you have to face another man, you don't stand a chance.”

Wait. Didn’t you just see me face three armed men? I drew and fired, from just over arms length, dropping all three of them before any of their guns cleared leather. Even took my hat back from the head of one of them before he hit the ground, and you tell me about “not standing a chance?” At this point in the game I think my body count was something on the 600, a dozen in one-on-one duels but most of them killed in attacking groups of 5 or more.

Six hundred! That’s probably more than all the outlaws in all the West over the past half century. I’m a goram one-man-army.

Really, Landon. Don’t stand a chance? But fine. Have me shoot at three bottles so you can teach me a shooting lesson. Well, it is a mechanism for teaching how to use a new game control feature but do you have to make Rickets such a dick about it?

Rickets: “Well, you won't make it in the circus, but you can shoot. Keep on practicing.”

Six hundred. That’s well beyond practice in the goddamn circus.

[dergeis.livejournal.com]

The Mexican chapter of Red Dead Redemption went about as I expected. You are looking for outlaw Bill Williamson and have to fall in with the local authorities. Because they are the government, the libertarian designers portray them all as corrupt monsters, obviously telegraphing their sudden and inevitable betrayal.

The revolutionary leader is not much better. In fact, he's even worse because, in addition to his being a womanizer and generally uncaring user of human beings, he is a poet and . . . *gasp* . . . an intellectual. The only good thing the rebel leader does is actual deliver on his promise to deliver Williamson up to you.

But wait, there's more. With Williamson dead, the evil American government has tacked on a new requirement that you go after your former boss, van der Linde. He is continually presented (by your own cut scene dialogue) as a Robin Hood character who went insane. Robbing from the rich to give to the poor. The ultimate libertarian patriot fighting the good fight to bring about the best America. It's all hogwash that's supposed to give you some sort of sympathy for the character who will, I predict, have one last chance to spout libertarian and freedom rhetoric before dying a noble death. No, you won't be given the chance to put a bullet into his brain pan during combat. In a cinematic cut scene you'll watch him fall to his death Disney-style or hold his bleeding body in your arms and he burbles his last breath after being gunned down by federal agents.

I'm glad I purchased this game second hand so that Rockstar didn't get a dime from me.

[dergeis.livejournal.com]

Recall when I predicted the villain dying in "a cinematic cut scene where you'll watch him fall to his death Disney-style?" Nailed it. Recall when I predicted that the main character would go down with a hale of "Waco-like gunfire"? Called that one, too. But what I didn't predict was that it wouldn't be the end.

So, after the villain dies (the only surprise that he didn't spread his arms Christ-like when he fell backwards off the cliff), you ride back to the farm to find your wife and child. You then have a few "mission" of chasing off crows and rounding up cattle and going hunting for elk with the kid. Anticlimactic is an understatement. And after all this time trying to make Marston a sympathetic character, he comes home and is a complete dick to his uncle (or his wife's uncle or just some old guy who works the farm that everyone calls uncle) and is a bit of a sucky father, too. You piddle around for a while and then the army shows up. Waco-like gunfire. Marston walks out of the barn like a complete moron and takes a chest full of gunfire from a dozen federal agents, also standing in a line like morons.

The wife cries over the bloody corpse. The son comforts her. Cut to the grave. Fade to black

But wait! There's more! After one anticlimax, they have another one. Fade back in and the son has grown up a few years and has buried his mother next to his father. He dons his father's bounty killer clothing and rides of to exact his revenge on the federal agent who killed his father. A couple of interactions along the lines of "No, he's not here" and you finally tracking him down. Duel. He goes down. Fade to black.

Now it's done, right? No! Not yet. You still haven't picked up all the awards and trophies. You can piddle around in the world some more trying to clear out bandit camps that refill the next day or hunt some legendary bear in the mountains or other such nonsense.

In conclusion, Rockstar Games doesn't understand what an epilogue is, doesn't understand the narrative climax, doesn't understand the difference between redemption and revenge, doesn't understand and most certainly doesn't understand the American western genre.

I'll be playing "Undead Nightmare" next. Perhaps it will be less ham-handed libertarian propaganda, but I doubt it. The dead are rising from the graves to feast on the living? It's the government's fault. Those filthy Mexicans brought this trouble north. It's a Jewish plot.