Red Dead Redemption

So yes, the action rocks bells. But I still can’t help but feel that, for me, it’s the less familiar elements that help to make Red Dead Redemption the best game of 2010 thus far. There’s an early mission where you have to herd cattle with your horse in the middle of a storm, and if you cock things up you’ll have to watch as the cows plunge over a cliff to their deaths. It’s very, very odd – and yet even this failure feels remarkably fresh. At other times it’s just the rich atmosphere that wins you over – a random encounter with a laudanum addicted girl in the wilderness, or even just the feeling you get as you ride across the land in the pissing rain.

To succeed where other Western games have failed, Red Dead Redemption deftly recreates a sandbox playground of a tumultuous historical period swept away by technological progress. The game perfectly captures the expansiveness of frontier life and the gritty gunplay of spaghetti westerns, rightfully earning its place alongside the great Western films and the best Rockstar games.

Red Dead Redemption is a must-play game. Rockstar has taken the Western to new heights and created one of the deepest, most fun, and most gorgeous games around. You can expect the occasional bug or visual hiccup, but you can also expect a fantastic game that offers the Western experience we've all been waiting for. Red Dead Redemption is a complete game in every sense -- both the single player and multiplayer modes are excellent -- and still manages to offer an attention to detail you rarely see from a game of this scope.