Red Dead Redemption

This is an outstanding game that tells a great story with memorable and occasionally laugh-out-loud-funny characters. Think about great moments that you remember from spaghetti Western movies, put them all into one 20- to 40-hour epic feature, and picture yourself in the starring role. Now you have some idea of what's waiting for you in 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.