Developers employ many tricks to immerse a player into their world. An exotic art direction is a fine place to start. Mario and Luigi do not jump up and down in a modern setting. They go through exotic ice levels, fire levels, water levels, air levels, all throughout the mushroom kingdom. Other games may push the player towards a more realistic approach. For example, take the world of Final Fight. Metro City mirrors an American city with its abundance of gang members and its wrestling mayor, Jesse "The Body" Ventura Mike Haggar.

While Super Mario and Final Fight perform a serviceable job immersing a player into the Mushroom Kingdom or Metro City, they can not hold a candle to Red Dead Redemption. The amount of detail put into New Austin is amazing. The game does not simply transport the player into the Wild Wild West, it does so much more. It was as if Rockstar took out Will Smith, the cyberpunk machinery, and all the bad. Then, in their place, the developers inserted an awesome desert world.

You are probably thinking, "Traveling through a wasteland would not be any fun." After all, a desert is an empty lot devoid of any life. Well, that assertion could not be any further from the truth. It is quite the opposite. At any given moment, coyotes would stop chasing roadrunners and attack you. Strangers may appear to give you side missions. Random events occur all throughout the desert. I would frequently run into victims of theft, wildlife, helpless sheriffs, violent bandits, swindlers, and countless individuals. While some may require your aid, others may be there just to tell a story. When the player is surrounded by so much emptiness, these moments create the illusion of a living, breathing world.

With such a fantastic environment, one would expect the narrative to be epic. Unfortunately, the story does not captivate the player's full attention. To put it bluntly, John Marston, the main character, is errand boy. His mission is to stop an outlaw, who happens to be his former friend. How does he go about performing his duty? By performing menial tasks for other people. For the first three hours, I thought nothing of it. As time went on, I grew weary of being just an errand boy. Most of the story sequences are constructed in a simple pattern:

• NPC: First, I'll make an awkward introduction. Next, I'll address you, John Martson.
• John Martson: Oh, snap. That was awkward. Hey partner, I got something that needs doing.
• NPC: If you help me a few times, I'll help you.
• John: Ok, partner.

How could this awesome world have such a poor narrative? When I'm traveling through the desert, with all the randomness occurring, the main character feels like he ought to be in a spaghetti western. When I'm watching the story sequences, the main character feels like he ought to be in Animal Crossing working off his debt.

By far, the narrative is the game's weakest link. But thankfully, the game play manages to cover up the holes left by the story. The tasks, the main character undertakes, are much more engaging. Escorting an NPC to a town may not sound like an epic journey, but bloodthirsty bandits will always make the trip interesting. Even when the main character embarks towards a destination, the world will make that trip exciting. Imagine riding towards a town, but along the way some prisoners have escaped the local sheriffs. Or how about a woman and her gang trying to swindle the main character. These instances enhance the game play of Red Dead Redemption.

Playing as John Martson is entertaining, but controlling John Martson is a different story. Most of the controls are very clunky and unintuitive. For example, let us examine the horse. One would think to copy the Ocarina of Time's horse riding system, but Rockstar decided to try it on their own. What they made was a messy way to ride. To move is to use the left analog stick. To move FAST, the player has to press and hold the X button. To stop, the player has to press the R1 button. They assigned two functions to two different buttons. What would have been better was to assign those two functions to the ONE button that controlled the movement. Unfortunately, the only design aspect that was borrowed from Ocarina of Time was stamina and speed bursts, which, oddly enough, improved upon the design by adding a meter.

Another aspect of clunky control is combat. Manual aiming is slow, but thankfully there is an auto aim function built into the game. Directing the camera towards an enemy will initiate the lock on feature, but only if the camera is facing the enemy. This feature eases the difficulty of pointing the slow cursor. However, when riding, the auto aim is almost useless. While on horseback, enemies come from all directions. Aiming the camera and riding the horse is just like texting and driving. You SHOULD NOT be doing both at the same time. You might end up dead. As a remedy to this, Rockstar added bullet time Dead Eye to help the player do many things at once. For example, the player can take out multiple enemies in one motion. Another example would be riding on horseback and taking out enemies on both sides of the player. Performing those tasks in real time would be an arduous task, but thankfully the Dead Eye eases that burden.

Other than the lackluster narrative and the clunky controls, Red Dead Redemption would appear to have no other blemishes. However, that assertion is wrong. Throughout the single player campaign there are flashes of brilliance which makes the world seem alive. However, there are bugs that diminish Red Dead Redemption's luster.

So far, I had to deal with two game-ending glitches during my single player campaign. There was one bug that brought a smile to my face. My character would stay in his standing animation after skinning an animal. He would glide as if the ground were frozen instead of the character. He even shot his gun with his arms down, which looked awkwardly funny. But little did I know, that was a precursor to one of my game ending freezes. "Bandits robbed a bank? I'll help you, sheriff! As soon as I could move, I'll wipe out all the outla -- oh wait, I'm not moving. I'm frozen." Hurray! Restart time!

It is a shame that Red Dead Redemption was not polished enough to be perfect. Rockstar's world of New Austin is fantastic, but even that can not bring the game to true greatness. The narrative is simply too boring, the controls are clunky, and glitches come creeping up. The game is like that awesome car you got a deal on, but later on, you find out it is a gas guzzler.

While playing Red Dead Redemption, I was sullen by how much this game can be improved  with a few adjustments. But then again, I had that thought at 3:00 AM. As I went to sleep, I had realized, "This game was fun enough to play all day. Why am I complaining?" I could focus on all the negative aspects of Red Dead Redemption, but, in the end, I would still play the game. As I said before, the game is like a gas guzzler. However, you still got a great deal and the car will still take you places. I recommend adding Red Dead Redemption to anyone's collection. The game may not be perfect, but it will entertain.