I'm about 6 hours in an absolutely loving it. But one thing is kind of nagging me. I'm not sure if I'm entirely happy with my party vocations. I'm playing with a minstrel, priest, mage, and martial artist. It's still early yet, but my mage doesn't seem to be pulling her weight just yet.

What classes are you guys playing as? Any advice on which ones to go with?

I've been playing Red Dead Redemption off and on for the past month, work travel permitting. Here are my thoughts.

Red Dead Redemption is a great game. It's also an infuriating one, countering its stunning ambition with glaring design flaws and game-halting technical issues. You can easily make it 15 hours into the game before being introduced to a mechanic as basic as dueling, while other tutorials breeze by so quickly that you might miss them entirely. Beyond just a lack of proper explanation of its most core elements, Red Dead is also marred by a number of bugs and network problems. The game's multiplayer issues have been well-documented. I won't rustle that bee's nest. My problem is with the various and sundry bugs that have dragged down my single-player experience. On at least two occasions, I've failed a mission because my character reacted to the world geometry not by colliding with it, but by rocketing a hundred feet into the air and falling to his death in the most hilariously aggravating way possible. I also experienced multiple hard freezes on the "Mexican Caesar" train car mission, as if the game's opposition to steam-powered transportation ran so deep it simply had to protest my use of it--over and over and over.

Despite all this, I keep coming back to it. In a lot of ways, Red Dead is stunning in its soaring ambition. The diverse and sprawling game world is both beautiful and dangerous all at once. I can't count the number of times I've elected to avoid fast-traveling to the next mission simply because the time of the day or randomly-generated weather compelled me to take my sweet time and drink it all in. There's so much you can do out there, so many surprises in store. At one point I was beset by a group of bandits after falling for the old damsel-in-distress trick. I used my shiny new semi-automatic shotgun to quickly dispatch these thieves--it's hard to understate how great the guns feel--then hogtied the faux damsel and left her to die on a nearby train track. Then, in a delightful example of kharmic balance, a bear snuck up behind me and mauled me to death just prior to the train chugging by. I love that things like this can happen in a video game today.

Typical of Rockstar, the story is a tapestry woven with (mostly) believable characters each sporting their own unique foibles. For every cringeworthy racial stereotype like the Irish the lovable drunkard, there's a compelling figure like Landon Ricketts--someone who you don't know much about, but their terrific characterization makes you feel like they could write a book or three about their past sins. The central character, John Marston, is a great balance between that kind of swirling mystery and a more upfront form of traditional heroism. You know there's a lot you don't know about this guy, but it's not a flaw in the story. It's a device that lends gravity to his words and your decisions, those climactic moments when--no specific spoilers here--you're given the choice to shoot or walk away. In your mind, you concoct a past and a future to go with the present. Would killing this guy amount to catharsis or lost progress?

Still, it's hard to deny that the rigid story progression template that Rockstar has been sticking to since Grand Theft Auto III couldn't stand to be updated. Ultimately, you're still triggering cut scenes by walking up to a letter on a minimap. It's an antiquated process that feels like dropping a quarter into a soda machine for a nice, cold can of plot exposition. The sparse game world exposes another flaw in the GTA III template, as well. You can be out in the middle of nowhere and encounter a fellow traveler, the only two human beings for what seems like hundreds of miles. What are your options for interacting with this person? Hit B to doff your cap. That's it. This was less of an issue in Grand Theft Auto IV--anyone who's spent much time in New York knows that keeping your head low and avoiding strangers is a way of life in big cities. But in the old west frontier, trading survival tips and stories with those few souls you encountered on the long dusty trails was simply what you did. We need an update to the old ways of communicating with non-playable characters. Looking toward the future, if the story in the next Red Dead--and with five million in sales there will be a next one--sticks to the same template, it's going to be a real shame. Rockstar has proven how well it can craft wide-open game worlds filled with dynamic gameplay opportunities, now it needs to take a step forward with its storytelling. Relying on pieces of alphabet on a map to develop your protagonist just isn't going to cut it anymore.

All that being said, Red Dead is a thoroughly enjoyable game. There's no shortage of technical flaws, and there's also that ugly contrast between the ambitious scale of the world around you and a story that, while great in and of itself, unfolds in a way that feels aged and conservative. But there's a lot of fun to be had in what works, and most of it does. It's an entertaining game, it's a beautiful game, but it walks dangerously close to a chasm of heartbreak. I was hoping for more, but I'm satisfied with what's there.

Let's try something new. Rather than go with a long-winded recap of E3 this year, I'm going to check in to this blog throughout the workday today (up through 5pm Pacific) and try to answer as many E3 questions as possible. I'll be back tomorrow for cleanup duty if I don't answer your question today.

So fire away! Ask about the games, the show, the catered food at the GameSpot booth, or really just anything you can think of!

We're all heading down to E3 this weekend, so to give you a look at how the office is handling all that excitement, I took a camera around bugging everyone in sight. Enjoy! (Here's the larger version.)

Is it time to pack already?

By my math, E3 is a paltry 13 days from now. But that number is a malleable one. Before the show floor opens on Tuesday, there's a Monday utterly crammed from dawn to nightfall with press conference after press conference. 12 days if you count that. Going a bit further, Microsoft is staging a Natal-inspired Cirque Du Soleil "experience" on Sunday night. I don't know what to expect from this "experience" but you can probably tell that my use of quotes around "experience" suggests I'm scared to death of it. Make that 11 days.

I am, however, cautiously optimistic about this year's show. E3 2009 struck a decent balance between spectacle and sanity. The show floor was fun yet functional, and the press conferences managed to entertain in ways that you wouldn't necessarily expect. We also had an awesome stage show on the floor itself, and this year we'll be doing the same thing with a few extra surprises in store. (Hint: Live video in a backpack!)

Last year's stage show.

But the rumors I've heard suggest that this year's show is going to take the spectacle level up a few notches. I suppose it makes sense--last year was a cautious upgrade over the modest E3 2008, which itself was a few baby steps from the nearly non-existent E3 2007 in a Santa Monica airport hangar. Factor in the economic recovery currently underway and it makes sense that the industry will want to pump some more marketing dollars into the show. Personally, I'm kind of excited by this. I enjoyed the E3 show floor at the time last year, but it felt pretty tame a few months later. After I flew off to Germany for the inaugural Gamescom in Cologne, E3 seemed like a high school bake sale. In Cologne I saw this:

As well as this:

Yeah, I do kind of want to see a 10-foot tall Sackboy patrolling the halls, even though it's a lock that its haunting visage will torment my dreams for months to come. It's worth it. It's entertainment. E3 was fun last year, but it kind of lacked those crazy moments, those things that grab your eye as you walk from one appointment to the next. I'm curious to see what the show has in store this year, even if I am a little bit scared of how much I'll probably enjoy that ridiculous Cirque du Soleil performance.

I probably can't get away with writing about E3 without calling out a few games I'm specifically looking forward to. Gun to my head, I can probably name a definite few--Dead Space 2, The Last Guardian, the new Golden Sun--but the full list seems to be changing with every single day. Some days I'm excited to see more of the surprisingly promising Castlevania: Lord of Shadow, other days I feel like Civilization V might just be the game that gets me into the strategy genre. But really, I'm most looking forward to the game that comes completely out of left field. Last year it was Scribblenauts. This year? Who knows.

To further prepare myself, I recently watched my E3 2008 road trip video (see below). If you want to waste 18 minutes of your life seeing how Chris and Shaun while away the boredom of a Berkeley-to-Los Angeles car ride, this is your chance. You can see the rest of my past E3 videos here. I'll try to put a new one together before the end of next week.

I've been playing quite a bit of Skate 3, and like every game in the series thus far, my favorite part about it is simply roaming the city with no objectives in mind other than finding cool spots to make a video. The video editor is largely the same as before, but now you're able to drop obstacles into the world to create your own spots.This plywood ramp fail is a good example of that. You can also turn impossible gaps into safe landings by adding big ol' slides to help you land a massive air over the freeway. But if you'd rather stick to the road, you can have some bizarre fun there as well.

And finally, here's my favorite video. I was trying to fling myself from a rooftop and hit a pedestrian on the way down, but it didn't turn out that way. It turned out so, so much better.

Glaive Dragonz skateboarding: We make stupid videos so you don't have to. Oh, and pictures. Pictures too.

So, who's the lucky one?

Edit: Sorry, it's been claimed. Keep an eye on my twitter (twitter.com/smcinnis) for more keys today!

....Sony goes and announces live streaming major league baseball games on the PlayStation 3. Crap! Now I'm never gonna play Xbox again. Sorry, little guy. I have a problem. I have a problem and it's an irrational love for the Seattle Mariners. I mean, can you blame me? Look at this:

Sorry, Mario. Sony beat you to it.

As far as I'm concerned, you died when you abandoned the wondrously catchy name "Sub-Controller."

Just a friendly reminder that you'll have the chance to go up against the mighty GLAIVE DRAGONZ tonight during Community Game Night. On tonight's agenda is Battlefield: Bad Company 2. Jody and Kevin are on PC, Tom McShea is on PS3, and Chris and myself are on Xbox 360. It'll be going down 5-7pm Pacific Time. More info, check here.

In the meantime, a gift: