Red Dead Redemption is a big leap from the original Red Dead Revolver, and is insanely epic.
The format of the game ought to be familiar to anyone who is a fan of Grand Theft Auto (GTA). You have to start out at the bottom of the chain of information and get passed along doing missions and helping out various characters in order to progress and eventually find more information about the people you are after. There is a nice variation of missions, it isn't just the same thing over and over again. There are also strangers you encounter throughout the world who give you little side missions that generally take some time to complete. That is, you might have to check back in in a few days to see what's up, or gather things that might not all be available yet, etc... I found their approach to this to be fairly unique, and the little stories that are the stranger missions are fairly interesting, or at least mildly amusing, and add a neat element to the game.
The world is pretty huge, and two more sections of the map eventually open up as you progress, just like in GTA. Other than missions, there are a few mini games such as poker, blackjack, liar's dice, arm wrestling, etc..., and jobs you can do at different locations (either breaking horses, or night watch jobs). You ride a horse to get around for the most part, and you can go out into the wilderness and lasso and then break another horse through a little minigame if you so choose. Once you have broken a new type of horse you can go to a general store and buy the deed for that breed and then you can spawn another one if yours dies, which is convenient. Another thing that is convenient is that you can whistle for your horse and it will come when it is called, which is pretty cool. You can also drive stagecoaches and various wagons and carts if you so choose, and have epic cart/whatever wrecks (horses don't crash too easily, although they do die if you fall off a big enough cliff). One of the funnest parts of Red Dead Redemption is just riding around shooting things, especially since the Dead Eye targeting idea from the original game has been implemented in this and it makes shooting things pretty easy and epic. There is literally a plethora of animals to that you can shoot, skin, and then sell their various parts in town and make yourself lots of virtual cash (just prepare yourself to hear Marston state, "This is dirty", "This one's messy", etc... over and over again during the skinning cutscenes). You also have to watch out for predators, even when you are on your horse, because some of them can take out your horse with one attack, if you aren't careful. Thankfully, the predators aren't too hard to kill, especially if you have plenty of Dead Eye left (it drains as you use it). You can also shoot people and cause problems and get the Marshal's after you, similar to how GTA works, but I don't know if they are quite as fun to mess with in this as they are in GTA, since all they can really do is ride their horses at you. It's still pretty amusing for a time though. You can also clear gang hideouts repeatedly, if you're into that, and replay missions to try to get a better score. There's probably more stuff to do that I'm leaving out, but that's surely enough to illustrate that there's a lot to do.
The graphics in Red Dead Redemption are really good, considering it is an open world game, it's like a slight improvement on GTA IV graphics plus they don't have to make all those buildings and everything, so that probably helps some. The environments are gorgeous and you can see for miles if you are on high ground, which is really neat. The characters look great, although some characters could arguably use a little more polish, it's nothing terrible. The AI of the people wandering around is about the same as GTA IV's and they still tip over a little too easily. The sound in this game is amazing, everything sounds great on surround sound, it even confused my dog a few times. There are also a few turning points in the game where they played an actual song, with singing, instead of just normal background music, which I found to be a really cool addition, and I feel it did a great job of projecting the feeling of starting the next leg of the journey.
The online multiplayer mode is awesome. You basically have free roam of the map, but with other people also roaming the map. You generally have to shoot people when you first see them or else you will end up getting shot, and that can get annoying, but you can also posse up with other players and have some safety in numbers. There are a few online matches you can join in most of the towns, or you can just roam around shooting people, building up huge bounties, or clearing the gang hideouts from the single player with friends. When you play the multiplayer mode, you unlock different character skins, titles, weapons, horses, etc... as you level up. Also, Rockstar Games made their Social Club website, where, if you join, you get community challenges and some bonus stuff for the game, that, once your account is linked, appears in the games pause menu. Which is convenient since you don't have to check in on the website all the time, although the website is pretty snazzy.
So, basically, this game is great, so why did I only give it a 9.5 instead of a 10 like I would like to give it? That would be because, sadly, there were numerous glitches that occurred while I was playing. I don't want to go into specific detail on these glitches since they mostly occurred during missions, and I don't want to spoil the story for anyone, but suffice to say they were annoying. Additionally, the game froze up my 360 at least 3 times while I was playing through the story, causing me to have to restart my 360 and re-do the entire mission. I have also seen this happen twice when someone else was playing. Maybe I should have gotten it for the PS3, I don't know if it does any different on that system or not, but at least for the 360 version, which is what I am reviewing, there is sadly just a tad bit too much glitchiness for it to be considered perfect.