There are so many apt comparisons and analogies I’ve considered throwing at Red Dead Redemption, yet I seem to find myself repeatedly returning to one in particular.

Chances are that when you were a child, you pretended to be things that you were not — someone and somewhere exciting and spectacular. Red Dead, in many ways, feels like a modern-day realization of such childhood fantasies, a fulfillment of what the imagined “future” of video games often was for me, and may well have been for you. I don’t want to imply this in a hyperbolic sense. No, I mean simply that the way Red Dead Redemption allows and encourages immersing yourself in the nooks and crannies of its Western “world” often feels like the consummate you-are-in-this-place-and-it-is-yours sort of experience that I yearned for from games as a child.

I’ll refrain from using the phrase so many have used both seriously and casually to describe Red Dead Redemption. It shares many familiar characteristics, both good and bad, with the Grand Theft Auto franchise, but it’s a notch above it in so many ways.

If you were to put Redemption side by side with its predecessor, Red Dead Revolver, the drastic transformation from the latter to the former would be instantly apparent. Redemption has certainly been given the full Rockstar treatment: gone are the individual levels and the forced linearity, in is an explorable open-world environment a la GTA. The confining steel corridors of a city are gone, though, replaced with the wide open pureness of nature itself. Though Liberty City was nothing if not fantastically vibrant and detailed, the fact of the matter was that you were still in a city. By comparison, the vast landscape Redemption eschews that for has a wonderful, inescapable organic feeling to it. The level detail given to the urban jungle of GTA IV has now been applied to an entire Western territory, at an often mind-boggling level. The degree of variation among the multiple areas of the game, from snow-capped mountains down to a very Monument Valley-looking Mexico, adds further to the overall feeling of naturalness exuding from the environment.

Another valuable characteristic of nature: the silence. Aside from an occasional drone of music here and there (which is also quite good), there’s a genuine, palpable feeling of peacefulness when you’re out on your own, which is an unexpected blessing after the incessant distractions of GTA IV. As John Marston, you are no longer tethered by a cellphone to people and events while off-mission, which gives you opportunity to truly explore the environment without the constant nagging of society.

Don’t take that to mean there’s absolutely nothing going on out there. Though the landscape might be larger, it’s not emptier in the slightest. There’s a variety of random events, optional instances that take place in the environment around you. With the ability to pop up anywhere at anytime, these occurrences are an effective reminder of both the spontaneity and brutality of the world you inhabit. Exploration is emphasized to an extent even greater than in GTA IV, with “ambient challenges” centered around collecting and hunting in all corners of the map. In short, there’s plenty to do any time you feel inclined to break from the main story.

Narratively, Red Dead Redemption is magnificent, and not just by the standards of Rockstar. I felt so much more real emotional attachment towards John Marston than I have for any other video game protagonist, GTA or otherwise. He’s a purer character than Niko Bellic, and the game doesn’t compromise his development partway through. Like Niko, John has a singular goal burned into his mind, and will do almost anything to get it, but through the story he remains surprisingly stout in his principles. He is consistent in his politeness towards people that earn it, frank with those who need it, and relentless against those who wrongly harm him. He even vehemently refuses to bed with prostitutes, citing his devotion to his wife. I rarely, if ever, found myself intentionally hurting an innocent person or stealing a horse, which is a surprising first for a game of this nature and a testament to the effect Marston had on me as a character. Though there are points in the story where he nearly falls into some Niko-esque morality pitfalls, he never stoops to the level of a ruthless killer. He is truly repentant for that part of his past, and this in turn makes him a humbled and driven character. The final act works to reinforce his character before delivering an unexpected emotional punch to the gut that impacted me in a way no game, or other work of art, has done before. If you haven’t had the ending spoiled for you and have yet to finish the game, for the love of God, please do so. Additionally, the way Rockstar handles the ability to continue playing post-ending is a twist of its own, and carries more narrative significance than you may initially realize. Red Dead also includes a few subtle nods to the inevitable encroachment of the government and the end of the West, but it’s John Marston’s journey for redemption that’ll move you deeply.

All tugged heartstrings aside, this game is set in the Old West, and that means there’s shooting galore. Fortunately, like many of its other components, Red Dead adopts the basic shooting mechanics of GTA IV and refines them to a point where combat is less a difficult chore and more a comfortable occurrence. The inclusion of a radial menu for weapon selection makes switching guns on the fly far more seamless than before.The cover system, a near-verbatim rip of GTA IV’s, is just as handy as it ever was, and now also more entertaining. The Dead-Eye slow-motion ability is quite fun and befitting of a gunslinger without making combat overly easy. Shooting while riding your horse is far more natural than it initially appears, as your horse will automatically steer to a certain degree, and a nifty snap-to auto aiming feature makes switching from target to target a breeze.

Unlike a vehicle in any other open world game, a special bond is formed between you and your equine companion. Ride him more, and he’ll reward your allegiance over time with increased endurance. Besides looking great, your horse controls like an actual animal; he’s not a car, he has his own agenda and sometimes needs a little coaxing to get moving. It’s actually to your benefit to stay with one horse as much as you can; again, whether due to the added benefits of this man-horse relationship or some deeper respect for John Marston as a character, to my knowledge I never thieved a horse from anyone (who didn’t deserve it).

The mission structure in Red Dead is nearly identical to any previous GTA game: you’ll go to one person, do a couple missions and proceed to the next person, always just a few step behind your goal. Though an occasional contextual shakeup keeps these missions from seeming repetitive, in actuality they really are, again in the style of GTA. It’s a little unfortunate that this formula is still being applied, but not completely awful or unexpected.

The multiplayer aspect of Red Dead, while also quite similar to that of GTA IV, already seems to be heading in a much better direction. While the old standbys like team deathmatch are still around, albeit with several clever tricks, the best experiences I’ve had thus far have come from the cooperative missions. With four different classes to choose from, a variety of missions and objectives, in-mission challenges and medals, and a newly-released free DLC pack, co-op has at the very least taken up most of my multiplayer time. Rockstar doesn’t appear to be done yet either.

A few years ago, people had begun to doubt whether Red Dead Redemption would actually ever come out. A lot of time was put into the creation of this game, and the quality is evident in every aspect. I don’t normally use the word masterpiece, and I won’t here either, but what Red Dead Redemption has ended up being is pretty darn close.

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Things We Liked: The triumphant story. A dynamic, captivating world. Refined combat mechanics. Riding a horse into the sunset/under the starry sky/anywhere.

Things We Disliked: Falls into the Grand Theft Auto mission rut. Story briefly stagnates near the halfway point. Can be a bit glitchy at times.

Target Audience: People in search of a fantastic, mature story. Open-world game junkies. Anyone with an Xbox 360 or PS3, really.

(Red Dead Redemption – Developers: Rockstar San Diego. Publisher: Rockstar Games. Available on PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 – PlayStation 3 version reviewed. Unfamiliar with CFD!’s review system? Read our newly revised explanation here.)