Middleditch Littlebitch

Damn you, ShumShums!

If you’re not playing Red Dead Redemption you’re a damn fool. Frankly, if you haven’t dusted off your six shooters and saddled up on the greatest western video game ever made, well then I ain’t got no more to say to you than to a one-eyed crow. And you can take them words to the local tailor and have ‘em made into part of a suit for all I care.

That was a game reference. You gotta find them scraps!

What great voice acting in this game, am I right? Just all around fantastic. But then again, we are talking about Rockstar, and we are talking about Rockstar doing GTA in the wild west. And to reiterate, it is GTA in the wild west; something both good an bad, in that it’s a formula you’ve seen and therefore is predictable, but it’s also a damn good formula. Now I’m still chipping away at the singleplayer game, but I did get a chance to get online yesterday and the game has a lot to offer.

The options are crazy. There’s so much game there it could almost be sold as a seperate title. But they didn’t do that, thank heavens. I only played “free roam” where you can posse up with friends and take on other posses or, quite awesomely enough, do much of the stuff you can do in the singleplayer game — like pick flowers, murder whores, or raid NPC gang hideouts. This, of course, is so much more fun with actual friends.

Yesterday I joined a game with some fellow UCB’ers; the ones I remember being Neil Casey, Anthony Atamanuik, and the completely insane Gil Ozeri aka ShumShums. There were around eight of us, so my apologies if I’ve overlooked anyone. ShumShums was the main player in my eyes though, and more often in hilariously annoying ways.

First, just joining the posse was an immense feat for our tiny Gil. He didn’t even know where the Back button was. queue uproarious nerd laughter. Then he joined, and as we saddled up to dole out justice to some unlucky bandits he shot us all in the backs. We in turn shot him and murdered his donkey. Yeah, guy rode a donkey. As a result of said donkey, he was always late to our destinations, and always shouting things like “hey sweeties, can my dad play?” and other non sequiturs in order to pass the time. At one point, in and effort to HELP him, I shot and killed passing wagon drivers so we could arrive quite fashionably on horse and buggy. ShumShums took the reins and immediately without a moments hesitation drove us both off a cliff and into the river in which we drowned, cackling all the way.

“Damn you, ShumShums” was a phrase uttered by all that day.

But those little grievances are what make open world games and their experiences so great. The unexpected. And to Rockstar’s credit, those random and entertaining moments happen in the singleplayer game as well. Just recently, I was creeping up on some bandits in the ghost town of Tumbleweed, taking careful aim to sharpshoot an unsuspecting foe perched atop a roof when out of nowhere I was attacked from behind by a pack of wolves. Wolves!! They could’ve been coyotes, I’m not sure. There are so many things out to get you in that game it’s crazy, which is ok because it helps alleviate the guilt I would normally feel after I shoot and gut scores of hawks and deer and armadillos and skunks and anything else that dares cross my gun-smoking path.

Oddly enough, a special highlight for me is the soundtrack, which subtley seeps in and out of the game, and clearly draws influence from the great spaghetti westerns of the 60s and 70s. Just fantastic.

So what’re you waiting for?! You’ve got your wife and child to save, and a muderous wretch called Bill Williamson to hang. And you best get it done before high noon or you might wind up as sun crazy as that madman Seth, digging up graves over yonder hill for riches that ain’t there and a dream that long lost him before he even sought it out.

Yeeeeehaw!