Red Dead Redemption: The Outlaw

Whenever given the option in a videogame, I invariably bend toward the darkness. If I'm going to do good deeds I may as well save them for real life where it counts. When it comes to those digital denizens of the videogame world, with their strict and artificial rules, I like to have a little fun. When I got done with a recent six hour play session of Red Dead Redemption, the virtual world didn't know what hit it.

The way I see it, there are two types of behaviors in Red Dead Redemption – Rockstar's upcoming open-world Western -- that I would consider key to being a true outlaw. The first are the kind that will actually affect your morality rating in the game. Do good deeds, be the hero and save the day in general and you'll be seen as a hero. Kill innocents, break the law, and help out the villains and you'll be seen otherwise.

The second set of actions I'll get to in a little bit. These are the ones that go above and beyond Red Dead Redemption's laws -- the types of things that any person with bleak thoughts can dream up and perform in a sandbox like this.

Performing actions of the first type and driving down your morality rating is actually pretty easy and it won't take long before you're ready to paint the town red. The game opens with a train ride into a small town named Armadillo and one of the first things you're greeted with is a woman of loose morals peddling her wares. Right off the bat, you can tell that this is the type of place where a person who knows how to use a gun can do as they please. After a brief introduction to set up the motivations of John Marston, you're given free rein to explore much of the world…and that means you're free to start causing a ruckus.

Unfortunately, you won't have many tools of destruction just yet, and you won't have a dollar to your name. Both of these are serious problems for a would-be bandit. You'll want to do a few story missions straight away to earn a few weapons, a lasso and some money. With the basics in tow, I set out to make my mark on the world.

I started out small. A few drinks at the saloon and a bar fight later, I stumbled out into the night looking for some easy money. I ran into an old crazy lady begging me to help her find a man named Peter, but that seemed like too much work so I shot her and moved on. And just like that, my honor meter went down by five points. It would take a few dozen more bullets to innocents to gain some real notoriety, but if there is one thing that Red Dead Redemption has it is a lot of innocents to toy with.

Take, for instance, the sorts of things you can do with a lasso. You gain this little tool during a mission that teaches you the ins and outs of breaking a wild horse, but you can aim the rope ring at people, too. I went to the saloon and found a prostitute, hog-tied her and then slung her over my shoulder to take for a ride. She didn't take too kindly to this treatment, screaming out obscenities like, "There are other ways to a girl's heart, you ass!" along the way. I responded by leaving her on a train track.

The most fun comes thanks to the epic animations Red Dead Redemption produces. Shooting or knifing people and animals invariably results in hilarity. During my travels I did everything from uppercutting a cow with a bowie knife to killing so many lawmen as they entered a saloon that they were stumbling over their predecessor's body pile. You don't even have to kill anybody to have some fun. Just drawing your gun on an innocent walking down the road will startle them into a funny reaction. My favorite was a man sitting with his legs up on a table. When I trained my sights on him he fell over backwards into a piano.