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By contrast, you can choose to read the last chapter of a book first, or to read every sentence in reverse order. Even in an “open-world” Rockstar game, you basically have to unlock the plot in the order ordained by the designers. Video games can actually be more restrictive of user freedom than other media.

Video games aren’t the only medium that offers you freedom, after all. (The marital status of one early character is revealed merely by the use of the word Miss.) As a result, when Marston did something I found unexpected-like burning down a peasant village at the behest of the Mexican army, or procuring young women for a corrupt colonel, or spitting on a man, or beating another one in the face-I found myself thinking, I didn’t realize he would do that, rather than, I wouldn’t have done that. The game assumes its players are smart, too, and that they’re paying attention.

While the writing in Red Dead Redemption is at times overly broad (the oversexed Mexican bandits who exclaim Andale! upon dying come to mind), it is also consistently smart, and the characterizations are surprisingly, and refreshingly, indirect. He’s a particular kind of man with a particular set of values-he respects women, he’s willing to kill but doesn’t do it lightly, he doesn’t like looting corpses for bullets and pocket change-that are revealed over time. Again and again, Red Dead Redemption persuaded me to follow its lead.