When Rockstar Games took the reins of Capcom’s wayward Red Dead Revolver back in 2002 it was clear that they could have used more time re-shoeing the title from an awkward Gun Smoke update to a title worthy of the highly respected Rockstar name. While Revolver is by no means worthy of Rockstar’s regret, Red Dead Redemption is a fitting title for an ambitious sequel that already looks set to eclipse its predecessor in every way possible. 

Reflecting the time period’s evolution from the lawless Wild West into an organised federally controlled country, Revolver’s linear gun-slinging third person shooter has matured into Redemption’s sprawling sandbox of opportunity, relaxing that itchy trigger-finger allowing the player to carve out their own destiny in this fascinating period of American history. “Our ambition was to capture the essence of the time,” says Rockstar’s PR Manager CJ Gibson.

John was using molotov cocktails before they were even called molotov cocktails.

Set a good half a century on from Revolver, Redemption follows reformed outlaw John Marston as his attempts to live an honest life are ruined when The Bureau (who would later become the FBI) issue him a horrifying ultimatum – he must once again pick up arms and wipe out the remaining members of his former gang. Rather than a simplistic tale of good versus evil, the boundaries of right and wrong are blown open, left for the player determine.

The game world promises to be one of the biggest Rockstar have ever created, consisting of three massive areas – New Austin, West Elizabeth and Nuevo Paraiso – each one representing varying stages of civilisation in the rapidly evolving West. Our adventure begins in the bustling Nuevo Paraiso to the South, just across the America/Mexico border. Here John observes a region on the cusp of civil war, leaving the player to choose how much involvement they want have with either side.

Last week’s spicy news nuggets laced with the bittersweet herbage of half-arsed cynicism.

Cast a leisurely eye over the last seven days and you could be forgiven for thinking that all consoles and PC were designed exclusively to run Modern Warfare 2, all retailers founded in order to sell it, and all of human life ejected from the womb in order to play it.

Yep, Infinity Ward’s megaload of a gigaton of a killer app is responsible for most of the headlines, with Gamestop labelling the game’s 11th November release the biggest entertainment launch of all time. Not all news is good news, though – digital download operators Direct2Drive, Impulse and GamerGate are refusing to stock the title over the mandatory inclusion of Valve’s Steamworks software. Infinity Ward was also obliged to pull its controversial “F.A.G.S.” trailer on Monday after much anti-homophobic uproar over the weekend, and to top things off the first pirate copies found their way internet-wards on Tuesday.

Outside the Call of Duty bubble, Gearbox’s Randy Pitchford won this week’s trash talk trophy by labeling Valve’s antipathy to the PS3 “childish and narrow-minded”, and Bungie’s launch of the Halo Waypoint Xbox Live hub was comprehensively overshadowed by the maybe-possibly leaking of Halo: Reach screens.

DICE followed up its popular adherence to the dedicated server model by announcing a PS3-only multiplayer beta for Bad Company 2 (fortunate news indeed for those of us who evidently can’t play it for shit), and Epic declared open season on Unreal Engine 3 dev kits.

The financial news desk is awash in doom and gloom, with Ubisoft, THQ, Konami and – yes – even Nintendo coughing up negative statistics of one kind or another. Still more upsettingly, Rockstar wants pictures of your facial hair for its rootin’-tootin’ open-worlder Red Dead Redemption. Form an orderly queue.

Enjoy the weekend.

“As if people buy CDs anymore!” This line, spoken by the eponymous Tony Prince in The Ballad of Gay Tony, seems ironic in light of the game’s inevitable release as a physical boxed product in addition to digital download through Xbox Live, and is also a good example of how unashamedly blunt and with-the-times some of the themes in Rockstar’s latest (and final) instalment in the GTA IV series is.

Where Niko’s adventures introduced mobile phones, text messaging and the Internet to the world of Grand Theft Auto, The Ballad of Gay Tony touches on newer trends like social networking and “Bleeting” (Tweeting!), as well as up-to-the-minute perspectives on modern, urban club culture.

I know you want me. You know I want you.

For me, the area in which Gay Tony far surpasses The Lost and Damned is in its balls-out extravagance and to-hell-with it premise. This being the final episode in the GTA IV saga, Rockstar has obviously said to itself, “fuck it – let’s give this the send-off it deserves” – and I have no doubt that fans will be in for a real treat.

We’ll start with the themes on offer. Where Lost and Damned was all about bikers, bikes, and low-level gang crime, The Ballad of Gay Tony takes us to the very top of Liberty City’s underworld where money’s no object and our new cast can pretty much do anything they like. Tony himself is a veteran of the clubbing scene, being the first businessman to own the best gay and straight clubs in the city.

Tony and Luis' friendship is behind many of the game's laughs

We’re introduced to Yusuf, a friend who appears to have literally billions of dollars at his disposal, whose only objectives for players throughout the game are to obtain only the most unobtainable objects of desire – golden helicopters and the like. Yusuf is a fantastically moronic, hilarious character, and a great poster for this episode in the way that the limitless available to him pave the way for some of the most ridiculous, irresponsible and darkly amusing behaviour (and perhaps the foulest language in the series to date) you could really wish for.

We’re also brought closer to one of our favourite characters from GTA IV, Brucie, and also meet his older brother for the first time – a character whose interaction with his sibling shows us an entirely different side to a character we thought we knew so well, and the dynamic between the pair is quite an amusing one.

But by far the best moments come from the friendship between Gay Tony and Luis Lopez – Tony’s right-hand-man and bodyguard, and the protagonist that you take control of as the player. There’s no visible sexual tension between the two and Tony isn’t really your stereotypical, over-top-top gay either. He’s got way too much on his plate to be worrying about his sex life these days – in fact, it’s Luis’ colourful sexual adventures all over town that Tony’s more concerned about – and the effect it has on Luis doing his job properly…

Everything about this episode is PIMP.

You can tell Rockstar’s writers have had an awful lot of fun penning the script for the Ballad of Gay Tony. Where Yusuf offers the kind of mindless bloke humour which I can just imagine Dan Houser pissed himself at as he scribbled, the subtler comedy is in Tony and Luis’ interactions, and shows that Ballad is not a one trick pony when it comes to putting a smile on your face. There are plenty of moments that’ll make fans laugh, which I won’t spoil in this review. And it’s not just the outrageous script that delivers on the humour; sometimes it’s the silliness of the missions, like one early mission that sees your entourage racing away from attackers — in stupid little golf carts. It’s certainly the funniest GTA to date, no question about it.