Red Dead Revolver (PS2)

Red Dead Revolver draws its inspiration from the spaghetti western films of Sergio Leone, particularly the ones that starred Clint Eastwood as that nameless stranger you can't help but cheer on. While the story sounds good enough, it takes a backseat to the game's third-person action. The game starts the tale from the beginning and, as a young Red, you get a feel of how your characters control. As Red helps his father out against the bandits, gamers go through a tutorial that teaches the basic shooting elements. Red can run, jump and punch but this is a gunslinger game so it is all about gunfights. In order to bring your enemy down, Red must draw his gun from his holster with the L1 button, hold it and then fire with the R1 button.The game also features a Max Payne-styled Bullet Time feature known as Dead Eye. It's a tricky manoeuver to master but the game does allow you to practice it during the few tutorials. The second option is the Duel. Duels are somewhat complicated to master since they require you to perform a short series of control movements. Both the Dead Eye feature and the Duels work well but they would have been so much better had the character moved less rigidly. Using Max Payne as an example, Max targeting might take some getting use to but at least he moves smoothly and interacts with is environment. Red, on the other hand, is only limited to sticking his back to the wall Solid Snake-style.

If you love westerns buy, if you don't a weekend rental won't be a waste of a few quid.