The trailer for Red Dead Redemption, Rockstar Games’ forthcoming sequel to 2004’s Red Dead Revolver, debuted today on IGN.com. Unlike it’s predecessor Red Dead Redemption will utilize the RAGE engine, previously used to power GTA IV, among others, and will be a sandbox-style game similar to GTA.

Let me put it another way: This will be Grand Theft Auto in the Wild Wild West. Given Rockstars’ excellent handling of GTA IV, the expectations are exceedingly high.

I played the first game, briefly, a few years back and was not impressed. Clunky game mechanics, an awkward “Duel-Mode”; but what really set the game back was the cliched narrative, corny to a fault. It had all the presence of a shooting gallery at the county fair. Billing itself as a “spaghetti western-style” game, Red Dead Revolver never managed to keep that promise, lacking the flair, the story, and the subtleties of the sub-genre. Listen, Western movies are EASY to screw up. Western games are no different. The temptation to go over the top is too strong.

So it’s nice to see that Red Dead Redemption apparently is a sequel in name only. The story is set at the beginning of the 20th century focusing on a man named John Marston, —”a notorious outlaw trying to survive life in the harsh frontier when the newly government-appointed Bureau of Investigation approaches him with a deadly ultimatum”.

I’m rabid in my devotion to Grand Theft Auto. I believe it’s the only video game series to ever successfully exceed the scope of its original conception. The name itself, “Grand Theft Auto” does its latest incarnation little justice, as the game, the world it creates and the story that it tells have grown bigger and better than its name implies and bear little resemblance to the games that came before it. Entertaining the prospect of playing a Western with the same production value, the same painstaking recreation of a time and place, the same lovingly-rendered narrative/dialogue has got me wishing summer was already over (Game releases fall ‘09. Hopefully). The trailer packs a wallop and leaves you with more questions than answers like a good trailer should. I’M PUMPED, PEOPLE.

Don’t like Westerns you say? Well keep it to yourself. I consider it a deep character flaw and I’m silently judging you when I hear those words coming out of your sweet, purtty mouth. Man up this summer with some good movies like The Wild Bunch and Lonesome Dove to get you in the mood and come out with your guns drawn this fall.

http://www.rockstargames.com/reddeadredemption/