For years now, Rockstar Games has held the gold standard for open-world sandbox games. And with the recent release of Red Dead Redemption, they have most certainly set the bar to another all-time high.

The game is set in America’s semi-wild west at the end of the First World War and the beginning of the government’s attempt to expand and control. You mosey around in the shoes of John Marston, a former gang member who was just trying to make it as a family man before the government got all up in his business and blackmailed him into hunting down and bringing a former gang member to justice.

Like most Rockstar games, the story is amazing and fun to play, but its all the things you can do that isn’t the main story that makes this game so great. You can arm wrestle the local populace, attend the local cinema and watch a movie that shows the dangers of modern science, help random strangers you meet or just huff it into the wilderness and hunt yourself some ferocious animals.

There are literally not enough good things I can say about this game. The graphics are some of the best I’ve ever seen. The controls are sharp and precise. The story is sprawling and believable. And the game play is fun and engaging.

Possibly the absolute best thing about this game is how alive the world in the game feels. Heat shimmers off in the distance, tumbleweeds rolls lazily across the landscape; drunks stumble around town and yell obscenities at passerby. It is quite possibly the most realistic game-space I’ve ever seen

This review is so short simply because I don’t feel like wasting your time talking about all the things that are so great for there are too many, I can simply strongly recommend that you go out right now and buy this game. This is possibly the best game to come out this decade.

10 out of 10 stars.