(Gamespot) – Ordinarily, there’s very little warning about apocalyptic zombie outbreaks. However, Take-Two Interactive today provided this week a courteous “heads up” of such an event, letting Red Dead Redemption players know that the Undead Nightmare downloadable game pack would be hitting the Xbox Live Marketplace and PlayStation Store on October 26 for $9.99 (800 Microsoft points).

For those averse to digital distribution in all its forms, the publisher also announced Undead Nightmare, a stand-alone disc compiling all four announced Red Dead Redemption add-on packs: Undead Nightmare, Outlaws to the End, Legends and Killers, and Liars and Cheats. The retail collection will also include all previously released multiplayer free roam modes and won’t require a copy of the original Red Dead Redemption to play. When it arrives in stores, Undead Nightmare will sell for $30.

As the name implies, the Undead Nightmare Pack introduces zombies to the world of Red Dead Redemption with an entirely new single-player adventure. The storyline sees an undead plague sweep across the frontier, with protagonist John Marston charged with finding a cure. Additionally, it adds more animals to the game’s biosphere, new “dynamic events,” eight new zombie characters for use in multiplayer, and a new Undead Overrun cooperative mode.

Get your six shooter ready for some brain blasting! RDR Undead Nightmare Trailer!

From Rockstar.com:

“the Undead Nightmare Pack will feature an entirely new mostly single-player campaign that follows John Marston as he tries to find a cure for the highly infectious zombie plague that has spread across the frontier.

In addition to this epic new single-player adventure, the Undead Nightmare Pack also features brand new gameplay mechanics, weapons, zombie animals, mythical creatures and even a brand new secret location. All this, plus some exciting new multiplayer details and much more to be revealed very soon.”

Not sure how they will mesh this into the story line, without ruining the ending for people who have not played the game all the way through – it will be interesting to see if Rockstar’s writers try and shove a square peg through a round hole…but just in time for Halloween none the less.

Red Dead Redemption blazes in at a Busy Gamer 3

First Glance:

Play a rough and tumble cowboy in the final days of the Wild West. Shootouts in the street, breaking horses, bounty hunting, train robberies, pretty much whatever you can think of to do in a time when cars are just appearing in the world.

The Short Story:

You play as Marston, a former outlaw who is trying to walk the straight and narrow after having misspent his youth in a gang. Marston got out after being left for dead by his former compatriots and has eked out a living only to have his past return to haunt him. In order to set things straight and return to the life he has picked out, he must saddle up one last time and hunt down his former friends, not for revenge but to satisfy the government agents who have forced him to work for him.

The Score:

I don’t know that Rockstar believes in short games. The Single Player experience is phenomenal but is going to take a large chunk of your time if you want to fully enjoy it. The multiplayer, however, is very well put together and may be worth the price of admission on its own. The storyline is utterly engaging, the graphics are gorgeous, and the voice acting is stellar. But with so much to do in the single player, the Busy Gamer will have a hard time squeezing in single player time and staying on top of the learning curve. Quick games abound in multiplayer, however, and if you’re careful, you can squeeze in a decent play session with a limited amount of time. As such, Red Dead Redemption scores a 3 on the Busy Gamer scale.

Body of review:

I can’t say I know many people who played the first game in the Red Dead series, Red Dead Revolver. In fact, I know of only one person that can say they beat it. I didn’t feel the draw of the first game after renting it but after seeing the ads and videos of the gameplay for Red Dead Redemption, I was on board.

Forget the fact that this is the same company that brought you the Grand Theft Auto series. There’s very few similarities to this game and the GTA franchise. Yes, you have the choice of being a hero or a villain as you make your way through this rendition of the Wild West and instead of cars, you can steal horses. This is something completely different. (more…)

Red Dead Redemption outlawas have done some very bad things, well in New Austin and Mexico that is. GameSpy has been collecting data from players of Rockstar Games’ hit Western and the results are amazing.

12.6 million characters trampled by horses. 5,600 cumulative years spent in virtual jail. In just a few weeks after launch. Remeber that cow murdering spree you did awhile back? Yeah they counted that too.

The stats were pulled from gamers networked to Rockstar’s website via Rockstar Social Club, in which you can easily sign up on your XboX in a matter of minutes.

GameSpy team told Kotaku that “the numbers pulled from Red Dead have continued to skyrocket. Gamers have logged 3.6 billion minutes in the game. GameSpy works with Red Dead’s creators at Rockstar Games to track more than 1000 statistics from each of the game’s players. The companies use the statistics not just to wow gamers with nice infographics but to track playing patterns and learn how their games, and the elements within them, are being experienced by players.”

Click to see the full stats in bloody glory!

[Source]

Not sure if this is Gay Tony, let's take no chances...

Second and final Xbox 360-exclusive expansion will arrive two days before end of Take-Two’s fiscal year!

(Gamespot) – Two months ago, rumors of an Irish gangster-themed second expansion to Grand Theft Auto IV went up in flames with the announcement of The Ballad of Gay Tony. The game will prominently feature Anthony “Gay Tony” Prince, associate of the Ancelotti crime family in GTAIV. More specifically, it will follow his assistant, Luis Lopez, who popped up in the “Museum Piece” mission featured in both the original game and the first expansion, February’s The Lost and Damned.

Now, the second and final expansion, which concerns criminal intrigue in Liberty City’s high-end nightlife, has been definitively dated for October 29. It will be offered a la carte on Xbox Live for the price $19.99/MSP1,600 or at stores as part of the disc-based title Grand Theft Auto: Episodes From Liberty City. Retailing for $39.99, the latter bundles the Ballad of Gay Tony with the Lost and Damned and, interestingly, does not require the original GTAIV to play, as the downloadable expansions do.

Reports are saying that after the release of GTA expansion pack ‘The Lost and Damned’ that the amount of blood in the game is now being censored.

So less blood? Less sprays, no pools or trails left of the carnage that you just created? Seems kind of off beat for RockStar to backtrack some of the amount of gore in the game, and I’m almost a little bit offended that they did.

See the above footage of some before and after video from a German gamer, their is definitely a marked amount of change from ‘GTAIV’ and ‘The Lost and the Damned’ DLC pack. It’s also being discussed in countless forums, and the Gamespot discussions seem to be the most currently informed.

So will we see a ‘more gore’ patch soon? Or will we have to carry on our merry murderous rampages without the splashes and spurts that we are so very used to from the GTA franchise?

I vote for a fix. How dare you moderate our late night free play mayhem.

[Source]

-Crutchboy out