7. Red Dead Redemption
Warning: Spoilers below The GTA stories are fine and everything; classic rags-to-riches tales that rigidly follow the American Dream story formula. But Red Dead Redemption wasn't afraid to break away from that, following the tale of a man who truly wanted to get away, but was sucked back into a world of crime in which he had nothing to gain but survival. John Marston never makes hundreds of thousands of dollars (what would he spend it on in the barren old west anyway?), nor is he a particularly sharp-witted fella who thrives on trash-talking. He's just a man who wanted to retire into the simple life, and as the story develops you feel like he's being torn further and further away from his goal, giving the plot the feel of an unfolding tragedy, rather than a typical 'rise to the top' tale. The shock ending to Marston's tale - in which he gets gunned down in a last stand outside his barn - left many gamers upset and fuming, and yet it was in many ways the most fitting ending possible. In many games, particularly Rockstar's, characters pretty much achieve success through mass murder. Yet Marston doesn't seek success, only the titular redemption, and the game wonderfully throws the idea that he could do it through violence back in our faces; maybe the only way he could get redemption was through death? It feels very fatalistic, and kind of beautiful because of it.
Buy Red Dead Redemption