3. Red Dead Redemption (2010)
Red Dead Redemption isn't just the best Western game of all time, but one of the best video games full-stop. Playing as John Marston, you live through every Western fantasy that every red-blooded male has surely ever had, and all to a bitchin' original guitar score. In terms of environment design, characterisation and story, it's a work of art. If the Western is dead on film, it certainly hasn't died in the gaming world; if anything, it's only in the early stages. Red Dead Redemption also trumps Rockstar's other big open world game, GTA, in some departments: instead of a constant, lingering sense of nihilism, Red Dead Redemption has a soul, lamenting the lost simplicity of the Old West and with a conflicted protagonist torn between what's right and what's smart. Like a great, elegiac Peckinpah film, Red Dead Redemption is ruthless, darkly funny but not without moments of beauty.