5. Red Dead Redemption
If You Like... The Good, the Bad and the Ugly, Django Unchained It's 1911, and the days of marauding gunslingers in the American West are quickly coming to a close. John Marston used to run with a wild bunch out in the deserts of the southwest, but now he wishes to start a new life. Marston has a family to protect from his criminal past, see, and to atone for his crimes he is forced to assist the federal government to bring down his former gang (or former "family," if you will). His odyssey takes him to confront the demons of his past and the uncertainty of an ever-changing modern world. Red Dead Redemption is essentially a Sergio Leone spaghetti western in digital form. Much like film noir, spaghetti westerns were tales of gray morality. They deconstructed the mythical romance of the American western and grounded them in a more gritty and realistic universe. Red Dead Redemption does the same by presenting the old west in a state of decline. The game examines what the old west represented and deconstructs it over the span of the storyline - it contains a depth that most movies and games lack in doing so. Visually, the game feels like the work of a seasoned cinematographer. The environments - such as the canyons - are rich with vibrant colors, and the whole game has a wonderful painterly water color look about it. Other environment are washed out and void of color, making them feel almost like black and white. It's clear that the creators were careful with color in the same way that filmmakers use colors to create an emotional effect. From a gameplay standpoint, Red Dead Redemption provides you many of the tropes one would expect from a western: smokey back-rooms in which to play poker, herding cattle across the land, and even duels with other gunslingers. Again, this an open world game, so exploration opens up more detail and fleshes out the overall narrative. Red Dead Redemption is an accomplished homage to the American west that feels unique and is a work of art in its own right.