Red Dead Revolver

About a year ago, my friend gave me his old Xbox since he no longer used it. I was excited about getting the system, so as soon as I could, I went to Play N Trade to find some games to start my collection. Among the games I saw was Red Dead Revolver, being sold for the low price of $1.99 despite the disc having no apparent damage. I had played this game at another friend's house before and really liked it, so of course I was very pleased with what I had found. I payed for the game and headed home ready to get gaming.

The game started with the usual loading screen and music that I had seen before, and the words "Press Start" appeared at the bottom of the screen. I pressed start and selected story mode, starting a new game. The game began as usual, with Red's father giving him the gun and instructing him to shoot at the pots and pans hanging on the fence, but the voice sounded a bit deeper than I remembered, and more ominous, as if he knew tragedy were about to strike. I shrugged this off and made my way down the path to the pots and pans. I shot at them as usual, then the cutscene started where Falling Star says her normally quite humorous line "What are you doing to my pots and pans?" except she sounded more panicked and angry than annoyed. Her face was contorted into an angry expression, and her hand started to move back to her bow and arrow threateningly, which I did not remember being in the game before. Before Falling Star was able to grab her weapon, it switched to the part of the scene where the bandit's raid began, and the rest of the cutscene wrapped up as usual.

I started to fight the bandits with Red's father, but he seemed to have turned on me as well. Along with the bandits shooting at me, so was Red's father. Seeing as how you can't do any damage someone who is supposed to be fighting on your side, I wasn't able to kill him, so the entire time I was fighting the bandits, he was shooting at me, taking away health fast. I was able to dodge his shots somewhat until the bandits were all killed, and then the game seemed to go back to normal, at least until I boarded the train on the next mission.

On the train, instead of the other passengers sleeping or reading the newspaper as usual, they were slumped over in their seats, their skin unusually pale. Their eyes were gone, leaving empty sockets and dried blood on their faces. There were wounds in their torsos, some with broken arrows protruding from them. A few of the passengers had missing limbs, and there was shockingly realistic blood for the time smeared along the floor and windows of the train. Red seemed to have no problem with what he was seeing at first, then the camera angle switched on its own to show a closeup of Red's face. His eyes had a weird reddish-brown glow, like the color of dried blood, and his mouth was twisted into a rather sadistic looking smirk. The camera angle stayed that way for maybe three minutes, and despite my many attempts to change it, it was frozen with Red staring at me in an unsettling way. I was starting to feel uncomfortable at this point, but something in my mind prompted me to keep playing.

The usual cutscene before the quickdraw in the train compartment played as normal, and I killed the guy easily, moving on to the next part of the mission where you have to get to the front of the train. When I was about four cars from the front, I used my Deadeye to take out the two guys in front of me, then to my surprise, the game went to a cutscene that I did not remember being in the game.

The cutscene started with two of the bandits approaching Red, then pinning him down, and using ropes to tie his hands and feet together. Red was screaming in this horrible, pleading voice, desperately trying to fight them. They laughed cruelly and kicked him hard in the ribs, and an audible crack sound came through the speakers, as if they were right there in the room with you, breaking his bones. Red's screaming continued, then turned into frantic sobbing as one of the men took a knife from the sheath clipped to his boot. I couldn't believe what I was seeing. The man bent down, looking Red in the eye intensely for maybe 30 seconds before starting to sing some old folk song, which I cannot remember to this day. His harsh voice made the song feel like sandpaper was grating against your eardrums. The man began to cut Red's eyes out, grunting as he struggled to cut around the flesh. By this point, I wanted to turn off the console, but I just couldn't. Red's sobbing continued, becoming more and more pained every second. The man then proceeded to scalp Red, and then he looked past him, directly into my eyes. "You can't escape, Alice," he said maliciously, and when he said my name, the horror of what I was seeing really set in. I turned off the console immediately, breathing heavily for a moment, his words ringing in my ears. I sighed in relief that this awful scene was gone from my television, but the feeling that I was being watched remained. I still to this day feel as if though I'm being watched, and I am afraid to play that game again.

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