Red Dead Redemption: completed!

While looking for beaver furs in the Northern regions, I noticed a new stranger mission open in Blackwater.  I met a government man who told me that Edgar Ross was living in a shack overlooking a lake.  Suddenly the lack of a previous ending made sense.  Don't read if you've not played ...

On reflection, I think the original 'ending' of Red dead Redemption is one of the best I've seen in a game.  The game makes you care about the character, giving you hope for him in the future, before having it all taken away.  It's brutal, made more so by the last few missions in the game giving you the opportunity to remove yourself from killing.

What's more brutal though is the way in which you feel once you're given control of Jack.  Despite his keenness for Jack to accompany him on hunts and protecting the farm, you get the feeling that John wants Jack to grow up sheltered from the world he once knew.  Jack's keen on reading, learning about the world.  However, once you've been given control of Jack three years on, standing over the graves of his father and mother, what you really want is to go and find the government to have revenge.  John's assassination turns Jack into what John was trying to avoid.

So I rode to the shack and saw his wife.  I rode to Mexico and met his brother.  I rode up the river and found Edgar, who killed me in the first duel because I was trying to shoot his weapon and arm, like I had in most other duels.  When I restarted I shot him four times in the head, because that's what Jack had become.  Then the credits rolled, and the game was properly over.

Well, apart from collecting a few herbs and helping someone kill himself by jumping over a cliff with a flimsy glider.

Great game.