Help Wanted: Red Dead Redemption

Welcome to the inaugural Help Wanted, a program sponsored by the National Foundation for the Preservation of Old Videogames. Every week, I invite you to join me to play a game that’s been out for more than a month (i.e. it’s old). It could be any genre, on any platform, and it might not even be very good. The game will be announced on Monday. The playing will take place on Wednesday, hopefully with help from you. A write-up will be posted on Thursday, and I hope you’ll to share your impressions in the comments section if you joined us.

This week, join me at 6pm Pacific/9pm Eastern for Red Dead Redemption. No paid DLC is required, although you’ll want to download the Outlaws to the End co-op mission DLC, which is free. We’ll mess around in Free Roam, maybe take out some of the gang hideouts, and then try some of the co-op missions. Ideally, I’d like to beat all six co-op missions to unlock the advanced versions. After that, time allowing, we can repair to some head-to-head games. Later in the evening, I intend to try the co-op zombie mode from Undead Nightmares, which is paid DLC you should have if you own Red Dead Redemption. Undead Nightmares belongs up there with Dead Rising, Dead Island, Atom Zombie Smasher, and Space Pirates and Zombies for its canny ability to translate zombie lore into gameplay.

To join us on Wednesday night, send a message to the gamertag “tomchick” on Xbox Live and I’ll invite you into our free roam session. From there, we can form posses and split off into separate missions as needed. Hope to see you Wednesday, pardner*!

* I promise I won’t be talking like that over voice chat.