The Virtual Animal Kingdom

Playing through Brutal Legend recently (my second time), I was struck by a certain feature it shared with Red Dead Redemption: it's ecosystem. Other games have had peripheral animal life, sure, like Peter Jackson's (or Michel Ansel's, as the case may be) King Kong or Far Cry 2, but there's something different about seeing it in a third-person open-world game. King Kong used it as a gameplay mechanic, an organic puzzle system. Far Cry 2 simply couldn't not have wild animals, thanks to its setting. Open world games have been largely devoid of wildlife, though. Grand Theft Auto focused on the chaos of the city, offering only a couple pigeons as cannon fodder. Mercenaries replaced the cityscape with a warzone, leaving players little time to consider the lack of animal life.

Brutal Legend, too, features a warzone, but its landscapes are very much made to be gawked at. With environments as stunning as they are, one would easily, after minutes contemplating the origins of a Great Wall of amps, come to ask what the hell lived here. Instead of allowing players to find this hole, though, Double Fine filled it. The motorcycle-pigs known as Razorfire Boars, metal-face bear-like Trollusks, the laser-shooting panthers (aptly named Laser Panthers), all serve the lore of the land. There is little complexity to their actions; either they attack you or they don't, but their very presence adds depth to the universe, if not the gameplay.

Red Dead Redemption, like Brutal Legend, emphasizes its landscapes, as did the Westerns that it draws so much influence from. Unlike Brutal Legend, though, Red Dead is more concerned with its wide open plains than its 10-mile tall guitar sculptures. Like Far Cry 2, wildlife came into Red Dead out of necessity, but they could've easily stopped at horses. Instead, Rockstar chose to fill its deserts with every creature imaginable: squirrels, armadillos, beavers, rattlesnakes, multiple varieties of birds, dogs, cows, coyotes, deer, elk, boars, bison, bears, and of course, Ninja Cougars. In contrast to Brutal Legend, these animals interact with the world in natural ways; bears can be seen hunting deer in the north, armadillos will scurry away as horses thunder down the road, and vultures circle over fresh carcasses. While Brutal Legend's wildlife fleshes out its world, Red Dead's make its world breathe. Both serve their purpose wonderfully, but Red Dead has the nobler purpose.

Now somebody tell me why Jim Marston is the only child in a 100-mile radius.