Red Dead Redemption: Outlaws to the End

Or three, to be precise, as each of Outlaws to the End's six missions are playable with up to four team members. In fact, you'll have a far easier time of it if you do manage to secure a full set of companions, as the difficulty doesn't seem to scale according to your number. Indeed, there's an achievement for completing a mission with just two posse members, an admission of the difficulty of the task if ever there was one.

Checkpoints in missions are merely there to respawn a downed companion who bled out before you could heal them. If you both expire before reaching the next one, you'll need to start over from the beginning. Add to all this the fact that the AI shoots far sharper than elsewhere in the game, and the sheer numbers you're up against ensure that only fools rush in.

"Tom, get back inside the gates."

Ammunition, the fourth mission in the set. The Mexican Army has the town of Tesoro Azul under siege, and we're in it. Surrounding the town are ten, fifteen Gatling gun turret emplacements and beyond them, high up on the cliffs, angry clusters of enemy artillery squint down, measuring their trajectories as in a game of giant horseshoes.

A horn sounds and a cacophony of cannonball fire detonates. Bullets sting the air like wasp darts, pitting the stonework all around. The sky, a bruise of purple, is flecked with momentary streaks of red and yellow. A second later, the town gates groan on their hinges at the punch of air from a cannon ball's thud on the courtyard. The rubble is stacked as high as the odds against us. It's our twentieth attempt, at least. The atmosphere is tense. A Brokeback romance seems unlikely at this point.

"It's gonna be fine," he shouts. "I'll take cover behind that burning cannon."

"It's literally never fine. Get back inside the gates. Please. If you get shot, I'm not coming out there again. I..."

"Gah. They got me. You totally distracted me with all your bitching. Where's a horse to shoot when you need one. Um. Can you come get me? I'm just outside the gates. It's definitely safe."

This time, I'm playing as a soldier, the all-rounder whose Volcanic pistol is useful during the close-range first half of the battle, and whose mid-range rifle offers some hope of eliminating the Gatling gun operators should we make it to the hills. Tom is a Sniper, trading speed for headshot accuracy with his vintage scope. The Gunslinger class, touted for mid-range, seems less versatile than the Soldier, while the shotgun-wielding Miner has no hope in this scenario once outside the fortress gates. At least, we presume so. After each attempt, we blindly click through to play again: repetition is our strategy.

I make it to Tom and hammer the Y-button. The reviving pound my avatar performs on his chest looks curiously pure Modern Warfare, sans syringe. Tom rises to his feet, shaky.

"Right. Head for Eastern front. There don't seem to be any Gatling guns there yet," I command, emboldened with the power that comes from saving someone's virtual life. "Go, go, go."

"Um. Gimme a second... Never, Eat, Shredded, Wheat."