Red Dead Redemption Undead Nightmare reviewed on Xbox 360 by Harry Neary. Game supplied for review by Rockstar Games

Last month saw the release of the Undead Nightmare expansion for Red Dead Redemption - an entertaining and feature packed lump of content for owners of the epic western adventure. The download-only version featured the Undead Nightmare adventure only and required players to already own a copy of the original game.

This week sees the release of the retail disk version and as ever Rockstar Games is being rather generous with content. This disk release features all the premium multiplayer DLC released for Red Dead Redemption so far - that’s the Outlaws to the End Co-Op Mission Pack, the Legends and Killers Pack, the Liars and Cheats Pack and all the Multiplayer Free Roam modes released to date. Even better, the Undead Nightmare disk, unlike the download, doesn’t require the player to own the original game. Essentially what you have here is all the multiplayer and the expansion campaign - the only thing missing is the regular RDR single player game. I expect once you’ve played the content on this disk you’ll be itching to pick that up.

It’s testament to the brilliantly realised character of John Marston that he can be taken from his relatively sensible surroundings of Red Dead Redemption’s regular narrative and be set in the middle of this zombie-infested nonsense without too much loss of credibility. Marston is one of Rockstar Games’ finest creations - a character that isn’t reliant on the player’s lust for wrongdoing and instead a full developed character with a nobility and depth unusual in a videogame.

At the beginning of Undead Nightmare Marston is enjoying domestic bliss with his wife Abigail and son Jack. With little time wasted our hero’s family has become zombified and Martson must set out to rid the west of the zombie peril and find a cure to return his family to normal. Along the way the player meets familiar characters such as Professor Macdougal, Bonnie McFarlane and Nigel West-Dickens. Much of the expansion is taking up with helping survivors rid their towns and villages of zombies. But there are plot related missions too and one particularly entertaining one involves bigfoot.

During Undead Nightmare you’ll travel all over the game area engaging in missions and making choices about investigations to pursue. The difference to the regular RDR gameplay is the even present undead humans and wildlife. Regular firearms aren’t much good against the undead and you’re likely to run out of ammo rather quickly. Some better weapons are offered as the story continues and there are ways to get more ammo despite the lack of gunsmiths.

Undead Nightmare’s only real weak point - though it is a major one - is that the game’s combat system isn’t really geared up for fighting off crowds of undead. Guns work, but you’ll need headshots to ensure a quick kill. That’s all very well in the regular RDR when fighting bandits, but when you’ve hoards of the undead running at you the slower-paced third-person gunplay makes things rather difficult. You come to adapt over time, keeping out of the way of large crowds, using more successful weapons such as a flaming torch, but it’s still tricky. The truth is that RDR isn’t quite cut out for this kind of gameplay.

However thanks to brilliant storytelling and excellent missions the urge to persevere and continue the story remains. As your arsenal becomes more suited to dealing a more permanent death to the undead and your ammo worries decrease the game becomes more fun. While not an adventure on a par with The Ballad of Gay Tony from GTAIV, Rockstar has once again shown it really knows how to release premium quality DLC. One hopes we can look forward to another major expansion for Red Dead Redemption that makes better use of the game’s mechanics. As it stands though - given all the content on offer on the Disk - Undead Nightmare is a real bargain and one of the better claims for your cash running up to Christmas.