Cowboy up with Red Dead Redemption's multiplayer modes

Honestly, Rockstar didn't even really need to do anything new with the multiplayer in Red Dead Redemption -- we would have been happy to simply see our childhood cowboy shoot-em-up battles reenacted in shiny HD. But it looks like they went ahead and surprised us anyway. As you can see in the new trailer above, every battle starts out with a Mexican standoff, with the winner getting a head start on the map. The reworked Dead Eye system is available in multiplayer, too, letting you paint targets and then unleash a hail of gunfire. And bringing in old-school cannons and a turncrank gatling gun is a nice, old (olde?) Western touch, too.

All of those tools are available across multiple modes, including normal and team deathmatch, and a few capture-the-flag variations based on bags of gold: Hold Your Own is standard CTF (on a large scale in some maps), Gold Rush gives multiple bags to chase around, and Grab the Bag has everyone going after just one. All of the modes grant progression across weapons challenges, with golden guns serving as the ultimate reward. And here we thought it was fun just chasing the other kids around the living room pointing our fingers at each other.