The latest offering in the Call of Juarez franchise is a prequel. Which in itself is strange considering I wasn't really wondering how the first game happened. But hey, it doesn't really matter in the end. The McCalls; Ray and Thomas are out to shoot folks and get themselves some Aztec gold. And hey that sounds like fun to me.
Call of Juarez begins during the Civil War where you are forced to play Thomas because for some reason he was chosen as your focus character. I can't tell you why except that maybe some of his mechanics are unique so the developers thought that if you started with Thomas you would never switch to Ray. Which wasn't true for me, as I hated the whip mechanics from the first game and everyone will be happy to know that they haven't been improved much in the second. Wonderful... The story takes center stage in Call of Juarez and it is probably the best thing about the game on the whole. Which is kind of sad to say about a FPS. The story takes you from the Civil War right through into the days of the old west.
I have to make comment about the various on rails shooting sequences in the game. They are broken. The guns that you are shooting are usually VERY inaccurate and often don't portray very well the power of the actual weapon that it is supposed to be depicting. The Gatlin Gun that seems to make innumerable appearances in the game was a devastating weapon and would have easily torn anyone apart that got close to the gun. In some instances people and horses are simply hit as if they were being struck by rifle bullets. Not really what would have happened. Oh, and there were even instances where people were shot multiple times before they died, yeah that wouldn't have happened either. You were basically cut in half by the weapon, that was kind of the point.
This leads into another part of the game. I was really excited to be able to upgrade my guns. This is a part of many western style titles that I usually absolutely love. But in Call of Juarez, the only difference from one gun to the next is all about aesthetics. Perhaps the load time IS longer on the Volcano Gun versus the Ranger. But I really didn't notice when you were loading 12 bullets versus only 6. Sure it's going to take a little longer and you are going to load the bullets differently. But there was no REAL gameplay effect. Also, the guns are supposed to get more powerful and/or more accurate. This might be happening with rifles and shotguns. But my Ranger Prime bore no power or accuracy difference from my Volcano Prime; even though the latter was supposed to be one of the most powerful guns in the game. The latter guns, rifles, etc... Certainly looked cool, but that seemed like about all.
Also, the ridiculous mini-game style distractions in the game that all seemed to be bordering on broken were also nothing to redeem the title from a fountain mediocrity. Dropping explosive barrels from a great height and then telling me I have to shoot the guys dropping them. When in fact, I have to shoot all the barrels is kind of mean. I believe I had to restart about 4 times before realizing the game was actually lieing to me.
I did kind of like the shooting mechanics although I felt that your character moved MUCH too slowly. The game reminded me of the original Unreal where you had this big weapon and you were slowly moving down this hall and that hall. When you actually had to jump it was impossible to believe that this slow tank-like character would be able to make it. I guess that's why there is no platforming in Call of Juarez. Thank GOD for small favors. The areas of the game where they let you ride a horse were incredible, if there was anything they nailed in this game it was the riding and shooting. It was great, until they shoot your horse out from under you anyway.
The multiplayer which I was REALLY looking forward to, ended up to be a bad rip-off of Call of Duty Modern Warfare and Darkwatch! Each game wonderful in their own right but put together its like putting ice cream on a hamburger. It sucks! I did have fun for around 20 minutes but as the game went on I kept thinking about where I could get a copy of Darkwatch and if it would run on my XBOX 360 or not.
Perhaps they should have spent less money on having a multiplayer mode , as it didn't work that well in the first game and instead spend some money on character models and voice acting. For a game that was centered around a story the VERY WORST part of the game were the HORRIBLE character models. The best models in the game were the Mccalls who probably wouldn't win any beauty contests. But compared to the ugly group of cronies that populate this game they are gorgeous.
The above is the love interest in the game. She kind of looks like somebody from Left 4 Dead or one of the Romero vampire movies. I was wondering all throughout the game who the guy was who was left alone with the unreal editor over a weekend and got REALLY DRUNK and then made all these models. Then some how everyone said,
"Well they aren't THAT bad, and they look like so much work to do over again."
Can we patch these people with better skins or something? Its awful! The voice acting is hokey and probably they were going for spaghetti western style and I guess they achieved that but it doesn't do a lot to immerse the player in the world.
To wrap this up. I didn't mind playing through Call of Juarez Bound in Blood once. But if you had paid anywhere in the neighborhood of $60 for this game you would be REALLY unhappy. I did leave out a few more things I didn't like about the game, the duels for instance. But why beat a dead horse. Don't buy this game and if you REALLY NEED to find out the story and play through the game. Rent it. That's it, that's the best recommendation I can give this game. Oh and Ray is the best character to play as, no matter what anyone says. By the way, Darkwatch IS backwards compatible with the XBOX 360. Just in case you wanted to know.
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