Call of Juarez: Bound in Blood Review

Call of the Wild.

Techland’s new Call of Juarez prequel overcomes past flaws to become one of this summer’s sleepers.

Andrew Newman |

July 3, 2009

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The first thing I have to get out of the way is a confession. I admit it; I was really rooting for Call of Juarez: Bound in Blood to be good. The saga of the American West is in essence the Greek mythology of North America, and no historical era deserves a quality video game treatment more than this one. The age of gunslingers, train robbers, and law men has forever been ripe with exciting game possibilities, and it’s a shame that no one has done it to near perfection yet. So when Techland’s new offering arrived at the office I held a measured anticipation. Oh, how I pined for a game that could put me in the smoky duster of a hardened pistolero, with nothing but a good horse and a pair of Colt Single Action revolvers between me and the law man’s gallows. I dared hope that this game would be the one that finally got it right.

Of course, reviewing games is an exercise in subjugating likes, preferences, and hopes like these under the unbiased eye of a critic. So I talked myself into a healthy level of skepticism. “Don’t let this game break your heart,” I told myself. After all, this was only the prequel to one of the most decidedly average, underwhelming shooters of the early part of this console generation. No reason to get my hopes up.

So when I started up the new Call of Juarez I got out my list and began taking inventory - strengths on one side and flaws on the other. By the end of the first chapter, my list of criticisms filled about half a page. Things didn’t look good. The first level takes place during the American Civil War, and places one of the game’s two protagonists, a young Ray McCall, in the thick of a bloody trench battle. This segment largely consists of running in a fairly linear path through the Confederate earthworks and clearing out enemies in a manner that is oddly reminiscent of those shooting gallery games we all used to play at the pizza parlors. The list kept growing. Awkward animations, overwrought voice acting, moronic enemy AI, and long load times between the overly ubiquitous checkpoints – all of these began to unhinge my faith that I’d be playing the videogame equivalent to Unforgiven, or Tombstone if that’s more your style.

By the end of the second chapter, however, something happened. For starters, I began to notice how gorgeous the epic landscapes were in this game, despite some of the character animation problems. And then, the beautiful fog of war effects, the peripherally blurred gun focus as I looked down the barrel of my revolvers and rifle – all of this coupled with an exciting scripted event where the game requires you to sink a Union steamer with cannon fire, started to turn the tide. Despite the game’s issues, I was really enjoying myself. I found the tactical challenge of managing the antique weapons’ modest ammo capacity while taking out the gangs of sharp-shooting (though dumb) enemies to be quite compelling. The new story, which features the aforementioned Ray McCall, the Reverend from the original title, and his younger brother Thomas, both as playable characters, kept me entertained throughout. It’s nothing we haven’t seen in western films before, but it’s a nice change from alien invasions and superhero mush. That said, the game is a bit short – my play time clocked in at less than seven hours, though I felt that I played significantly longer, considering I died a great deal after I decided I could handle the hard difficulty. The differences in the play style and of the two lead characters may warrant an additional playthrough.

The game features many of the activities that we want to be able to do in a Wild West shooter, including high noon gunfights, ghost town shootouts, and escapes on horseback. I was disappointed that there wasn’t more robbing involved, as depraved as that sounds. In a game where you play outlaws, you’d expect to get to rob trains, stagecoaches, and banks, although the multiplayer component prominently features bank robbing in a fashion. Speaking of, multiplayer is quite solid this time around, with a class and level system in place as well as a wide variety of game types. Once I got into some matches without annoying spawn-campers about, I found the team-based games to be tense and exciting throughout. It may not replace your multiplayer shooter of choice, but it’s well worth playing around with.

Call of Juarez is a game that has learned from the past – many of the sins of the first game have been absolved, including those awful stealth and platforming segments. The focus is now where it should be – on the gunplay and keeping the action taut and sustained throughout the game. There is really only one unforgivable sin here, and unfortunately it keeps this flawed but good game from being an exceptional game. Of course, I’m talking about the lack of cooperative multiplayer. In a game where two characters fight side-by-side for basically the entire time, there is simply no excuse for this feature being missing. It even seems that some gameplay mechanics were designed for cooperative mode – specific instances where the brothers have to work together to progress in a level. The fact that you can play as one or the other, but not with both, is immensely disappointing to me. This could have been a coop experience to rival that of Resident Evil 5, and that’s not just hyperbole.

Techland and Ubisoft have delivered a solid, if not transcendent experience here. In most cases, a game is judged on how well it overcomes its flaws to become a rewarding and engaging experience. In that sense, Call of Juarez: Bound in Blood realized my hopes for it. If the modest length and technical hiccups aren’t deal breakers for you, this game comes recommended as one of the more pleasant surprises of the summer release schedule.