Call of Juarez: Bound in Blood (PC) Review
Posted by Drew Robbins on 08.12.2009
A prequel to a forgotten 2007 title, is Call of Juarez a worthwhile adventure through the Wild West?
Title: Call of Juarez: Bound in Blood
Publisher: Ubisoft
Developer: Techland
Genre: First-Person Shooter
Players: 1 Player Offline, 12 Player Online
Rated: M for Mature
Let’s be blunt here, there are a lot, I mean a lot of Western movies. The genre is slowly trickling away in film, but the amount of classic westerns is just staggering. It’s a different story for games, as I can’t even name more than two western games. We have GUN, an oft-forgotten free-roaming western, and Custer’s Revenge which is…well I’ll just let you look that one up. Call of Juarez: Bound in Blood fills this void with a different take on the genre, now seen through the popular first-person perspective. You could be excused for forgetting that Call of Juarez is actually an established game, with the first game coming out two years ago. Nobody really remembered it, but if it’s anything like Bound in Blood, that’s a shame.
Gameplay
Bound in Blood tells a tale revolving around three brothers, Thomas, Ray, and William. Two of these brothers are total badasses, while the third brother is a bit on the weak side. As you can imagine, this puts you in control of the first two brothers, with the third brother merely used to narrate the story and serve as a compelling alternative to his significantly less likeable brothers. You can choose which of the other two you wish to control, with Thomas and Ray maintaining a different array of abilities. Thomas can lasso to reach higher platforms, climb higher ledges, and shoot more accurately with rifles. The other brother, Ray, can dual-wield pistols, be pulled up higher ledges, and waste tons of ammo due to his inability to zoom in while wielding two pistols. Clearly, the game has some balance issues, and you would certainly be better off playing as Thomas.
An ability that both brothers share is Concentration mode, which is based off of classic actions found commonly in western movies. Thomas does a Revolver Ocelot style move by downing several enemies with just one pistol, while Ray mows down the opposition with rapid shots from his dual-wielded pistols.
All of these unique abilities serve as an interesting change of pace to the typical FPS formula, and each of them works pretty well. Oddly enough, a lot of these moves are done by completing motions with the mouse that are fairly similar to something you might see on the Wii. Lassoing is done by spinning the mouse around, and in concentration mode as Thomas you have to pull back the mouse and click to pull the trigger and shoot. I didn’t have a problem with this, but it did feel rather strange to be making motions at my computer desk.
Moving past the bells and whistles that make this game special among the FPS genre, the basic action in this game seems to have more in common with a stop-n-pop game like Time Crisis than it does with the run and gun style of Halo. Battles largely consist of moving in and out of cover, looking up, and shooting at still-standing AI characters. This style makes the game fairly easy, especially considering you have regenerating health akin to a game like Uncharted or Gears of War.
Boss battles, however, are handled a little differently. Upon approaching a boss character, you are launched into a quick-draw duel. At this point you have to move left and right to focus better on your opponent, controlling your hand with the mouse to keep it fairly close to your pistol without touching it. This sounds all fine and good, but the actual control mechanism for keeping your hand close to your gun is clunky and extremely frustrating. Your character’s arm drifts away from the holster slowly every second, and keeping it close to the pistol just turns into a pain in the neck, because if you aren’t right next to that gun, you have almost no chance of coming out victorious in the duel. Bosses range from mildly annoying to ridiculously unfair. While being a good alternative to shooting one guy hundreds of time, shootouts could use a bit of polishing to make it an acceptable replacement.
Once the story wraps up a multiplayer mode is there to tack on a few extra hours of playtime. Appropriately titled “Wild West Legends,” the best mode of multiplayer sends you through great moments in the Wild West through different scenarios and several classes. One moment you can be breaking into a prison as a group of bandits, only to be protecting a bank the next moment. Matches are restricted to twelve players a piece, meaning the games never get particularly out of hand, and making it slightly less enjoyable. If your game isn’t full, more time will be spent looking for a sparse number of enemies and less on the fun objectives laid out in front of you.
Bound in Blood’s other modes are a standard bunch, with the typical offering of death match, but the real appeal lies within the objective based combat of Wild West Legends. When not playing that mode, you’ll find little reason to stick with this game with the plenty of other options available to you in the genre.
Graphics
Juarez is a visually impressive piece right from the get-go. Within moments of booting up the single player, you are running through trenches as a tree falls on top of you, instantly convincing me of the game’s graphical prowess. The western setting does a lot for the game, allowing it to stick out among the typical bunch of shooters that take place in space or overly brown masses of land.
Fault can be found, though, in the game’s lip-syncing. Comparisons could be made to an old Star Fox game, where the mouth makes the same movement each time regardless of what words are coming out of the character’s mouth. It looks a little strange seeing such a flaw in a game that is otherwise beautiful.
Sound
While on the subject of lip-synching, I’d be foolish not to mention the voice-acting. In a word, it’s terrible. A few characters stand out as being particularly well-done, but many characters fail to put any emotion or impact into their speaking. And really, how many times have we seen a Hispanic character represented with the bad Antonio Banderas impersonation now?
In complete contrast is the soundtrack, a fitting blend of music that fits with the setting and never manages to make a nuisance of itself. Most games fail to get down the subtlety of classic film soundtracks, but luckily Juarez gets it partially right. None of the tracks are truly in your face playing constantly, and it often melds so well that you hardly even notice it playing.
Lasting Appeal
It should take a good five hours to blast through the single-player campaign, leaving plenty of room for the multiplayer to expand on the experience. Sadly, the multiplayer isn’t much of a focal point and will probably only serve as a minor distraction when compared to the monstrous multiplayer of a game such as Call of Duty or Halo.
Fun Factor
Combining interesting stop-n-pop action with unique elements of platforming and gunplay, I had a blast playing Call of Juarez. Few moments in the game felt too slow paced or boring, providing five hours of constant fun. Even the multiplayer was enjoyable to an extent.
The 411
Being in the fairly unexploited western genre, Juarez sticks out from the stale pack of run of the mill games taking place in a generic fantasy setting or some global conflict. Combining a compelling tale of revenge with well executed stop-n-pop gunplay makes Bound in Blood a game that I can safely recommend to most gamers. At $60, it is a rather competent package, but don’t expect to be playing this game for months to come.
Graphics
9.0
Great looking environments are only hampered by horrendous lip-synching.
Gameplay
8.0
Though filled with great stop-n-pop action, the shootouts are frustrating while the regular AI is far too easy to best.
Sound
8.5
A decent soundtrack melds well with the action, but the voice acting could use a lot of work.
Lasting Appeal
6.5
The story only last five hours. The multiplayer is nice but its only a small distraction.
Fun Factor
9.0
Enjoyable all the way through the five hour story, few dull moments intervene in the action.
