World War II shooters are a dime a dozen; in fact it’s plainly obvious at this point that we’re never going to actually win that war and while it’s unlikely that we’ll ever stop landing on the beaches of Normandy, another fantastic setting is slowly starting to get more airtime: The Wild West. With games like Red Dead Revolver, Dead Man’s Hand, and Gun, this underused backdrop is slowly starting to creep back into the forefront. The problem is that we’re all still waiting for the seminal Wild West game – you have to go back a decade to LucasArts’ Outlaws in order to find a relevant Western. Enter UbiSoft’s Call of Juarez, a game that doesn’t unseat Outlaws as the king of Western shooters, but it still manages to make its own mark.
In the game you play the role of the law-breaking Wild West caricature Billy Candle, and the Bible-thumping Reverend Ray. Each character has his own storyline and in fact their stories intertwine when Billy finds his mother and stepfather dead and Reverend Ray believes Billy killed them.
The graphics look sharp on an HDMI connection and the Western environment is spot-on and is especially immersive during the cutscenes. During live action, the frame rate stutters when you’re climbing rocks – sort of the way a dual layer DVD will pause. This happens a lot and is very noticeable. Looking at the scenery from afar is great—the grass blowing in the wind, etc.; however when you’re moving around and when you get up close it doesn’t look as sharp as it should. The audio sounds as if it was pulled out of a classic Western movie --it gives you the feeling that a duel could happen at any minute. (The good news is that they do, but more about that later). If you have ever seen the HBO series Deadwood then you have an idea of what to expect and why it earns its M rating. For example, in one of the early stages of the game you are greeted warmly by one of the local ladies of the night; this is definitely not a game for the kids. There’s also a bit of humor sprinkled throughout game – the dialog is very cheesy, but in an intentional “ha ha” sort of way. You know, the whole “let’s get the hombre” sort of thing.
The gameplay itself is a mixed bag. You aren’t just killing everyone around you as in a traditional FPS – you are also required to duel (fun) , ride a horse (not bad), shoot while riding a horse (difficult but really fun) and use some stealth tactics to avoid getting caught (could be fun…but not in this game). Call of Juarez also brings back a FPS favorite: crate moving! You’ll need to stack them to get to important areas of the game and it’s about time we see this very old school and incredibly innovative feature brought back to the shooter genre.
There are a total of fifteen “episodes,” and completing the game gives you three extra missions. Completing the missions takes roughly 20 hours and quite a bit of that time is spent replaying certain areas over and over again until you performed a task just right such as jumping across the ledge and not falling to your death. There’s no free roaming here, either. The game knows where you need to go and pretty much forces you to go there.
The times when you ride the horse are similar to the tank missions in Call of Duty – one stick moves the horse, and the other controls your aim for firing, so you could be shooting behind you while the horse is moving forward. There are other nice touches as well--for example, instead of a special “magical power”, Reverend Ray uses the power of the Bible and recites verses to spook out the bad guys. On the other hand, we have Billy, who can take about one shot before he dies, but he can use a whip and “move silently.” Using the Bible to freak people out is a lot more fun than using a whip to swing on trees.
The Duel Challenge is a separate game which is a test of accuracy and reflexes – you unlock characters by finishing episodes in the single player game – the more you unlock the more characters you can duel with. When dueling, you move the right stick down to draw and then move the stick up to aim, and the trigger to fire. It’s too bad that you cannot play the duel in split screen or even on Xbox Live; it’s strictly single player only.
The game is a jack of all trades but master of none – it’s amazing all the different elements packed into the design: fighting, dueling, boxing, horseback riding, as well as some platform goodies such as jumping and the always thrilling box stacking. The problem is that none of the modes really stands out and in fact the shooting is almost too easy. Aiming isn’t automatic but you’re given quite a bit of leeway when hitting a target. The “stealth” mode is rather silly – make one wrong move and everyone and their brother knows where you are and comes after you guns blazing.
