Posts Tagged ‘call of juarez’
Call of Juarez: Bound In Blood Game Review–Good But Only In Isolation
I’ll admit up front today, folks, that I actually enjoyed Call of Juarez: Bound In Blood on the Xbox 360 for what it was–a surprisingly well-done, a surprisingly intuitive, first person shooter that brought plenty of action right from the word go, and a story that actually held my interest. But there are still problems to be had here, and we’ll get into those directly.
First, the plot itself. A prequel to the original Call of Juarez, this time we’re with the McCall brothers as they fight their way through Georgia at about the same time William Tecumseh Sherman began his infamous March to the Sea. With Georgia in slowly burning ruins, the McCalls, despite their spectacular valiance, aren’t able to repulse the invasion. It even gets personal when Sherman’s March takes the McCall family farm with it. Thus, two out of the three brothers McCall turn outlaw and go off to find the legendary gold of Juarez. Along the way, they’ll tackle a variety of enemies–an Apache connected to the gold, a Mexican bandit and his lovely concubine, and even the Confederate army they went AWOL from in otder to turn outlaw. The McCall brothers will thus launch a swath of lawlessness and destruction that will in turn leave its mark on the entirety of the old West forever.
I know, it sounds like an awesome story. And watching it unfold, it really IS an awesome story. But this is not where the aforementioned problems come into play. The problems themselves come in on the actual gameplay end of things.
The controls are solid enough–no real problem there–but the biggest problem is that Call of Juarez: Bound In Blood is so very limited. For instance, in the first level, you’re mostly crawling around in some trenches, trying to piece together where exactly you’re supposed to go. Sure, you’ve got a marker giving you some idea where to go, but it’s still tough to tell if you need to take this corner or that corner back there and go around the long way, if you get my drift.
I’m convinced that I’ve become somewhat spoiled by Fallout 3 as I wind up comparing every first person shooter I play to it. And sure enough, stacked up against an opening act like that, pretty much everything else will have to pale in comparison. There’s just no two ways about it–you can’t eat a porterhouse steak then go chow down on meatloaf and say it’s on par with the best beef ever. So what you have to do in response is take everything in isolation. By itself, Call of Juarez has a decent multiplayer mode with lots of options, plenty of wild action, lots of gunplay and explosivesplay and all the things that make a shooter game solidly entertaining. The graphics are at least fair, and the sound is solidly done.
And yet I still find myself somewhat let down, because I’ve seen what first person shooters actually can be. I’ve seen the kind of fun that can be had when you put someone behind the gun and let them roam wild and free over a huge map. Every maze-crawler, every railroad run, every point-a-to-point-b game that follows is just a sad, sorry imitation. Call of Juarez: Bound In Blood may be good enough for a play, but it’s definitely not as good as it could be.
Bound in Blood is bound with DLC
On VG247 is a small bit from Techland, who has announced via a press event that three pieces of downloadable content are coming for Call of Juarez: Bound in Blood.
There is no price point or date attached to them yet, though there are some details: the first two sets will contain multiplayer maps while the third is being designed for the single-player mode.
The content will be available on all versions of the game – PC, PS3 and Xbox 360.
Bound in Blood was released recently to favorable reviews. It is the sequel to 2007’s Call of Juarez which also received mostly positive reviews.
Call of Juarez: Bound in Blood debut trailer
Ubisoft has recently released the above trailer detailing the sequel to Call of Juarez, Call of Jaurez: Bound in Blood.
As you can see in the trailer, Bound in Blood will let the player take control of either of the McCall brothers as they battle it out in Mexico utilizing all sorts of Wild Western tactics.
Call of Juarez: Bound in Blood is currently under development by Techland and will be released for the Xbox 360, PS3, and PC sometime this year. Looks epic.
Call of Juarez Sequel Announced
The western first-person shooter Call of Juarez will get a sequel, publisher Ubisoft announced today. In development for PC, PS3 and Xbox 360, the sequel is dubbed Call of Juarez: Bound in Blood, and will take place before the original.
Techland, the original developer, is working on the game. Locations in the game will reportedly vary from a ravaged Civil War-era Georgia to the Aztec ruins of Mexico. The announcement also noted that players will be able to embody both McCall brothers across the story, hinting at a cooperative campaign.
The prequel is due out later this year on the aforementioned platforms.