Developer: Techland
Publisher: Ubisoft
RRP: £11.99 (Humblebundle and Steam)
Released: 22nd May 2013
Available on: Humblebundle and Steam
Played Using: Mouse and Keyboard
Approximate game length: 7 Hours
When I think about it I’m actually a little surprised there aren’t more games set in the wild west. Sure you have Red Dead Redemption and a few scattered titles here and there but when you contrast the number of games set in the wild west with the amount set during World War 2 its surprising how few there are. I mean, its a veritable gold mine of characters, locations, battles and dramas. The theory I have for the dearth of titles is that all the old cowboy movies have mentally saturated the general public consciousness….
Anyway I should probably get on with the review huh?
Call of Juarez is an FPS which, as you may have guess from the preamble, is set during the era of wild west. You take on the role of a bounty hunter by the name of ‘Greaves’ who is regaling the patrons of a saloon with tales of his adventures. Actually now that I think about it, what I just said isn’t strictly true, you don’t play Greaves. You play one of the listeners imagined version of Greaves. Why make that distinction? Well I’ll get to that later, but believe me, its important.
There are some light RPG elements to the game that allow you to increase Greaves abilities, most of which are tied to specific weapon types such as pistols, shotguns or rifles.
As is expected with any game that includes some RPG elements killing enemies grants experience points however doing so also fills a concentration bar.
Once filled the bar can be activated slowing down time for a brief period allowing you to get yourself out of a potentially deadly situation.
Once you’ve found a place of relative safety your health will regenerates after a short time.
Hidden throughout the game are collectibles, nothing really new about that, collectible objects in games have been pretty standard for a very long time. However these are different in that they’re educational giving factual information about people, places and events in the old west, which I found immensely interesting.
Many games out there, especially ones working with a more modest budget, will have ‘invisible walls’ scattered about. In this game its not so much a invisible wall but an instant death. There were several times during my playthrough I jumped into an area that looked perfectly safe and accessible only to find that I died. This was rather infuriating, especially when in one case it turned out that I wasn’t wrong about my assumption. I was supposed to go there… but only after having finished another part of the game first. Once I did the aforementioned part of the game, the way I had been trying to go before suddenly became open!
So remember how I said that keeping in mind that you play as a version of Greaves that has been imagined by someone listening to his tales? This is why is
important, the trope known as the unreliable narrator or rather in this case its both an unreliable narrator and a unreliable listener.
This is why there are several times where details suddenly change within the game because the narrator has corrected an assumption the listener has made. Of course, this isn’t to say that the narrator is entirely telling the truth either.
I don’t know about you but when I think about the old west inevitably the mind eventually thinks about duelling. Taking your opponent on one on one in a fair
gunfight. Well it turns out that if you crave a taste of that this game has you covered. At the end of every chapter you get put into a duel. In these duels you have to try and split your attention between the position of your hand which effects your draw speed, focusing on your opponent otherwise your shots will miss and finally your opponents movements and hand. Sure, if you wished to you could breeze past these by drawing first but you’ll receive a ‘dishonorable’ penalty in the point score at the end of the chapter.
As far as I can tell that’s all drawing early does mechanically although I think that if you do you lose part of the fun of this game.
Should you wish to practice duelling (like I did, because I really sucked at it) all the duels you’ve thus far been involved with in the main game are available. You can also compete with your friends leader board scores within the Arcade mode on the main screen.
I think I can safely recommend this game, it was a fun old time and I learned a few things about the old west not many games can do that. Sure its got a few
annoying issues but the number of games that don’t have something like that I can count on one hand. So if you feel in the mood for some wild west action this is a pretty good place to go.
If this appeals to you perhaps try;
