It is no secret around the GamingShogun compound that I love western games. It is a genre of games that we don’t see very often and every time I hear of one being announced I jump up to be the first one to review it. Two years ago when Ubisoft and Techland came out with the original Call Of Juarez I jumped right in and finished the game in a couple days. The story unfolded with a fun, interweaving plot but really centered on the mad preacher known as “Preacher Ray” and the search for some ancient Aztec gold. What I loved about the original game was its deep and emotional story in a world not often presented to gamers.
Fast forward to today as, not surprisingly, Ubisoft and Techland have gifted us with not a sequel but a prequel to the original game in the way of Call Of Juarez: Bound In Blood. The story centers on the Mccall brothers as told by their brother William. William is the good one of the bunch and follows the path of God trying to keep his brothers in line. Thomas and Ray Mccall like any close set of brothers will fight for each other but there is always going to be some underlying tension waiting to explode. You begin the game during the American Civil War where the brothers are fighting for the Confederate Army. I won’t go into spoilers but it was really refreshing to start at the beginning of the story to learn about how their struggles came to be.
Story is where this game really shines with the scripted events and in game cut scenes being very well integrated into the gameplay. I find myself playing way too many titles that just do not have a solid story these days. Call Of Juarez: Bound in Blood really thrives on punching you right in the chest to let you know “Hey you should be feeling something here!”. I found myself wanting to keep playing through the entire single player in one sitting just to see where the story would go. The loading screens are masked by excellent story board-like scenes narrated by William and other members of the cast. I cannot think about one single negative for the story element of the game. When a game makes me feel something I know the story is on point.
Let’s check out some of the gameplay features. Like the original Call of Juarez it features your standard FPS console controls. Left stick controls movement and right stick controls your aiming. Trigger buttons control a zoom and shoot actions and then there are the different forms of “Bullet time”. In Bound In Blood you have the choice of picking which Mccall brother you would like to play at the start of each level. You can go with the agile long range shooter Thomas or the “I am going to bust down your door” Ray Mccall. Each brother has his own “concentration meter” that you can build up by killing baddies. No matter what name you put on this it is still “bullet time”. Thankfully the usually tired game gimmick works well here and does not get in the way at all. Unfortunately, with one of the main gameplay features being selecting a brother at the start of a mission, I really didn’t notice much of a difference no matter who I chose and the AI seemed to respond fairly well regardless. The few times the artificial intelligence did fail, I mainly found myself waiting for the AI brother to catch up to what I was doing.
The main question really has to be “Where is the co-op?”. There were so many times while playing the game I thought how awesome it would be to have a friend playing with me. Especially as the brothers were yelling back and forth at each other when one steals the other’s kill. A perfect moment to slap a friend upside the head or bust their chops. Heed the call Techland and please add this option in a future patch or DLC. As with the first game there is the gun dueling feature. These would be considered the boss battles where you square off against key figures in the game. It’s a simple stick movement to draw your gun and then a push of the trigger to kill your target. This can be a bit clumsy but overall was a nice break from your normal boss fights.
The environments were huge and had a lot of room to explore doing one of the two side mission spots. There were plenty of horses you could steal to go out riding but the riding experience was more arcadish then realistic. I found myself trying to run into things as much as possible to see if it would throw me off the horse. I was very unsuccessful as the horses were like steroid-fueled, Kryptonite-powered versions of real horses. It would have been nice to have more time to explore or go back to the side missions as once you are done with the game those places are closed off to you. Missions were pretty straight forward with the odd boat ride or on-rails gatling gun battle here and there. I found that as the game went on the missions tended to melt into one giant level as I felt I was doing the same thing over and over. Thankfully the story element picks you right back up from that. All your favorite western guns are there from rifles to bows. As you gain money you can upgrade your weapons which can up your killing power. I personally did not find much of a difference from using a rusty shotgun to a superb scoped rifle. Both weapons got the job done fine.
Bound In Blood does have a multiplayer game and it makes the lasting appeal of the game a bit better for those done with the singleplayer. There are unique modes to choose from like deathmatch or an objective based game that builds you up in the ranking system. Multiplayer has several classes as well unique to the multiplayer side however most of them do need to be unlocked as you progress. The map selection is a bit low which can lead to burn out but from everything we read that looks to be fixed in some upcoming DLC.
The world of Bound In Blood was beautiful but marred with many glitches. These glitches don’t make the game unplayable by any means but they are quite noticeable. There was a point in one of the major cut scenes where a character turned and his whole body flashed white and some frame rate issues reared its ugly head during some fighting sequences. Another problem I ran into was the re-use of facial models. I seemed to always see the same mutton-chopped cowboy throughout the game. The only difference was that he was in another outfit. These are all very minor things though as the outdoor graphics really shine.
Audio plays a huge part in the story for Bound In Blood. Subtle background music or ambient sounds did not force themselves into your ears. The voice acting was top notch and really lent itself to making the story a heart hitting as it was. When you have great voice actors who know how to portray feeling matched with a well written script you really have the chance to make people feel something. I noticed no audio glitches at all and definitely give the audio guys from the developers a high five.
The western genre of video games is still waiting for that horse to gallop its way into the hearts of mainstream gamers. Do I think that Call Of Juarez: Bound In Blood will be that title? More than likely not but Ubisoft and Techland have a hit with minimal issues for the niche that loves western games like myself. By adding co-op gameplay in the future (ala Army of Two) it may just push it right into the hands of newer players looking to play with their friends. So saddle up and check out Call of Juarez: Bound in Blood, partners!
