Call Of Juarez: Bound In Blood

The Spaghetti Western genre has never really taken off as a successful portal for an excellent videogame. There have been a few attempts like Gun, Red Dead Revolver and the original Call Of Juarez, and they were valiant efforts, but, generally speaking, developers have shied away in favour of producing many more sci-figames than cowboy ones. It’s a peculiar thing, too, when you consider the rich heritage and clear opportunities for some amazing gameplay, characters and setting that placing a game in the Wild West would bring.

There are more clichés present in cowboy films than in any other – just watch Back To The Future Part III – and while they tend to make any recent attempt at a Western film feel stale and old, when viewed in game form, they can feel as fresh as the mountain dew. Any game set in the West is a novelty simply down to the fact that there aren’t that many of them, but as we know, setting alone does not make a game, and Bound In Blood has learned a few lessons. This time it’s coming out guns blazing.

One of the major criticisms of the original Call Of Juarez was that it tried to do too much, or rather it forced you to do too much. Making players trudge through dodgy stealth and platform sections is never going to be fun, and they tried gamers’ patience, especially when the other half of the time you were playing as the brilliant sermonising Reverend Ray. Bound In Blood, in an effort to get things right this time, has done away with these pointless additions.

This is a straight-up shooter and at more than one point showed that it has been clearly influenced by the Call Of Duty series. Ray was obviously the standout character and so now, as a prequel, you’ll learn the circumstances behind his odd mixture of steadfast religion and bloodthirsty shooting. As before, there are two characters – Ray and his brother Thomas – and each has his own specific abilities, such as a lasso for the odd bit of climbing, throwing knives, and the former with his metal chest plate and TNT. Both play practically the same, bar the odd level difference, but the choice is a welcome one.

Techland has done a sterling job at taking everything that is iconic about the West and crafting a story around it. You’ll go from the Badlands of Mexico to the American Civil War, and although the majority of the gameplay is strictly linear, the set pieces come thick and fast – you’ll rarely be doing the same thing twice. It’s testament to the variety that in one moment you can go from a tense stand-off to riding on horseback and making a break out of town, bullets whizzing past your ears. Although the COD template has been adhered to, Juarez offers up a few surprises of its own to keep things bubbling along at a nice pace. At certain points during the story the game opens up and simply asks if you’d like to take on a few bounties or explore the impressive-looking scenery; you can pick up the main game whenever you wish, in proper roguish cowboy style. It’s a refreshing mix-up of the staple FPS conventions and highlights Techlands’ ambitions to make a game that is a whistle-stop tour of this romantic period of American history.

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