Call of Juarez: Bound in Blood Review

By Ned Jordan

Call of Juarez: Bound in Blood is not your typical shooter, and not just because it's set in the Old West. A combination of a compelling story, a variety of play that includes gun duels, shootouts, and horseback pursuits, and a great Old West atmosphere make for some good gaming that's not your standard fare for the genre.

Bound in Blood is the tale of two brothers, Ray and Thomas McCall, which opens during the Civil War. The brothers fight for the Confederacy, and the war is starting to turn south for the South. When they hear that Union troops are on a slash and burn campaign and that the McCall estate is directly in their path, the brothers desert their unit to save home and family. In spite of their best efforts, the farm is devastated and the brothers head out west in an attempt to earn the gold that they need to rebuild … and they're determined to get that gold anyway they can.

Bound in Blood does not have a particular element that can be singled out as the reason the game is fun to play. In fact, if you look at some of its elements on their own they wouldn't necessarily stand up too well against those in other good games. Events are scripted, some sequences are on a rail, and the enemy AI is at best average. However, Bound in Blood succeeds as a game because its whole is greater than the sum of its parts. The developers have done a great job of taking these parts and creating a game that's as much an interactive story as it is a game - it's a spaghetti Western and you're the star.

One of the game's interesting features is that many of the missions can be played as Thomas or Ray, and your choice of character will have an effect on your play. Thomas is adept at long-range kills with his trusty rifle, is skilled with a bow, and is an expert at silent knife skills. He also carries a rope which he can use as a lasso to reach high places. Ray is more the "shoot now, ask questions later" type who dual-wields six-shooters and tosses sticks of dynamite as if they were grenades. He's also known for picking up and wielding the occasional Gatling gun. Both brothers can enter a concentration mode once they've racked up the requisite number of kills which is basically bullet-time for cowboys. With Thomas you flick the right stick as if you were working the hammer on a gun to take out multiple enemies in a short amount of time. With Ray it's maneuvering target reticules to "paint" multiple enemies for killing. The brothers always stick together, so now matter which one you choose the game will control the other. Sorry, no co-op mode, though.

The game packs a variety of gameplay into its campaign. The opening chapter's Civil War setting includes defending a trench against an assault, using a cannon to fend off an enemy river crossing, and a cat and mouse hunt with enemy troops in a cornfield. Once you're in Juarez, the troop action is replaced with more traditional Western fare such as saloon shootouts, stagecoach chases, and clashes with Native American warriors. And like any Western worth its salt, you'll face a number of one-on-one High Noon style duels. These duels use an interesting mechanic that does a pretty good job of capturing some of the tension in these face-offs. Time will slow down and the edges of the screen will blur to a soft focus, directing all of your attention to your opponent. As you face-off, you'll use the left stick to walk back and forth to keep your enemy in front of you while using the right stick to keep your hand hovering close to your holster - not so close that you spook your foe into drawing his weapon first, but not so far that you lose precious seconds reaching for your sidearm when the time comes. When you hear the peal of a church bell it's time to draw - move your hand to your revolver and pull the trigger when the reticule passes over your enemy. Move too slowly or miss your shot and it's game over.

The campaign is a lot of fun, but it's a bit on the short side. You can easily make it through it in a week, or even a weekend with a few extended sessions. Luckily the game comes with an enjoyable multiplayer mode, although if I had my choice I'd take a longer campaign over the multiplayer. The game supports 12 players per match and there are five different modes of play. The requisite deathmatch style modes are here, but they're enjoyable because of some excellent map design and the particulars of shootouts in the Old West. It's not your standard shooter experience when players are wielding six-shooters and bows and tossing sticks of dynamite, and since the weapons have a slower rate of fire and smaller ammo capacity you'll need to be smart about when you shoot instead of simply spraying bullets everywhere. Additional variety is added in the form of the character classes, each of which wields a unique set of weapons and is rated in terms of speed, toughness, and firepower. Not all classes are available to you from the start - you'll have to earn experience in multiplayer matches to unlock them all - but the good thing is that the locked classes are not significantly more powerful than the basic classes, so newbies will not be forced to slowly overcome a huge initial disadvantage. I particularly enjoyed the Legends mode, which is an objective-based attack/defend mode that includes scenarios such as an outlaw assault on a town and a Civil War fort siege. For some reason when I played this mode the attackers almost always won, although it's hard to say if this was due to a subtle balancing issue or was a purely random coincidence.

Overall, I really enjoyed playing Bound in Blood. It's hard to pick out any particular aspect of the game and call it outstanding, but everything in the game just comes together nicely for a fun overall experience. Recommended for most gamers except for bowler-wearing city slickers.

In The End, This Game Hath Been Rated: 88%. A spaghetti Western with plenty of meat in its sauce.