July 1st, 2009

The IGN’s Rating for “Call of Juarez – Bound in Blood” is 7.7

When Techland and Ubisoft release “Call of Juarez” two years ago, a story of a first-person shooter that took place in Wild Wild West, they didn’t necessary see it as a start for a series, but meanwhile “Call of Juarez - Bound in Blood” appeared to complete the story from its origin. The figure that draws attention to this game is the anti-hero character in the form of Reverend Ray who leads the bible and a band of six shooters with the same ease in his search for a mythical cursed treasure. This new story brings us back to the origin of their quest for gold.

The game begins with Ray and Thomas McCall, two brothers fighting in the Confederate Army, who desert in order to save their family from Union soldiers. Then a series of events take place: the two brothers fleeing from their commander’s chase and meet a Mexican bandit leader, called Juarez, and his concubine, Marisa, both of them delivering some information about the Cortez treasure. The McCalls have to face also some Apache menace, presumably connected to the gold as well. The story is narrated by William, the youngest brother that fills you in on the actions of the other two.

As a player you can choose one the two characters, Ray or Thomas, that have different styles of weapons. Ray is a more powerful character, being able to do all sorts of things that require strength. Thomas is a character based more on his agilities having the skills to climb different structures or use the lasso to get on higher ground. The two characters help each other in different circumstances, so you don’t need to be concerned which one to choose best.

The focus is on your gunshots, with every enemy down you can get ammo, various weapons to replace yours or you can cash money to buy supplies. Another thing is that killing each enemy adds to your concentration counter, meaning that either Thomas or Ray are allowed to trigger a bullet time-like effect (that lasts one minute) to quickly defeat their foe. The shooting system works like this: when you draw your weapon, a reticule will point to the opponent’s body, and then you can pull the trigger in order to perform a lethal wound.

The fights are fun, but sometimes you have the feeling that some of the chapters look alike even though they happen to be located in other settings, and the tasks to be performed seem to limit only to the two characters riding toward a location, shoot whoever is around and then move further. Visuals are very well rendered, though there is some screen editing that keeps on popping between the events of the story. The graphics present themselves pretty good, maybe a little more variety in the creation of the enemies characters and their environment wouldn’t have hurt.

The IGN’s rating for “Call of Juarez – Bound in Blood” is 7.7 that qualifies the game as a GOOD one.