We ride into the wild West and find out it's only a little bit West, not very wild.
It's a bit disheartening that an iconic genre that resonates so much in America, the Western, has only a handful of games (much less good ones) to its name. Offhand, we can only immediately rattle off: Outlaws, GUN, Dead Man's Hand, and now Techland's Call of Juarez. While we wish that this latest addition to the very small "western-themed first-person-shooters on the PC" library was a great one, what we get instead is something more akin to "The Quick & The Dead:" a well-meaning but ultimately flawed Western.
Bullets and Bibles
CoJ first puts you in the boots of Billy Candle, a spry young fellow who decides to visit his mother back in his hometown but instead finds himself in a situation where he's standing over the corpse of both his mother and stepfather. Right at that moment, his step-uncle, the Reverend Ray, bursts onto the scene, and naturally assumes that Billy is the killer. As Billy, you're constantly on the run while trying to both prove your innocence and figure out the secret of Juarez (which, of course, is the traditional Western trope: hidden Mexican gold). Yet, to complement Billy's fugitive run, you also play as the Reverend Ray himself: a curious combination of Jack Palance's looks, a "fire and brimstone" preacher's opinions (we spotted an alternate translation of Ezekiel 25:17, the vengeance-filled verse popularized by Samuel L. Jackson in Pulp Fiction), and the Saint-Of-Killers' lethality with guns. You alternate between these two protagonists during CoJ's fifteen episodes.
Playing as Billy Candle is actually quite a surprise from what you might expect of a western-themed FPS. Since Billy is on the lam, his levels tend to be stealth-based affairs. There's a pretty rudimentary detection system (crouch in the bushes and your eye icon lights up to let you know that baddies can't see you), and Billy is also quite fragile. You'll get a couple of guns on occasion and even a bow and arrow, but in general, you spend more time hiding than shooting. Finally, when you're not busy sitting in the bushes waiting for that one guy to walk away, you're using your whip to latch into conveniently-placed protrusions which you then either use to hoist yourself up or swing across an inconveniently-placed gap.
While Billy's levels are filled with lots of ducking and jumping, the Reverend's are filled with one basic action: shooting. As the Reverend chases Billy and, as expected, learns of the true circumstance behind the misperceived murder, he simply shoots up whatever is in his way. What he lacks in stealth, he makes up for in firepower and durability (he wears a freakin' Spanish cuirass for protection). Additionally, he possesses the Concentration skill, where if his guns are holstered, he will enter a sort of bullet-time trance when he draws them, giving him a precious few seconds to unload upon anyone on-screen (see video below). Finally, he also tends to duel big bosses, where you slowly move your mouse down and then up to simulate going into your holster and drawing your pistol up during a showdown.
It's the Reverend's levels that shine in particular. Straightforward action combined with the right touch of over-the-top, Biblical-fury-infused dialogue (in fact, the Bible itself can be used as a weapon, to give a sermon that stuns nearby enemies and therefore makes them easy targets) makes the Reverend a compelling character to play. Though, his Concentration skill is a bit easy to exploit, as it recharges a little fast, so all you really need to do is back up a bit and holster your guns in-between Concentration-bursts. Despite how easy it is to use Concentration, that doesn't hamper the Reverend's generally enjoyable gameplay too much.
Falling Off Your Horse
On the other hand, Billy Candle's levels sound much better in concept than they are in actuality. In terms of pacing, it's a pretty cool idea to be very sneaky and afraid of the solitary bandito who can call his fellows when he spots you, then to play that same area as the Reverend and welcome the cathartic chance to pump lead into that score of bandits. At one point, in a total lack of surprise, Billy undergoes a sort of Indian vision quest, which is totally awesome when you think about it, and is a great change of pace and feel at first. Then you find yourself forced to climb up a mountain, which illustrates Billy's (and perhaps CoJ's) biggest fault: first-person jumping puzzles.
Not only do you have to put up with just figuring out where your feet are going to land when making careful jumps, but the whip adds variables such as making sure you latch onto something, the timing of your swing and how high you are while swinging. Dealing with these hassles while not being sure exactly what is going on (due to the first-person perspective making it hard to judge your position in general) makes for a lot of frustration in Billy's levels. Not even the Reverend escapes from these platforming frustrations, as he is required to move a fair amount of boxes and crates in order to jump up or down somewhere. It feels as though the developers played a fair bit of Half-Life 2 and decided to integrate crate-stacking without the awesome gravity gun to enliven the stacking.
America's Wide, Clear Vistas
While CoJ was released in Europe in 2006, the American release adds DirectX10 support. If you got a tricked-out rig that can support it, the DirectX10 upgrade looks damn nice. The textures are at some crazy high resolution, the lighting and shadows are much improved (most visible in sequences such as a fight in an underground mine, and times when you stand near a fire), and the far-off vistas look quite stunning. In-game characters tend to alternate between looking very next-gen and looking like plastic Ken-as-a-zombie dolls, though. Alas, because this is a case of a DirectX9 title being patched to support DirectX10, that means that even on a powerful machine, it's not quite as optimized as it should be. Areas where the DX9 version would have a 60+ framerate slid right down to sub-30 in the DX10 version. In short, even with a great machine, you'll be making a clear sacrifice between performance and quality when you move up to the DX10 renderer.
Like the enhanced graphics, the overall multiplayer package sounds good and is fun at first, until you realize the drawbacks. There are seventeen multiplayer maps out of the box, and they support a number of multiplayer modes. Notably, there's Skirmish (team deathmatch), "Capture the Bag" and "Robbery" (where one team of outlaws has to rob gold and take it back while the lawmen team is on defense). What sounds really cool at first are the classes, ranging from gunslingers (pair of revolvers) to riflemen (shotgunners) to miners (a little bit of all the weapons) to snipers (duh). Except in most multiplayer matches, a good 80 to 90% of all players are going to play as the sniper, and either camp a spot to headshot people, or run around the map and continue headshotting.
Call of Juarez is a game we wanted to like, as it has most of the requisite elements (horse chase, train robbery, mine carts, hidden gold) that we look for in a Western. It's just that the really sloppy platforming and box-moving, which take up a good chunk of the game, puts a big damper on any joy that we might find in shooting up bandits and cowboys. It's sad that the game aspires to be an "Unforgiven" or a "Once Upon A Time In The West" and instead just barely hits "Bonanza."
©2007, IGN Entertainment, Inc. All Rights Reserved
Welcome to the mild, mild west.
The games stuck in purgatory, wandering listlessly among the many tumbleweeds of gaming history, are a particularly sad lot. Not necessarily because they're so bad but because they're oh so... forgettable. Call of Juarez is one of those already fading from memory. Solid shooting mechanics mix with poor level design while potentially interesting protagonists are bludgeoned with ho-hum enemies. Sadly some of the game's signature features, such as the slow-motion focus shooting, are hugely overused and actually drag the game down.
Call of Juarez's plot unfolds from each of two character perspectives. The first, Billy, is a worthless do-nothing that finds himself wandering back home after years of searching for the mythical treasure of Juarez. He's an entirely annoying character in spirit and nearly all of the levels designed for him involve some sort of sneaking or rock climbing expedition, which only compounds the issue. There's very little interesting about playing as a whiny character that you hope manages to die somewhere in the fiction. Instead of actively seeking to clear his name of murder charges against his mother and father-in-law, he runs. Considering how many cowboys, rustlers, bandits, and Indians he manages to slaughter along the way, it's a wonder that he didn't just stay to clear himself.
The second character, Reverend Ray, is a preacher with a dark past that has actively been seeking redemption through prayer and church. When his brother is killed, supposedly by Billy, his more violent side pushes to the front again as he begins the chase for righteous vengeance across the wild, slaughtering any wicked men in his way. The violent road eventually leads to unfortunate consequences as Revered Ray's convictions and faith are turned upside down. Ray's side of the story is more interesting and filled in by some good Charlton Heston-like voice work that compliments the rest of the (mostly) good cast.
Both characters are given skills to help differentiate their styles of play, Ray being the run and gun and Billy being the sneak about, but the techniques aren't necessarily welcome. The whip, for instance, is used by Billy to swing across chasms by latching it onto a tree branch affording him access to hard to reach places. Unfortunately the good idea is horribly executed and caused way more frustration than fun. The first ten minutes of falling to your death gives an unfortunate glimpse into the future of Billy levels as he draws plenty of jumping puzzle/platforming elements that are entirely unwelcome. The only other real use for the whip is to kill the many tragically unintelligent animals in the game, like wolves or spiders, without wasting ammo.
One of the game's more interesting features, called concentration mode, also ends up being one of the game's worst enemies. When activated, time will slow down for Ray after drawing his guns. The recharge time on Ray's ability is too fast, allowing you to simply wait and use it over and over. Having a special ability like this should actually be special rather than standard. It's too bad because it's a device that really makes you feel powerful. Eventually I stopped using focus mode with Ray altogether because it felt unfair, especially with nearly every enemy dropping health and the Reverend protected by heavy armor. It's especially sad because the basic shooter mechanics in Call of Juarez are pretty decent.
Likewise, Billy's own version of concentration mode begins whenever he draws his bow, meaning you can aim and shoot perfectly in slow motion (and kill a guy in one shot basically every time) and then quickly draw your bow again which will slow time yet again. You'll barely have to worry about enemies having the chance to shoot you while you get dead aim on every shot. There were Billy levels designed for a more sneaky approach in the darkness that suddenly became incredibly easy slaughters against heavily armed opponents using only a bow and arrow.
While the special focus ability is optional (though it's easy to feel compelled to use it for some stupid reason), the levels, unfortunately, are not. The corridor shooter sections with Reverend Ray running point aren't necessarily all bad. He's a badass, he kills people, and that's what he does whether it's with handguns, shotguns, pistols, or dynamite. As mentioned earlier, these mechanics are pretty decent so these areas are ok even if every area is ended with a quick draw gun battle that uses the same slow down techniques making the challenge much too easy. Still, running and gunning through an Old West town is fun. But corridor shooting can only get you so far these days. The best ones like Call of Duty have a lot more energy. Call of Juarez is lonely at times and never expresses the kind of desperate battles that a lone gunman, regardless of his level of ferocity, would encounter except for in the last level of the game.
If the game was only about Reverend Ray and his gun battles, it might have been better but Billy had to stick his stupid face into the mess. Many of the levels designed to show off his vulnerability in the face of great odds and armament are fairly pathetic. Sneak routines are never particularly good and only require stealth for short periods of time around a very few characters that don't even really follow a pattern.
Even worse are the levels with jumping puzzles and whip swinging. One of the worst involves Billy having to climb to the top of a mountain (with plenty of jumping and swinging along the way) only to retrieve a bird's feather. This sequence adds nothing to the rest of the game and barely even fits with the story. Better yet, after having fought through throngs of bandits and renegade Indians to make a good three quarters of the way through this linear shooter, Billy suddenly has to go hunting for rabbits. If we weren't so confused where the hell that came from, we might realize we're more upset than we actually are. This whole level, which combines with the mountain climbing, is the only one in the game that involves a sort of free-roaming environment that feels completely out of place with the rest of the experience.
Thankfully you have a horse to ride around on that runs faster than a man because the distances covered in that open area are pretty large. Sadly, the horse control is also pretty pathetic in first-person perspective. After playing games like Gun, Shadow of the Colossus, and Zelda: Twilight Princess, it's hard to get on a horse here without either laughing or groaning.
Visually Call of Juarez is decent enough though it won't win any awards. It looked pretty good when it was originally announced, but these days it's mid-range at best. Character models, faces particularly, are the best the game has to offer. Environments are blocky and offer up some strange texturing creating passable play areas.
Multiplayer also has its moments, though most of them are more cheap thrills than deep gaming. Standard deathmatch is included along with a version of it called Gold Rush that involves collecting bags of gold as well, which can be pretty fun. Team games like skirmish (team elimination) help out, but the most interesting is probably robbery where bandits try to blast their way past lawmen in order to steal some gold. The pace is pretty quick and the maps are nowhere near as good as a game like Counter-Strike, which basically offers the same style of gameplay with better results.
©2007-07-18, IGN Entertainment, Inc. All Rights Reserved