Call of Juarez

Mighty fine...

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First things first, are you sitting down? No? I think you really should. I'll wait... There? All seated now? Okay, here we go, Call of Juarez is an FPS not set in World War II. Honestly, there's not a Nazi to be seen! I know, you're glad I got you to sit down now aren't you. It's not like its even set in the future (Cyborg Nazis, now there's an idea....) instead Polish developers Techland have taken the brave decision to set it in that tiny bit of history that flashed past almost without incident between the big bang and 1939. Talk about limiting themselves, it's a wonder they managed to find enough to fill a game really. Okay, disengaging the heavy sarcasm mode that's been firmly in place in this opening so far it's a genuine pleasure to step out into an FPS and not have to worry about dodgy German accents and quite how to take out that Panzer tank with your penknife. For this much needed slice of originality alone Call of Juarez deserves a fair degree of praise before the disk is even out of the packaging.

While Wild West themed games (for that's what this is people) aren't completely new they're depressingly few and far between, last years fun but flawed 'Gun' being the most recent entry into the genre, which seems faintly crazy considering the obvious gaming setups the lone gunslinger archetype so obviously lends itself to. First released in late 2006 on the PC, Call of Juarez now makes its way to the Xbox 360 hoping to provide the perfect pick me up for gamers jaded with the current batch of FPS'.

The story behind the action in Call of Juarez follows two central characters as they play a dangerous game of cat and mouse across the old west while the ever present spectre of the lost gold of Juarez adds a spot of treasure hunting to the mix. In a novel storytelling trick the game switches control of these characters between levels so half the time you'll be playing as Billy, a young man on the run after being accused of murdering his family, and the other half you'll be in the shoes of Billy's uncle, Reverend Ray, a renegade preacher who believes God has tasked him with avenging his brother's death. By alternating the game's chapters between these two distinctly different characters, Call of Juarez appears at times like two different games shoehorned together, the only problem is that unfortunately not both of these halves are of equal quality. In the good corner there are the Reverend Ray sections where CoJ appears to be an enjoyable western themed first-person shooter complete with slow motion shootouts, hellfire and brimstone biblical quotes and duelling all delivered within a suitably grizzled Sam Elliot persona. Then, in the not so good corner, there's Billy's chapters where CoJ looks for all the world like a far less enjoyable old west themed first-person stealth-em-up complete with badly implemented platforming sections and more hiding in bushes than should ever be expected of a grown man.

The game kicks off with Billy, and depressingly even in the tutorial section it's plain to see just how frustrating his chapters will end up being. Right from the off the game has you sneaking around a farmer's field, crawling from bush to bush as you try and steal his gun. There's nothing wrong with a bit of stealth, and it's easy to believe Billy can't just saunter up unarmed and nick what he wants. But there is something bizarrely Loony Tunes-esque about making your way across a field going from small bush to small bush not to mention the daftness of being asked to believe that a grown man could remain unnoticed in broad daylight by hiding in a small bit of shrubbery. It just doesn't feel right, and while, to be fair, the stealth sections do get better they never feel on a par with true stealth games and often go on far too long for comfort. Not improving matters is the inclusion of various bits of platforming, never a fantastic idea in any FPS its not helped by jumps often requiring pixel perfect accuracy. Also dotted around Billy's chapters are the single most annoying yet potentially brilliant idea in this half of the game, using your whip to swing from an overhead branch across gaping chasms while running for your life should have been an exhilarating experience and a genuine snippet of innovation for CoJ to call its own. Unfortunately, all the fun is drained from it because not only does it require stopping to hunt for the seriously small section of branch that will even accept your whip, but once attached and swinging it's never the fluid run-jump-swoosh-land you're expecting, instead you're more often than not left dangling, edging up and down the whip and swinging gently back and forth watching below your feet for any sign of land while trying to find the optimum angle and height from which to try and jump off onto the other side. Fun it isn't, fiddly and frustrating being a far better description. If I'm making Billy's sections sound like the most horrible gaming experience known to man then I'm being a mite unfair. In fact, when they play out like a more traditional FPS albeit one with the emphasis firmly on hiding and running away, rather than wandering around guns blazing, there is a good amount of fun to be had. Even the stealth and platforming can be okay in small doses (the whip bits are always horrible though), they just stick out like a sore thumb when compared to the other far more enjoyable chapters.

Things thankfully pick up when you don Ray's Stetson however, with his duel wielded pistols and out spoken bible bashing attitude he has no need to skulk in the shadows and happily lacks the agility to go platforming, instead it's simply time to kill things! With a weapon in each hand Ray is beautifully simple to control, left trigger to fire the left weapon, right for the right and a quick press of the right stick zooms in on the action too, marching through town picking off bad guys in this manor is huge fun, just like every Western you've ever seen in fact. While you may be in the old west that doesn't mean the influence of The Matrix is any less apparent and our old friend bullet time makes an appearance here too in the form of Ray's 'concentration mode'. Drawing your guns after they've been holstered for a short time puts the game into slow motion while two targets move towards the middle of the screen homing in on enemies as they go, some well timed squeezing of the triggers at the right moments and when the two targets meet in the middle and concentration mode ends with any luck your enemies will crumple to the ground dead. It's effective, it's easy and most of all it's damn good fun! It's not all action though, puzzles tend to appear more often in Ray's chapters too, these are never really more than the stacking of boxes to help you reach new parts of levels or the moving of boulders that block your path but they're a nice addition if a tad fiddly to execute at times. For all the fuss that the in game depiction of a certain Mancunian place of worship received recently it's amusing to note that Daily Mail readers across the land appear to have missed the far more entertaining/offensive (delete as appropriate) in game references to all things biblical that appear throughout CoJ. Reverend Ray carries his bible with him at all times and is always able to provide a selection of damning quotes from scripture at the press of a button. Upon hearing these utterances some guilt ridden enemies pause in moments of indecision allowing you take advantage of their ill-timed attacks of conscience to blow their poor confused brains out. It may be 'in character' but it still raises more of an eyebrow (albeit hopefully a comically amused one) than the notion of an alien slaughter on sacred ground.

On a more general note the game can be very dark at times, with enemies often lost in the shadows making it hard to spot where you're getting shot at from. A gamma correction option solves this to a degree but you still often want to turn the sun up a little at times. This was also the first game ever that's required me to fiddle about with the mix between music and vocal volumes just so I could hear the dialogue clearly, it's a small moan granted but smacks a bit of carelessness.

Considering the organic nature of Wild West environments and the amount of detail required to make them come alive it's fair to say CoJ does the job fantastically with some particularly nice depth of field and lighting effects. We should all be getting used to the visuals in this next-generation of games but there are still moments of jaw dropping beauty in CoJ that should bring a smile to even the most jaded of gamer. The voice over work is equally impressive, heavy on cliche perhaps but perfectly in tone with the story and feel of the game. Only the cut-scenes sometime fail to live up to expectations with some stilted animations looking out of place amidst the rest of the lavish detail.

Anyone who tires of the single player experience will be able to spend some time with the stand alone additional missions (of which there will be more to come via downloadable packs) and the unlockable duels. Multiplayer options are also to be found via the wonder that is Xbox Live, there's nothing revolutionary here but expected modes like deathmatch and capture the flag are joined by appropriately themed ones like Wanted (kill the wanted man to become wanted yourself). It's a shame that multiplayer duelling doesn't feature but I guess you can't have everything.

It's easy to look at Call of Juarez and see a game split down the middle, one half great and the other horrible, but to give it the credit it deserves, such a bold use of divided narrative just about makes it worthwhile for the most part with the style of both sections always perfectly in character and the ever switching perspective from hunter to hunted driving the game along even when the on screen action becomes less enjoyable. Techland deserve to be applauded for trying something different and even though it's not entirely successful there is still a lot of fun to be had. Call of Juarez flits from fantastic highs to gamepad throwing lows but the overall experience is enough fun that even when you're screaming at the TV with frustration as Billy falls to his death once again you'll be pressing continue because you know there'll be something great around just the corner.

82%

By Paul Newcombe