Masem’s Gaming Blog

Call of Juarez, developed by Ubisoft, is a first-person shooter that incorporates several features that help to set the game up as a tale of misfortune in the Old West.  The game takes an interesting, though somewhat questionable, approach of having you play two different characters with two different sets of abilities, which disrupts the game flow at times.  Besides being rather uninspired in some areas and flaws at others, the game is pretty much average when all is said and done, and really only justifies the title as a rental.

Review Helpfulness: (1 votes, average: 5 out of 5)
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Story: B-

The game takes place in the Old West, and is based on two characters: Billy is a young man without parents who seems to always get into trouble, and Reverend Ray, a preacher that still feels a sense of having to bring justice to the world.  Billy becomes accused of being a murder victim and is force to flee town, resulting in Ray following close on his heals to try to bring the boy to justice. As their paths intertwine, they both learn that the events are being caused by the quest to find the ancient Aztec buried city of Juarez where a vast treasure awaits, and only Billy has the key clue to find its entrance.

The story is told over the course of 15 chapters, with the story typically alternating between Billy and Ray for each.  While this does help to some extent create a more interesting story (as you do get to appreciate both characters more), it becomes an awkward storytelling device as well as affecting gameplay, as most of the backstory is revealed in the loading screens between each chapter, and thus specific to each character.  While there are a few in-game scenes, they are rarely major points of contention in the story.  In general, the story’s rather weak and nothing that we’ve not seen before, but at least there’s some attempt with the dual character approach to make this interesting.

Gameplay: C+

The game, unfortunately, is a typical FPS that adds only a couple unique elements that really don’t affect the game that much.  As Billy or Ray, you can run and jump, climb, move around boxes or other lighter objects, and ride horses.  Your weapons are limited to two handguns, a rifle or shotgun, and then special slots that differ for each: Billy gains a whip and a bow and arrow, while the Reverend can gain dynamite to throw, or use his Bible to stall foes for a short time.  The guns all have a long, but limited number of uses, and after a while the gun may explode, requiring you to get a new one to replace it if you haven’t already, though its easy to get these off the foes that fall.  The trick here is that when using the handguns, you can use both at the same time, but as both hold limited ammo, you have to watch to make sure to reload ammo if in the middle of a firefight.  Ray also has a special “concentration mode” that starts with both guns holstered; upon starting the mode, time slows down and two crosshairs make their way across the screen, allowing you to take many accurate shots in a short amount of time.  Billy has a similar feature when using a bow and arrow though not as difficult to use.  Both characters, in a jam, can turn to their fists as well if needed.

Often in the game there are gun duels.  You and your foe wait for an appointed signal and then draw your gun, requiring careful control of the thumbstick in order to draw and aim with accuracy in order to get off the first shot.  You are able to dodge some shots, but you need to get your shots off quickly in order to stay alive.  Fortunately, most of these duels had a save point right in front of them, so retrying if you were too slow is not usually a problem.  Unfortunately, its basically a mechanic that you’re forced to using in order to progress the game (none are optional), and is only used at this points, and they do get harder as you go along, so you basically “practice” getting better at these by having to retry them over and over again.  In terms of gameplay, it fits the game, but it’s not well implemented in its use.

One aspect that should be noted is that Billy is given several opportunities to climb over rocky ledges and buildings.  A common tool here is his whip which can be used to swing across a gap or to climb up or down.  This actual use is not a problem: the issue is that to find a point where you can secure the whip, you have to first stand right near the edge of a cliff-edge, and then point your crosshairs to a very small area until a symbol appears on the screen, indicating a valid whipping point.  This really broke the immersion and pacing in the game as having to stop to find a latching point while making sure not to fall over prevented any good fast-pace chases in this manner.  I know I’ve played a game (I want to say one of the Indiana Jones ones) where there was a whip-swing feature that was much better implemented that didn’t require this level of precision by the player.

Level design is uninspired and manages to take the wide-open old west and make it into a linear narrow path of goalpoints to reach, despite looking pretty good  There was only one level that felt open, but as the only danger between the points you had to reach on that map was making you didn’t kill the horse you were riding, it was mostly a lot of show with very little meat in it.

The game itself is otherwise not difficult: you can take a good amount damage before you know you’re in trouble, and then, you basically just need to stay out of shot for a few moments.  The enemy AI is rather poor, simply staying behind the closest cover they have and not using group tactics to surround you.

There are multiplayer modes: team deathmatch, capture the flag, and other common game types but nothing really inspired or unique.  You can also participate in duels again from the game to practice there. Throughout the game are wanted posters (featuring members of the development team) and can be sought for achievement points.  But beyond trying the game at harder levels, there’s really not much more to it.

Value/Replayability: C+

The game is about 10hrs long through one time, and while there is additional content to the game including multiplayer, I just don’t see that much urge to play through the game again beyond for boosting my gamerscore.

Graphics: B+

Visually, there’s little wrong with the game, though I will note that sections of levels dedicated to climbing gain a very blocky feel to them, and the rock and ledge textures start to get a bit old.  Dark sections (as you gain no benefit of light) are just a bit too indistinguishable to find the right paths as well, and often what I would think was a safe drop for a character ended up being disastrous.  The game does have an overall brown-ness to its tones, but that actually fits the game’s setting just fine here.  There’s also some nice focusing effects used during certain in-game scenes or when you are looking down a gun’s sights.

Audio: C+

I wasn’t impressed by the voice artists in the game, it felt that they were calling in there lines.  Most of the rest of the sound effects were find, but the music when present got rather monotonous over the course of the game.

Overall: C+

Call of Juarez is basically a run of the mill FPS with a few unique approaches that work at times, and fail poorly at others.  It’s not very inspired overall, and otherwise is not very difficult to complete.  It’s fine as a rental or bargain bin game (that’s where I found my copy), but even then, one time through should be enough to get the flavor of it.

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