Call of Juarez

Call of Juarez is one of the most "good with a catch" games you'll find. When it's firing on all cylinders, you'll have a lovely time playing a solid western FPS with some fun themes and an authentic western movie feel. However, when the game goes into clunky mode, by God it goes into clunky mode. Which is why that 3/5 star review is misleading. 4/5 narrative, well executed but usually unambitious 2/5 level design, it's a roller coaster of quality from the 3/5s of open plains combat to the 5/5s of the classic fort shootout to the 1/5s of just utterly arcane script triggers 3/5 for Ray's gameplay, which is good-not-great 2/5 for Billy's gameplay, which is also a roller coaster of quality but errs on the bad side 5/5 on the aesthetics of the game. It's not exactly a technical powerhouse for its era(make sure to run it in DX10 mode if you're running it through Galaxy), but the sound and visuals and framing of most scenes are nailing what they're going for and that's all you can ask The game has many high points (the fort shootout), many low points (the bizarro Indiana Jones moment), many bland points, and one moment that is simultaneously bold but also a desk-smashing frustration fest that I suspect will sound better now that it's safely behind me. So, what do you rate this barrel of variable quality? I called it a 3, but I could've just as much called it a 1 because you will consistently hate it at times, or a 5 because the heights are so worth the asking price. On the whole, I'd say, it's worth dabbling in. Just make sure you quicksave frequently, don't be afraid to cheat if a section is bogging down the experience with bad pacing, and keep your brain thinking about character motivations, rather than the fact that this is the third farm you've rode by that looks *just* like the one ten minutes ago.

A friend of mine was leading Russian localization of CoJ in 2006, and I was pretty envious because she could play it on a high-end rig at work while I couldn't at all (my machine wouldn't run it). Call of Juarez was somewhat a hit in Russia back then, and was widely hyped for being one of the first DX10 games around. I didn't manage to play it at the time, and beat it only in 2016 or 2017, though (obviously) on maximum eye candy, which I could only dream of 10 years before. Yes, the game has rough edges, namely numerously mentioned in revews here shooting mechanic, platforming and puzzles. The dialogue could be better and so on and so on. It all is palpable during gameplay, but anyway, after final cutscene I had this fond aftertaste. Even though I was at times annoyed with CoJ, in the end it turned out the game kept me emotionally involved with the story all the time. It made me want to play the prequel instantly! Technically, Call of Juarez probably doesn't deserve 5/5, but I just can't rate it lower, I'm just a human.

Call of Juarez is very much a game of its time- the mid-2000s, when FPSes were defined by the early Medal of Honor games, Half-Life 2, and FEAR 1; when every FPS seemingly had an (over)long singleplayer campaign, unnecessary physics objects littering the world, long, frustrating, combatless "puzzle" or platforming sections, extremely crude stealth sections where you hold CTRL to crouch and enter STEALTH MODE, simple bullet time mechanics, misguided vehicle levels, and some sort of bow type weapon that left its projectiles embedded in enemies or the environment, where you could retrieve them for reuse. Call of Juarez is a mostly run-of-the-mill budget FPS from this period, and hits every one of the points I mentioned above except that it doesn't have any vehicle stages. When it was new, it didn't have anything to set it apart from other budget FPSes except its attractive Wild West setting, and it has dated poorly. The most memorable feature of the game is that you can, while playing as Ray McCall, read Bible verses at enemies to briefly stunt hem, and then shoot them dead. It is a thoroughly middling game otherwise. This game would be followed up by the brilliant Bound in Blood and the slick and memorable Gunslinger (but also the miserable The Cartel), and Techland would move on to Dead Island and then their greatest triumph, Dying Light, leaving the first Call of Juarez game as being of mostly historical interest (along with the now-forgotten Chrome games). Bound in Blood is a direct prequel to this game, so I guess you might enjoy it more if you play this first; but unless you are a devotee of gawky budget FPSes (as I sort of am), or you just can't get enough of Wild West video games and have already played all the others, I cannot really recommend it otherwise.

I played both this game and its sequel when they firsts came out and they are the product of their times, so keep your expectations on that line. It can be clunky and feel a little "empty" sometimes, nevertheless I loved these games back then. Call of Juarez and its sequel are both amazing western games. It's tons of fun and the atmosphere is rendered superbly. If you want something western, this is a good choice. If not, you can safely skip it.