Call of Juarez: Bound in Blood

Teasers made this look more interesting than it is. I fondly remembered games such as "Outlaws", which had a horridly outdated gfx engine when it came out, but nice atmosphere, (Italo-)Western music and humor. This game, and I tried* to play only for a few hours, is a pretty dull "rail shooter" of sorts, well not literally, but it feels just as dull. "run to point A and shoot!". "Now run to point B and shoot". I know that these days a lot of games have *some* of that aspect, but they're not all like it's pretty much all there is to the "game", which then isn't really a game by any sensible definition, but a list of stupid chores. And while the graphics look decent, the suggested pace and scope of your movements and stuff to do don't really invite their enjoyment. * (tried, because the insanely narrow, totally unnatural Field Of View, which makes you feel like running around with a zoom objective glued to your face all the time, is straining your visual system, which can only be changed with a 3rd party mod which also changes all sorts of other things you may not want to change (the "Realism Mod"))

Just finished the main story and it was definitely an enjoyable western romp. Controls much improved from the first game. The Civil War start off was great and most of the maps really capture the western feel. I wish the game was less story driven as it takes away from exploring the world. Same as the first, check it out if you enjoy westerns. Solid game.

This game delivers on the story with nice voice acting, explosive setpieces and some really great music to help aleviate the pretty standard and dull gameplay. Gunplay feels nice ,but very limited guns + akward cover mechanic dont help a lot. You get some exploration and secrets, but only 2 maps are more open world with sidequests to do. Still really help to change the pace a bit. I wish there was an option to remove bloom. The duel mini-game dont control very well with a mouse. I recommend 100% for the price, got a nice 10h out of it. Could double it for a hard run and using the other brother for slight changes in gameplay/story .

I really enjoy this series. The gameplay is fun and satisfying. The story is good. The graghics and mechanics have held up well. What I like about Bound in Blood is the abillity to choose which character you get to play between 2 of the 3 brothers. The game is not perfect ( none of these are). You cant change the controls because they revert back to the old ones as soon as you enter a new area. The graghics, while still good, could have been a little more polished. If you're looking for a good western style game, this is a solid choice.

The game really shines with it's setting and storytelling, but the experience is marred by several unnecessary issues. The automatic cover-mechanic is innovative, but doesn't work anywhere near as well as just letting you crouch down and pop out from cover manually. All it really does is make cover more of a hindrance as your character will spazz out trying to figure out what you want to do and it makes overall movement awkward and choppy as the character model is trying to interpret movement as cover-seeking on EVERYTHING. Imagine Assassin's Creed's free-running and jumping in FPS and you get the idea. The game even has some minor plattforming, which is just as awkward. The duel mechanic is interesting at first, but also ends up being mostly just a massive pain in the ass before long. The game rewards some exploration, but the NPCs will constantly hound you for actually doing it. All in all, it's a very solid FPS in a great setting and a captivating story that is strongly hamstrung by trying too hard to be different. Still worth a playthrough for FPS and Wild West fans.