Call of Juarez is a welcome change from the modern or futuristic shooters that are all too common now a days. Call of Juarez bound in blood takes us back to the 1800's to the wild west. it is your pretty standard first person shooter but it does use some nice little features to keep it interesting such as duels and concentration mode. The levels have a good mix of action so its not all the same.But unfortunetly the lack of an online co-op mode really takes away from the overall game. The first main feature is "Concentration mode" its a nice feature and gives it another dimension to the gameplay. When you have killed enough enemies will kick in and you have 60 seconds to use it. Depending on which character you are using effects which mode you enter, one freezes the screen and only requires you to move your target over the enemy which leaves a red dot on the enemy once you have every one marked pressing O will unleash a barrage of bullets killing everyone. The other character's method is more fun once you enter concentration mode the target will lock on to any enemies on screen you simple hold in the shoot button and flick the right analogue stick with your other hand in something reminiscent of fanning the hammer on an old six shooter. This really gives you that old western movie feel to the game play. The weapons can take a lot of getting used to, in the days of limited ammo and scope capabilities. Having a 6 shooter means lots of hiding and reloading but you soon get used to this. What takes a lot longer to get used to is the squinting down the barrel of a rifle to try and hit an enemy in the distance. Or shooting the cannons is even harder to spot the enemy if they are anyway in the distance they are so tiny the only way you know you are aiming at them is when the target goes red and locks on to the target which kind of ruins the point of having precision shooting rifles in the game. The game doesn't go for realism but it aims more for the western movie style of story telling and it does it very well with duels and midday and stage coach chases. It starts off during the American civil war when the two brothers defect to save their 3rd brother ( the narrator in the story ) and go on the run then after an amusing scene involving a sherif and his daughter the 3 brothers decide to head for Juarez in search of their fortune. For the most part the game is nicely paced and diverse enough to keep you interested at the start of each level you can choose which brother to use each has different capabilities one is suited to long range combat the other is more of a up close and personal kind of fighter which also adds to the appeal. The story mode is really good it builds nicely through the game it is well written and well performed through out. It also has a multiplayer option but its not great to tell the truth the weapons are just not suited for fast paced multiplayer action and it ends up being very flustrating once the story has been stripped away from the game. The game is set up perfectly for online co-op as through out the game your brother fights along side you and they rely on this for the a lot of the gameplay. In parts where your brother goes in the front door and you sneak in the back door to surpirse the enemy are done brilliantly. You also need your brother to give you a helping hand climbing onto ledges etc it really is a massive feature in the game which makes it all the more confusing as to why they didn't include a co-op option in this game. This was so strange as it would have made the game so much more enjoyable. To sum up a well put together game which is fun and will keep you interested while you play through it but the single player story mode is a little bit on the short side the lack of co-op means there is very little replay value in fact the lack of a co-op option annoyed me so much that it started to take away from my enjoyment of the game i seriously cant think of any reason as to why they left this out for me the whole game falls down on this point. They came so close to making a good game is a bit frustrating. We know that this style of game on the next gen machines will only give you 7-8 hours of game play in the single player story mode and if developers are going to do this and still expect you to pay full price for the games they need to start working on increasing the replay value and improving the multiplayer aspects of the games and not to just add a multiplayer feature as an after thought.
Call of Juarez is a welcome change from the modern or futuristic shooters that are all too common now a days. Call of Juarez bound in blood takes us back to the 1800's to the wild west. it is your pretty standard first person shooter but it does use some nice little features to keep it interesting such as duels and concentration mode. The levels have a good mix of action so its not all the same.But unfortunetly the lack of an online co-op mode really takes away from the overall game.
The first main feature is "Concentration mode" its a nice feature and gives it another dimension to the gameplay. When you have killed enough enemies will kick in and you have 60 seconds to use it. Depending on which character you are using effects which mode you enter, one freezes the screen and only requires you to move your target over the enemy which leaves a red dot on the enemy once you have every one marked pressing O will unleash a barrage of bullets killing everyone. The other character's method is more fun once you enter concentration mode the target will lock on to any enemies on screen you simple hold in the shoot button and flick the right analogue stick with your other hand in something reminiscent of fanning the hammer on an old six shooter. This really gives you that old western movie feel to the game play.
The game doesn't go for realism but it aims more for the western movie style of story telling and it does it very well with duels and midday and stage coach chases. It starts off during the American civil war when the two brothers defect to save their 3rd brother ( the narrator in the story ) and go on the run then after an amusing scene involving a sherif and his daughter the 3 brothers decide to head for Juarez in search of their fortune.
For the most part the game is nicely paced and diverse enough to keep you interested at the start of each level you can choose which brother to use each has different capabilities one is suited to long range combat the other is more of a up close and personal kind of fighter which also adds to the appeal. The story mode is really good it builds nicely through the game it is well written and well performed through out. It also has a multiplayer option but its not great to tell the truth the weapons are just not suited for fast paced multiplayer action and it ends up being very flustrating once the story has been stripped away from the game.
For the most part the game is nicely paced and diverse enough to keep you interested at the start of each level you can choose which brother to use each has different capabilities one is suited to long range combat the other is more of a up close and personal kind of fighter which also adds to the appeal. The story mode is really good it builds nicely through the game it is well written and well performed through out.
It also has a multiplayer option but its not great to tell the truth the weapons are just not suited for fast paced multiplayer action and it ends up being very flustrating once the story has been stripped away from the game.
The game is set up perfectly for online co-op as through out the game your brother fights along side you and they rely on this for the a lot of the gameplay. In parts where your brother goes in the front door and you sneak in the back door to surpirse the enemy are done brilliantly. You also need your brother to give you a helping hand climbing onto ledges etc it really is a massive feature in the game which makes it all the more confusing as to why they didn't include a co-op option in this game. This was so strange as it would have made the game so much more enjoyable.
To sum up a well put together game which is fun and will keep you interested while you play through it but the single player story mode is a little bit on the short side the lack of co-op means there is very little replay value in fact the lack of a co-op option annoyed me so much that it started to take away from my enjoyment of the game i seriously cant think of any reason as to why they left this out for me the whole game falls down on this point. They came so close to making a good game is a bit frustrating. We know that this style of game on the next gen machines will only give you 7-8 hours of game play in the single player story mode and if developers are going to do this and still expect you to pay full price for the games they need to start working on increasing the replay value and improving the multiplayer aspects of the games and not to just add a multiplayer feature as an after thought.
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