Review | Call of Juarez: Bound in Blood

Format: PS3/Xbox360/PC | Genre: First-person shooter | Publisher: UbiSoft | Developer: Techland | Release date: 03/07/09 | RRP: £29.99 – £39.99

By Daniel Lipscombe

Love them or hate them, spaghetti westerns have an undeniable charm.

Just mention westerns to somebody and it’s bound to jolt an iconic image of Clint Eastwood from any part of Sergio Leone’s Man With No Name trilogy – dusty towns, the old saloon with swing doors and resident madam, six shooters, Mexicans and moonshine, each a piece of the puzzle that makes up the picture of the Wild West. It’s this world that holds the heart of Call of Juarez and its successor, Bound in Blood.

Creating such familiar visuals could be seen as quite a task, but each area of the game feels as if it’s been pulled straight from the storyboards of A Fistful of Dollars and lovingly recreated here. From dusty open vistas and forested creeks, to ragged town squares and claustrophobic mines, each level is contained in a fully realised slice of the Wild West. The little nuances add to the environment – wanted posters on walls, horses waiting on rails outside of saloons and spittoons in corners of rooms. Not only are the environments well crafted, but they have a high graphical fidelity that is, in places, jaw-dropping. The white-water journey down a river in particular shows off spectacular lighting effects, with water reflecting the sunlight as it trickles down the camera.

With a classic western-style narrative that accompanies the traditional visuals, each twist and turn is involving and emotional. By the end of the story you feel fully engaged with the cast. Not only is the story pushed along by great dialogue, but the voice acting is spot on too, particularly from Marc Alaimo who voices Ray. Each of the characters has – well – character, from the evil and disgruntled Colonel Barnsby, who is after the brothers for deserting the army, to Seeing Farther, the son of the Apache tribe leader who tries to prove himself to his father. There are many genuine moments of compassion for the cast, due primarily to the narration of the cut-scenes. With characters expressing their emotions for situations in the story, you really feel as if they’ve confided their feelings to you, which contributes to a highly personal and engaging experience.

//Forgive me, father
There is perhaps one character that you engage with more than the controllable avatars of Thomas and Ray, and this is their brother, William. William narrates most of the game and is your conscience from start to finish. As a priest, William damns his brothers and, in part, you for the actions taken in the story. Throughout any of his monologues, there is a very real feeling of guilt for having to control two brothers that are ultimately destined to become mortal enemies.

It’s a shame that, for a game with such a rich story and great cast, Bound in Blood sticks to such linear level paths, and other than the occasional moment of using a lasso to get over a blockage or kicking down a door to move around the enemy there is very little in deviation. There are moments of exploration here and there, whether it be finding ‘secrets’ in the form of rolled-up wanted posters or finding gold to aid you in buying better weapons from the stores along your route, but usually you don’t need to walk too far to find these. While the secrets are interesting, it would have added more to the game if you had unlocked weapons or upgrades. Rather than just buying a new gun at the store, tweaking reload speed or fire-power through unlocks would have added more depth to the overall experience, and added some personality to the weapon set.

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