Call of Juarez: Bound in Blood

Good game. However, its flaws keep this game from greatness.

Let's start with some positives :

The gunplay is outstanding, which is essential for an FPS. The dev team really nail it with responsive firing, control-wise, and it feels very western. This ain't no fancy-shmancy sci-fi tesla guns or heavy auto WWII gear. Nah this is pure revolver and rifle greatness and you feel that while playing Bound In Blood.

Even better, getting to choose to play as either Thomas or Ray is a brilliant addition, as each character has his strengths. For example, Thomas can't duel-wield pistols but he's the better marksman. Not breaking any new ground here, but it's a nice touch, and it's enough for me to give Bound In Blood a better than average rating.

There's a lot of not-so-great things :

The countdown timer on concentration mode does not encourage exploration to find collectibles, called 'secrets'. But whatever, the secrets are pretty dumb. Mostly hindered with bad writing, they really don't add much to the story or develop the characters in an interesting way.

It's too easy to throw away a good weapon for an inferior weapon. It's hard to explain in words, but you'll understand this shortly after playing. This is made worse by the difficulty to obtain money for better firearms. Especially when looting dead bodies, you have to be exactly where the money was dropped to pick it up. I hate this. HATE. Why do so many games make the collection radius so damn small? I never understand this decision in games. I'm never not going to want to pick up that money bag. Just lemme have it. Gimme money magnet hands. And those bags and such aren't highlighted in any way so it's too easy to miss money bags lying out on tables in plain sight. Everything is the same drab brown /dirty /off-white color so it's hard to see the things you want to see. I understand the development team was aiming ( ha ; ) for visual realism, but sometimes it's better to forego realism in favor of a more streamlined gameplay.

Unngghhh why can't I sell back weapons!?! Bound In Blood does not encourage weapon exploration, which is nearly a fatal flaw for any FPS. After you spend a grand+ on that scoped rifle, you're not going to be quick to drop it--for nothing--to spend another G on a top shelf shotgun. I'm not replaying this just to try some other guns.

Oddly the concentration mode mechanics differ from Thomas to Ray. It's confusing and unnecessary, and makes switching between them a little awkward when it doesn't have to be.

When playing as Thomas there's a couple parts where I got stuck because I didn't find the *exact* spot where I needed to throw his lasso. Lame.

Dueling... probably the most universally disliked part of Bound In Blood. Needlessly frustrating. I got lucky with two duels I won with the first shot. Others I had to repeat 5 to 15 times before advancing. These duels are not optional like they are in Red Dead Redemption (a superior game in most aspects).

Blood In Blood's story is awful. The plot is fine, whatever, but the stereotypical voice-acting is atrocious. If I were Mexican or Native American or a grizzled Civil War vet I'd be angry. As it is, I'm sad that modest-to-big budget entertainment media still can't be bothered to represent all people with respect, let alone strive for authenticity. Instead the voice acting, overall, is a gross jumble of horrible accents, written with lousy 1950s dialogue. All black and white with no grey areas, no truly interesting plot twists. So so dumb. Why is it always so hard to hire actual Mexicans and Apache for those roles? Is it because they don't want to read your stupid script? This is pure garbage.

--- Overall Bound In Blood is at least worth a single playthrough, especially now that you can get a used copy for just a few bucks. I recommend it to fans of westerns, moreso if you're good at overlooking dumb writing and a disposable, generic story in your games. If you love FPSs you could do much better, but also far far worse. If you're looking to play all the solid FPS games you can find, definitely pick up Bound In Blood. There is certainly fun to be had here, and I enjoyed this more than The Cartel. Bound In Blood's gunplay is fantastic, and that's enough to carry the game past its flaws. I will definitely play its sequel Gunslinger when I get a PS4.

Call of Juarez: Bound in Blood is the best next-gen western first person shooter probably because it is one of the only next-gen western first person shooters. The game's campaign starts off in the civil war and follows the story of Three brothers who abandon their duties in the war for the sake of their family. Two years later they try to seek a legendary gold while being chased by a vengeful General. You get to choose from Two of the three brothers since the other is a non-violent priest. Both brothers have different abilities, weaknesses, and strengths. The campaign is straightforward and fairly short but enjoyable. There is also two missions that allow you to free roam and complete side quests. My first problem with the game comes in with the weapons. The game has cartridge converted revolvers in the civil war and guns that haven't even been invented until 15 to 20 years after. Just about every weapon in the game is historically inaccurate. My other problem is that the multiplayer is unbalanced. The multiplayer is fun until someone wants to spoil it by using a weapon that cannot be competed with. The veteran class for instance abolishes the use of the sniper classes by a land slide. If they had focused a little more on balancing the weapons the multiplayer would have been excellent and definitely a more enjoyable experience than it already is. The price is probably low by now so I would definitely recommend picking this one up for any platform.

Bound in Blood is a much smaller game than Red Dead Redemption, but it is still one of the best wild west themed shooters.

The Good: -Decent story with good voice acting. -The gameplay mechanics are solid, and not too repetitive. -Graphics: While many things look average, some of the environments are truly beautiful (at times on par with Crysis 1). -This game does not shy away from Christian themes, which fit well with the story. And it does so without seeming unpleasantly pro or anti Christian. -A good manual save system (no annoying checkpoint reloads). -No Ubisoft Uplay account required!

The Bad (mostly minor): -A very low Field-of-View (not fixable) due to being optimized for console TV screens. -The first level (tutorial) has clumsy scripting and mediocre graphics, but it gets better with later levels. -Bodies disappear the moment you look away, due to silly Xbox360/PS3 RAM limits. -AI is mediocre (not a big problem since most things are scripted) -screen vibration effects severely overdone during scripted explosions. -Enemies move like ants (no movement inertia), making aiming a pain sometimes.

The Ugly: -No COOP mode! With the two protagonists working together, this game would have been perfect for co-op, and yet there is no co-op mode! What a missed opportunity!

Overall, I can easily recommend this game, especially in a sale.

I loved playing this game when I was younger. I had a blast with it. The story was good. Two brothers, who are U.S. civil war veterans, abandon their army to protect their home; but find it was raided by the opposing army. So they venture out through parts of the American frontier and Mexico to find treasure to rebuild their home, slowly turning bitter and against each other. The most conflicted brother, out of the three siblings, was the eldest, Ray McCall. He was harsh, but was very funny. His brother Thomas had bitterness in him too, but to a lesser degree. The youngest of the trio, William, constantly tries and fails to persuade them to abandon their mission to search for treasure, and change their ways. There are more characters I won't mention, so I'll focus on these three. Ray is probably the most developed, being the most conflicted. William probably comes second, being the holiest and most righteous of the bunch; and Thomas, the middle brother, seems calm and cool. But he probably doesn't have much "meat to his bones." Meaning, he's the least developed. Don't get me wrong, he's a great character, but there's just not much internal conflict in him. That's not bad, but he isn't as developed as Ray. Thomas is still funny, and has good things to say though. Now, to the gameplay. It's fun, and the two brothers, Ray and Thomas, operate differently. Ray is more brute strength and frontal assault. Thomas is more range based, fast and athletic. Both of their styles are great, even though I played as Ray most of the time, and regret not playing as Thomas enough. For the duels, they were okay; even though you could easily miss your opponent if you weren't careful with where you stood. One time I shot I guy, and he didn't die. There was just blood spatter. Actually, this happened a few times, and I think my character died once because of this error in the game. It's an issue that can pop up once in a while; and depending on your temper, it can be frustrating. The only other thing I didn't like about CoJ BiB is seeing familiar faces on the enemies a lot. The faces were re used quite a bit. But it was something I could live with. In all, Bound in Blood is a very fun and under rated western game with a pretty good story, great characters and enjoyable gameplay with concentration modes good for taking down multiple enemies, stunning western like environments, sound tracks I like listening to and gun fights that make me love being a cow boy type character. My only grips with the game are minor glitches that pop up once in a while and re used facial designs. But no game is perfect, glitches are bound to happen and not everything can be new or original. CoJ BiB gets a nine from me being a fun adventure that moves you through the old west, and has you massacre all who stand in your way.

If CoJ2 is the best western game on offer the definitely count me out...this has to be one of the worst games I've ever played in all aspects.

Story, graphics, gameplay, everything...it is all hideously flawed.

Story-wise; talk about "meh" we have two gung-ho idiots that are about as intelligent as a mentally handicapped 5 year old. We have the younger goody goody brother who can't stop ranting about the Bible and the Lord, the selfish wh*re who uses people to get what she wants but is never truly blamed for being the cause of all the trouble and so on and so forth. If the character isn't a cliché then he suffers from poor character development, there is a problem with them all...

Graphics wise; horrible by major release standards. Dodgy voice acting/lip sync work, a terrible over-use of character models, don't even get me started on the ridiculous draw distance of the game...it's ridiculous. This is the standard I'd expect from an extremely light-weight game developer with minor league game publisher funding and where are the real graphic controls? I've seen better graphic controls on flash games.

Gameplay; talk about BOOOORRRING...if you're gonna try and add an open world approach then look at games like Far Cry 2 or the GTA series. Adding random optional linear side missions and the ability to ride around looking at nothing does not make an open world/sandbox style game. There needs to be some substance to the world one can explore...not just randomly scattered bandit attacks on civilians where every third one consists of the exact same scripting and voice overs.

Speaking of voice...what is up with these brothers making almost the exact same remarks every 20 seconds..."two is hardly a challenge" etc etc etc...hearing these remarks constantly is slack. I thought FC2 was bad with random guys talking about another guy shooting himself in the foot...at least I only heard that about once every half hour...

On another topic, the aiming system is shocking. By gaming standards, when a crosshair goes red or whatever colour when passing over an enemy, that doesn't mean a near miss that blows his hat off, that means a hit...that is how proper hit-boxes work. The hit-boxes in this game are atrocious. I've been right next to countless enemies, my gun and crosshair smack bang aimed in the middle of his face and then fired several shots only to find one shot actually hit and even though it hit him in the face, it didn't kill him...

Really guys? This is the best western themed game on offer? This is the best Ubisoft or anyone else for that matter can provide? This is lucky to get a 3/10...only because it gave me something to do, though I only played as long as I did in hope that it would redeem itself...to no avail.