PS3 Review - Call of Juarez: Bound in Blood

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The addition of gameplay features, such as being able to slow down time during gunfights, is very cool. Killing enemies increases an experience meter, which feeds the ability to go into slow-mo. When your experience gets full, you press the Circle face button, and whatever enemies are close, you auto-aim, and pull the trigger. When the enemy is dead, it moves to the next foe, until all that are close to you have perished. When the countdown is up, you lose your experience, and cannot do the slow-mo feature until the experience meter is built back up. And Techland was smart to give the brothers two different slow-mo controls.

Another gameplay feature which I liked was the Showdown, due to how well-implemented the controls were. The camera goes down to your right hip, just so you’re able to see your gun. You move with the left analog stick, and you move the character’s hand with the right analog stick. To keep your enemy in sight, you’ll have to move either to the left or right. A hint is to keep your hand near your gun at all times, because if it’s far away from your holster when the bell rings, you’re dead. When the bell rings, everything will slow down, and a crosshair will slowly move across the screen. Aim the crosshair against the enemy, and shoot with R1. If you’re fast enough, you’ll most likely kill him. The Showdowns in the game get harder as you progress, even on easy mode, but they’re incredibly cool to pull off.

Multiplayer is very basic, as you would expect from a title that emphasizes the story mode. There’s the standard Deathmatch and Team Deathmatch modes, as well as Wanted. Wanted is a mode where you hunt down the wanted player, and if you kill that player, you become the wanted. Think Juggernaut from the Halo series, but without the health boost. The best mode though is Wild West Legends, in which you complete objectives with your team however you like. The other team will be there to try and stop these objectives from being carried out. What’s cool is that these objectives are based on actual historical events, which is a great touch.

The sound in the game is great, with accurate music, and good sound effects. Voice acting is good, even for the simple characters in the game. The voice actors for both Thomas and Ray McCall were fantastic, and I applaud them for making these great characters come to life so well.

Overall, Call of Juarez: Bound in Blood is a fun game. The story in the game is the gem of the title, and multiplayer boosts up the replay value, giving a great excuse to come back to the game. The sound design is also top notch, and the gameplay mostly good. However, aspects that bring this title down are its sometimes lackluster “shoot, objective, shoot” levels, and occasional glitches. The game is still a blast to play, and I urge cowboy fans to buy it. Now.