Call of Juarez: Bound in Blood Review

There's something about the Western theme that has allowed Polish developer Techland to get away with some pretty risqué subject matter in Call of Juarez: Bound in Blood. Perhaps our historical distance from the Wild West makes its lawlessness and general lack of morality seem more acceptable, or maybe puritanical censorship wranglers are more willing to overlook stories that hark back to the good old days when gentlemen were gentlemen and so on...

Whatever the case, gentleman isn't the first word that comes to mind when describing either of the two playable McCall brothers. Perhaps you could argue that Thomas has his (very brief) moments of gentlemanliness but, as far as Ray is concerned, we've never heard quite so much filth come out of a lead character's mouth in a game. It's a good job the events of Bound in Blood eventually lead Ray to the priesthood (that's not really a spoiler as Bound in Blood is a prequel to the original Call of Juarez, where Ray was a Priest), otherwise God knows where he would've ended up.

The Young And The Restless

At times, Bound in Blood veers dangerously close to the line with its occasional notes of racism, rape, and even one character's history of sexual abuse as a child (this is not helped by the fact that Ray sounds like a slightly huskier version of the old man on a Zimmer frame from Family Guy). It's pretty grim stuff throughout but, seeing as its fiction is set nearly a century and a half in the past, we can at least delude ourselves that people aren't really like that anymore. Put this stuff in GTA V though, and you might have a serious problem on your hands.

Beyond these hard-hitting one-liners however, the story itself bears more resemblance to a US soap opera with its themes of betrayal, jealous brothers and their constant quarrelling over the love of a stunning, Latin woman. If you were to throw out the Wild West sets and assembly of various Mexicans, Native Americans, and Civil War Generals as supporting characters (replacing them with rich and beautiful people instead), it could very easily be mistaken for a story-arc in Days of Our Lives. This is no bad thing though, because it's actually one of the elements of the game that becomes shamefully appealing - just like watching a US soap opera, you end up addicted to the ridiculous plotlines while simultaneously being thoroughly appalled at yourself for precisely that reason.

At the very least, Bound in Blood is a very welcome break from the FPS thoroughfare of space marine operas and World War II epics. At its best, the game knocks on the door of a Bethesda-esque sense of adventure throughout its vast environments, imaginative objectives, and even occasional usage of exploratory side missions. Don't get us wrong; it's very much a scripted first-person shooter with very few RPG elements. Seemingly huge levels are actually deceptively small and effectively bottleneck you through much smaller channels than the huge draw distances would otherwise suggest (similarly to Crysis). Nonetheless, Techland successfully casts the illusion with its use of the impressive Chrome Engine 4, which has been built specifically by the developer to handle these kinds of sprawling vistas.

These impressive visual and technical achievements are not without their rough edges though. Some of the high-end graphical effects, such as heat hazing, seem to jut out of the environments awkwardly at times and lack the kind of subtle blending prowess of visual grandmasters such as Epic and Crytek. In addition to this, the review code that we played (which, admittedly, did not appear to be entirely final) wasn't exactly smoothly optimised and you'd often be faced with brief but unwelcome loading waits at level checkpoints. These are minor quibbles though for what is certainly a visually impressive title.

Similarly, gameplay is impressively woven together at times but occasionally falls down on the most basic of principles. In one level you have to use two sticks of dynamite (Bound in Blood's equivalent of grenades) to blow up a couple of barricades, although there are no respawning dynamite crates in the vicinity. So, if you happen to use up all your dynamite before you get there, then you have to go all the way back to the beginning of the chapter and start again with a full inventory. In addition to this, there's a tendency for the gameplay to fall into some fairly monotonous shoot-outs where the difficulty rate is notched-up to overly aggressive proportions.

These annoyances are far outweighed by the game's strong points though. Our particular favourite is how Techland uses a nigh-on inspired mini-game to deal with boss sections. These pistols-at-dawn style showdowns position you 10 paces from your adversary, while the camera pans away from a first-person view to behind your character's gun holster and facing the enemy. Using the right thumbstick to control Ray or Thomas' gun-slinging hand, players then have to draw quickest when the town clock bongs in order to kill the bad guy. It's synonymously Wild Western and is one of a number of gunplay features that perfectly fit the game's setting.

One of our main concern's when we previewed the game earlier this year was its lack of co-op play. After all, a game about two brothers who're playable characters in a Wild West FPS seemed to be ideal for co-op, but Techland's decision to stick with single-player and focus on the relationship between Thomas and Ray has been the right one in hindsight. It's the constant twists and turns in these characters' storylines - accompanied by a well-written chatter system between them - that builds up such a strong and believable relationship. This, in turn, adds a lot more weight to your decision of fighting as either Ray or Thomas. It's an aspect of the game that Techland wouldn't have been able to deliver with quite the same gravitas had a second player been involved.

Beyond these cosmetic reasons for choosing either Ray or Thomas at the beginning of each level are some hefty gameplay trade-offs as well. Ray's got the power: he's a dual-wielding son of a gun who's deadly at close range with pistols. Definitely not an advocate of the 'softly, softly' approach, he can also carry up to eight roulettes of dynamite. Thomas is the more varied character of the two, with a lasso for reaching elevated areas at scripted points, as well as some throwing knives for added stealth (although the stealth is painfully simple on the very rare occasions that Techland has decided to serve up an opportunity). He's also more deadly with a rifle or bow at long range but his ability to take damage leaves much to be desired.

Keeping Your Concentration

Some fairly bizarre Concentration modes also come into play whenever you've pulled off a successful killing spree. These are essentially variations on the bullet-time theme, whether it's painting targets in slow-mo for an ensuing flurry of gunfire, timing dual-wielded shots to take out up to 10 enemies in an instant, or flicking back and then forwards on the right thumbstick to imitate cocking a gun. Both characters have their own specific modes that can be pulled out in a tight spot to clear the room of no good low lives and, while the bullet time thing is quite old in the tooth, at least there's some variation in how Techland uses it.

The balancing between Ray and Thomas is spot-on for the most part and the levels have been well designed to fit each character's tendencies. An extensive single-player campaign of roughly 12 hours in length rarely falls into tedium thanks to the variation that's offered by Thomas and Ray, as well as the more distinctive objectives that are used to break up the shoot-outs. Vehicle sections are well catered for while some of the gun emplacement objectives keep Bound in Blood ticking along at a frenzied pace - we particularly enjoyed taking to a cannon and blowing rafts of Union troops out of the water as they tried to cross a river.

On top of this sumptuous single-player offering, Techland has also built a multiplayer component with some original modes that improve the game's longevity significantly. As well as the usual deathmatch trimmings, the Advance and Wanted modes put a focus on team play. Advance mode features a Sheriff team that has to run a load of bandits out of town, while Wanted mode is an all-against-one affair. Pervading these modes is an interesting bounty system, which puts a higher price on the head of players with more kills. The film inspired maps are pretty cool too.