Call of Juarez: Bound in Blood - Game Review

Do you like the Wild Wild West? Do you like quick draws and cow boys? Do you visualize the Arizona desert with Cactus and like the Clint Eastwood movies based around this period? Do you want to be a gunslinger? If the answers are YES, Call of Juarez - Bound in Blood is a game that will go right through the top of your all-time favorites once you finish playing the game.

Call of Juarez is a first person PC shooter based in 19th century America around the period of the American Civil War. The game starts of in the middle of the Civil War with the two playable characters - Ray and Thomas, fighting as soldiers for the Confederate army of the southern States. Unfortunately for them, they desert their side against orders from their Colonel to protect their family house under attack by the union Army. What starts off seeming like a typical FPS war game, like countless other World War games, rapidly changes pace and becomes a whole new species. The game moves on from the civil war to treasure chase, siding with native Americans, sometimes fighting them, killing bandits and many other adventures. The game play is fast paced and it just keeps getting better and better. The plot is tightly woven and even with optional missions for characters to choose the game never gets boring any time. Not to mention the rivalry between the two brothers to win a beautiful woman.



You can choose to play either as Ray or as Thomas and both of them have their own special skills. Thomas mostly does the jumping around and has Bows as a unique weapon. Ray likes the stable ground and likes revolvers and dynamite. You are forced to play one of the characters in certain chapters to keep the plot sensible. In other chapters you get to choose. Riding on horses and shooting , quick-draws, shooting horse riders chasing you from inside a horse driven carriage, fighting native Americans, Gatling guns, WANTED posters and accompanying missions all add a lot of value to the game. Very few moments feel repetitive and you really feel like Clint Eastwood in a game that feels like a combination of The Good, the bad, the ugly, A fist full of Dollars and For a few dollars more; all three movies rolled into one single game. The background score though initially not impressive quickly catches on and feels as good as some of the tunes churned out by Ennio Morricone for the Clint Eastwood Movies.

I was able to play the game quite comfortable with all settings maxed out at a resolution of 1920 X 1200 using an Nvidia GeForce GTX275. I suspect the basic game-play can be enjoyed even on a Geforce 8 Series GPU based laptop with all eye-candy settings in the game set to medium or low.



The game play felt like the type that should have been originally there in Far Cry 2. Unfortunately, the period of the game made a big difference. The only difficulty I had in the game was figuring out the Quick-draw duels. Facing off a single opponent at the strike of the town bell with a revolver is something that I have always wanted to do since watching the old western flicks. And when I finally got my chance to do it, it felt very tough. It takes some time to get the tactic to win the duel. Once you know what needs to be done, winning the duel is a piece of cake. In case you get struck at a Duel while playing, don't give up. The grass is green on the other side.



All in all Call of Juarez is a super entertainer, different and totally worth the money. If Sergio Leone was alive and had made a game, this would have been it. I missed out playing the first part of the game which was just called Call of Juarez. I am told that Bound in Blood is a prequel to the first game. Can't wait to lay my hands on the old game now.