Revolvers, Indians, Stand-offs, ... Bible ?
Call of Juarez is a first person shooter with a Western theme. Is it just me, there defiantly needs to be more (good) western themed games, this is a great example of a western done right, sure there are some technical problems but overall its one of the best westerns I've played to date.
Call of Juarez puts you in the shoes of two characters Billy Candle a Native American who is hated by the town folk, and Reverend Ray a ... priest i know, i know it sounds strange but trust me he quickly becomes one of the most bad-ass characters you've ever seen. The story is pretty standard western stuff, revenge, gold, etc. It begins with Billy being framed for the death of his mother and step-father (who is Ray's brother) and Reverend Ray is out to catch him to get revenge. This is the first of many innovations this game has, you play a character running from the other character you control, and you basically see the story unfold from both angels and its quite interesting.
Both characters actually are quite different Billy on one hand is agile and has a whip he can use to climb up, or swing across unreachable gaps. While Reverend Ray is slow but has a bulletproof vest and a quick draw, and a Bible which u can equip while holding a pistol and you can recite verses from the bible which makes enemies drop to there knees and ask for forgiveness but instead of placing your hands on their head, their face is meet with a bullet from your gun (still haven't hooked you).
At first its a pretty straight forward FPS, you move forward and shoot everything in your path, but it soons changes quite drastically while you do return to some simple run and gun action, its broken up by open levels which have you explore large parts of the western wilderness a stealth mission (which has an AI and a darkness problem) but the game is varied enough that you'll never be bored. At least not through the games roughly 10 hour length.
Now onto the flaws, graphics over distance they are some of the best on the system, water looks fantastic and shadows are frighteningly realistic but the same graphics arent great once you get up close to objects, enviroment phyics are a bit buggy (crates and such) enemies AI is strangely acurate over long distances... with a revolver. Some of the "platforming" bits with Billy arent percise enough for the things you need to do, you'll end up retrying parts too often.
VERDICT : A great western game, engaging story, quality voice acting, graphics have their moments, Bible as a weapon pure genuis, Dont hesitate to pick up this game, you'll find yourself repeating bible verese to see of people fall to their knees
