Call of Juarez: Bound in Blood Review Page 2



£39.99

The developer has even adopted the most fashionable of FPS mechanics at the moment, the cover system, albeit with mixed results. With no button to snap the player to cover, the game instead does it automatically if you stand close enough to an object or wall. You then simply need to move the right stick left or right (or up and down if you’re crouched behind an object) to lean out and take aim at the bad guys. However, it feels too slow to enter and exit cover and you’ll occasionally take cover behind an object when you’re trying to walk around it.  For a game that leans more towards balls-out action than tactical combat, the cover system seems both unnecessary and a little underdeveloped, two criticisms that can also be levelled at Bound in Blood’s open-world sections.

At two points in the game you’re offered a bit of freedom by Techland. Based at a gun shop, you’re free to take on a number of side missions to earn yourself some cash which can be used to buy/upgrade weapons. These sections don’t work particularly well for two reasons: firstly, the rest of the game is 100% linear so it’s a little jarring to suddenly put the narrative on the backburner as you explore the landscape looking for bad guys. Also, there’s not enough variety in the side missions to hold your interest. While the objectives may differ slightly, all too often the side missions play out in essentially the same way. Ride horse to destination, get shot at, shoot bad guy’s henchmen, have a duel with the boss man. There’s no real need to complete these missions - you’ll earn enough cash during the main story missions to upgrade your weapons anyway - and a more cynical reviewer than myself might suggest that they only exist to pad out what is a pretty short single player campaign (around six to seven hours on the first run-through).

But, if there’s one saving grace of the side missions it’s that they allow you to explore the game’s stunningly atmospheric landscapes. Techland deserves credit for the game world it has created in Bound in Blood. Although the early civil war sections show off some pretty impressive battlefields, the environments really start to shine by the time you reach Arizona, recalling John Ford’s iconic Monument Valley films. The draw distance is superb and, when combined with the visual heat-haze effects and the little details like Buzzards circling overhead, it all adds up to a highly atmospheric experience and this is the real draw of Bound in Blood. It feels like an authentic Western movie.

Although the story is littered with Western clichés (the troubled preacher, the noble savages, the w***-centric love triangle) it really doesn’t matter because that’s what we want from a Western game. This isn’t Deadwood, this is Tombstone, it’s Young Guns, it’s City Slickers – OK it’s not City Slickers, but you get the point. Bound in Blood revels in the clichés and, while it may not manage to craft a great story, it’s dripping in atmosphere and it makes you feel like the badass gunslinger you wanted to be as a kid. It’s hard not to smile the first time you bust through the saloon doors as concentration mode kicks in and you take down everyone inside in a matter of seconds. And it’s the same when it comes to the duels. Sure, they’re overused in the game and seem to act as a cheap replacement for a boss battle, but they’re genuinely atmospheric. 

As such, if you have any interest in Westerns you should play Bound in Blood. Its mechanics are better than the first game, as is the structure and the whole game plays out like a clichéd but authentic Western film.  Although it somewhat bafflingly lacks a co-op mode, there is enough variety and fun in the multiplayer game (stay tuned for a MP review next week) to make up for the short single player game, especially in the new Wild West Legends mode. There may not be a lot of competition in the Western shooter field and, until we see what Red Dead Redemption has to offer, Bound in Blood is clearly the fastest gun in the West.