With the invitation of msxbox-world to the Call of Juarez: Bound in Blood event it had been an especially exciting opportunity for us to attend, not only for the free drinks, but as we hadn’t seen much from the original Call of Juarez before it had been released, it was useful for us to get a quick peak of the work that has gone into Bound in Blood to make it a genuine improvement over the already solid Wild Western shooter.
We have been looking forward to seeing this title out of curiosity, Call of Juarez though wasn’t just a first person shooter, it took some unusual stabs at the platforming genre, and this is where it fell flat on its face for some. Those people will be glad to know that from what we played at the small underground bar in Covent Garden – of where it all transpired – these elements have been completely removed, so it is now just a Western style, classic movie inspired first person shooter, of which we’re all glad of.
The place of where this was all happening has to be one of the few bizarre places we’d ever been to, not only because it was a system link multiplayer and singleplayer preview taking place in a bar, but the fact that everything was so cramped accentuated the inaptness of it all. That being said, it has been the event where we had made the most progress and have gotten the most from it. We managed to play the short but sweet multiplayer modes of the game, the old fashioned movie approach of the singleplayer, talk to a few Ubisoft representatives about the game, other titles that they’re working on, and have an extensive interview with one of the producers.
To start off with the beginning of the event, we had a good hour or so of the system link multiplayer. From what we gathered, a lot of attention has gone into the multiplayer portion of the game this time round, as opposed to the basic pretty basic and bland multiplayer of Call of Juarez.
Instead of the limited four classes, there are now around 14 different classes to choose from all with their different weapon styles, and the more points you gain in the multiplayer the better classes you’d unlock down the line. This didn’t cause unbalance though, as we were still was able to kill the top players with the first class of the set, it just had been a bit harder. There are also a number of new modes and features, including the all new and unique bounty system, which in theory is simple yet sophisticated in practice. The idea is that after every kill a player makes their points increase - like any other basic death-match type game - but to every other player the player’s points represent a bounty that gets added to their point pool if they kill that player, so the higher the points the higher the more points the opposing gets when another player kills you, so it balances itself out perfectly. This little point allocating feature gets added to every game mode available. Probably the most stand-out mode which I enjoyed a lot was the “Wild West Legends” mode, and it had us split into two teams, one team were the Bandits, and the other team were the Lawmen. The aim of the game was around several set pieces of the map the and the Bandits had to do a number of set, often destructive, tasks such as plant a bomb on a chest or destroy the stables, and then the Lawmen had to do their best to defend such points. As soon as one objective was completed, another point on the map would have to be defended from the Lawmen, and each of these in turn had to be destroyed as fast as possible to get the best score. The teams would then switch round, and they’d have to beat the previous time. It made for a quick, competitive, yet refreshing change of pace to the ordinary shootout.
‘Shootout’, funnily enough, was another mode featured in Bound in Blood; however this was just an appropriate rename to a typical death-match. We also got to play a team death-match type mode, which really didn’t differ to any other team death-match, but modes such as these were still enjoyable though due to the good selection of characters and the bounty system in play. Unfortunately we didn’t get to play much of the rest of the multiplayer, we had heard that there were some team protection type modes available for play, and a ‘one versus all’ called Wanted. There hadn’t been any other gameplay types that were exactly unique as such, arguably including Wild West Legends, but the fact that it all took place in the Wild West, and that it was oriented around typical Wild West situations, gave it that edge it needed for a prequel.
Once we got our hands on the single-player half of the game we then began to see where Call of Juarez’s long spoken charm was coming from. Yes it was clichéd from the word go, and yes you were shooting towns full of enemies not knowing quite why, but it didn’t matter as it took on the classic Western movie ridiculousness but in a very satisfying way. What also gave Bound in Blood character were the two people you were following. Firstly you have Ray, who’s a returning character from the original, as this is a prequel though there will be no spurting of strict Religious phrases. And then secondly, you have Thomas (or simply Tom, as we frequently heard him being called by) who’s the joint brother of Ray, and both of who you’ll be able to play throughout most of the duration of the game. An interesting element worth pointing out is that you don’t play as a good guy in this, at least not an obvious good guy from the start, but more of a couple of anti-heroes who’ll you’ll love to hate.
We managed to get a good taste of both characters, and from what we can tell they share the same dark sense of humour, bounce of the same disturbing comments, and just generally act like very similar people, what is good to know though is that they don’t exactly play like the same people. Yes, both characters move, run, and shoot the same way as each other, but both characters take on different shooting styles to favour the player’s playing style. Ray is very much a short ranged bulldozer, and is able to take a bit more damage due to his body plate armour, where as Thomas is the quicker, and more light footed player who specialises in long ranged weaponry. Unfortunately you don’t get to choose which character you play as right away, the plus though is that you get a tutorial in the form of a plot-line introduction playing as Ray in the middle of a civil war, which in the end turns out you decide not to be a part of. This possibly regretful manoeuvre sends you on a trip looking for Aztec gold, and on the run not only from the North American armies but also the Confederates for deserting war, so it’s a game that wastes no time in getting into the thick of things.
Highlights we could extract from playing the fairly hard to follow story and moment jumping single-player were the shooting mechanics. You’re able to automatically hide behind reachable cover and any wall with an edge, you’re guns will pear round the side like you’re leaning; a mechanic that worked seemingly well. The gunplay was especially enjoyable though because of the enemy reaction, the animations and explosions were over the top, but were some of the best and most satisfying enemy kills we have had in a first person shooter; there’s nothing better than riding on the back of horse driven carriage and taking out bandits with your double pistols, in what I like to call special ‘euphoria’ mode, that is kind of like bullet time, but not in the way of a straight copy of previous titles. Basically, at certain moments – when you’ve stacked enough bodies – you can press a button and on your screen highlighted targets will appear, and you will slowly dual wield your guns in aim of those targets taking out as many enemies as you can. I was playing as Ray, so that was Ray’s version, Thomas has his own ‘euphoria’ version of the officially named “concentration” mode, which we were unable to witness, but I’m sure takes a similar style to Ray’s but with the advantage of a long distanced weapon.
That was all we were able to garner gameplay wise of Bound in Blood, we did slip a few questions and scavenged a several answers from one of the Ubisoft officials. One thing that was asked was about the concentration mode and how that was adapted, and it’s apparent that at some points you’re able to earn dual concentration for both characters, instead of just the single player annihilation. It was also interesting to find out that the versions had been built ground up for the chosen platforms, instead of them just being simple ports from the PC, something previous Xbox 360 Call of Juarez players can be pleased about.
Call of Juarez: Bound in Blood has dealt with a few of the major issues drawn-out by the active community, and it looks to be a solid shooter for any Wild Western cravers out there, or likely returning Call of Juarez fans.
Call of Juarez Bound in Blood will be releasing on PC, PS3, and Xbox 360 in June 30th for North America, and July 3rd for Europe.
Preview By: Lee Burton
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