If ever there was a definition of “niche title” I’d have to say Call of Juarez would fit that definition very nicely. Call of Juarez is a first person shooter (FPS) based in the “Old West”. Not the real old west as it existed per say, but the “Old West” -- Hollywood’s Old West. While the set pieces in the game are fairly authentic to how the west may have been back in the late 19th century, the story is pure Hollywood. Tons of shootouts and duels? Check. Train robbery? Check. Horse Carriage Chase? Check. Damsel in distress? Check. Cliché evil bad guys? Check.

We follow the trail of Billy Candle, a half white half Mexican young lad who has been searching for the Lost Gold of Juarez. He has given up his search and returned home broke and penniless. He arrives at his old farmstead to find his mother and step father have been slaughtered. Reverend Ray, the Town Preacher and brother of Billy’s Step dad arrives on the scene to find Billy standing over his brother and sister in law’s corpses and immediately assumes that Billy has killed them. Unfortunately for Billy, Reverend Ray used to be a bad ass gun slinger back in the day, and Ray decides that God has chosen him to deliver justice to Billy, who he believes to be a murderer. Thus groundwork is set for a 9 hour single player campaign in which the player takes on the roll of Billy, running from the crazed man of God, and Reverend Ray, determined to track down Billy and bring God’s vengeance to him in the form of 6 bullets.

Gameplay:

The gameplay was a crapshoot, most often depending on which character you are currently in control of. Billy’s missions are the platformer/sneak type, and I found tended to be frustrating at times. While Billy is usually armed with a bow and arrow, for the most part his missions involve slinking around, hoping that he doesn’t get caught by whatever bandits or Indians he is trying to avoid. Billy also has a whip he can use to latch onto branches, so he can swing from platform to platform. Usually a badly timed jump will end with Billy falling into a ravine Wile E Coyote style. Thankfully the game autosaves fairly frequently at certain points throughout the mission so a death won’t set you back too far.

I personally enjoyed Reverend Ray’s missions far more. Reverend Ray doesn’t believe in sneaking around, instead making his way through each episode blasting bad guys away with his 6 shot revolvers. Using “concentration mode” (slow motion) Ray is able to blast his way through armies of bad guys without breaking a sweat. Reverend Ray’s voice acting was equal parts hilarious and chilling as he is constantly quoting scripture … usually from the “Wrathful God” parts of the Bible. Heck, Ray can even use the Bible while in a gunfight to quote scripture … the bad guy’s will stop shooting for a moment giving Ray the chance to blow them away. It’s borderline bad taste but done in an over-the-top hilariously funny fashion. The only downside to Ray’s missions in my opinion were the “puzzles” thrown in here and there which generally meant a 10 minute annoying exercise of puzzle platforming. The puzzles weren’t hard to solve, but often were hard to complete without getting extremely frustrated. Ray’s missions should have been kept strictly about gun fighting, and thankfully for the most part they were.

Both characters get some cool “horse riding” levels which were a blast to play. The levels are huge, and riding on a horse while chasing a stagecoach, and blasting baddies off their mounts, really for me caught the flavor of what a Hollywood Old West game is all about. It was all I could do not to shout Yee Haw!

The multiplayer modes in Call of Juarez are wide and varied consisting of Deathmatch, Team Deathmatch, Hold up, Gold Rush and Capture the Bag usually with one team playing the “lawmen” and the other team the “Outlaws” There are four different classes the player can choose, consisting of sniper, rifleman, miner and gunslinger, each with a unique feel. From my foray into multiplayer I found a lot of players using the sniper, which lead to some frustrating deaths, but I must say that the miner’s dynamite makes multiplayer a real “blast” tee hee. On one Capture the Bag mode you get to use horses which lead to some awesome old western style chases across absolutely massive maps. There are a decent amount of games happening on Live, and I logged into Multiplayer at 4 AM EST. I suspect that multiplayer will have a few months in the sun and western fanatics will keep multiplayer on Live alive for some time to come.

Graphics:

Don’t let anyone tell you otherwise, the graphics in this title are superb. I’m a gamer myself, so I won’t speak buzz words like “lighting” and “textures”. All I can say is that while playing the game I was like “so THIS is what an FPS shooter with Oblivion style graphics looks like.” Everything looked really nice, from the authentic old west guns you hold, to the “look” of the town buildings, to the vista that spreads out before you while riding on your horse. Some of the levels are absolutely humongous, there will be times when you are looking out over a cliff down below and your breath will be taken away by the beauty of it all. The last game that did this to me was Oblivion so take that as you may. The character models in Call of Juarez are not exactly as awe inspiring as the scenery, but for the environments look nice enough you’ll probably be willing to cut the developers some slack.

Sound:

The music in the game really added a lot to the overall gameplay experience. There were several times when things had just gone REALLY badly for Billy in the story, and the music really got me to “feel the moment”. Not very many games do this for me, but I think a combination of the music combined with great (cheesy) story, and immersive graphics, caused me to get into the Old Western spirit. Overall the music does the job wonderfully, helping to set the mood of the game.

Longevity:

The single player campaign only took me 9 hours to complete. If you’re buying Call of Juarez for its single player campaign alone, you’re probably better off renting the title, as you’ll be able to finish it in one weekend. The single player campaign is great, but even with the “extra” un-lockable missions and duels, you’re still looking at 10 - 11 hours tops to finish everything.

On the other hand, if you are looking for a new multiplayer experience, and you LOVE the Old West … then you should consider adding this title to your library. The game’s longevity is clearly going to be dictated by how active a multiplayer community it spawns and only time will tell how long fickle Live gamers are willing to put into the title. For the record though, I logged on at 4 in the morning EST and the servers were hopping. The game is a new release, but this is certainly a good sign.

Overall:

When I first was trying to decide on what sort of score to give Call of Juarez, I considered knocking off points simply because it was a genre (Western) specific title. Then I sat down and thought about it a bit further. Shadowrun a “multiplayer only” title got bad scores from many reviewers not because it wasn’t a great game … but simply because it wasn’t everything to everyone. It really upset me that a game could get bad marks for things that it never claimed to be.

So in judging Call of Juarez I have to look at what it attempts to be … a cheesy over the top take on Hollywood’s Old West, packed with an awesome single player campaign, gunfights galore, amazing graphics and a decent multiplayer mode. Most importantly the game is FUN in a way that immerses you completely in its cheese ball single player adventure. While others would deduct points simply because it’s a niche title, I think it’s important to take a look and see; the game does everything it set out to do and more. Fans of the western genre are going to be pleased with this game, and to be honest, even non western fans will be pretty happy as well. While certain aspects of the game are annoying, overall the fun factor of the rest won me over. I believe that it will for you too.