Call of Juarez

My first session with Call of Juarez made one thing obvious: Techland built this game because they genuinely love Spaghetti Westerns, not because the genre was trendy. That passion carries the whole experience, even when the design stumbles, and it stumbles enough that you'll notice. The setup alternates you between two antagonists across a cat-and-mouse story set in 1884 Texas and Mexico. Ray McCall is a reformed gunslinger now hiding behind a preacher's collar, and Billy Candle is the fugitive he's hunting, wrongly accused of a double murder. Ray's levels are boisterous, guns-blazing chapters where you can dual-wield revolvers, trigger Concentration Mode to slow time and fan both hammers at once, or hold a Bible aloft to baffle enemies before putting them down. Billy's levels take a quieter approach: stealth, a whip for traversal and combat, and a bow and arrow when things go loud. The tonal contrast works on paper, and when it clicks, the back-and-forth pacing keeps the campaign from flattening into a corridor-shooting routine. The problem is that the two halves are not equal in quality. Ray's levels are where the game shines, and most critics at the time agreed: the shooting feels tight, the Concentration Mode has actual mechanical substance rather than just style, and Marc Alaimo's voice performance as Ray gives the man more dimension than the script deserves. Billy's sections are the drag. The stealth is serviceable but unremarkable, and the platforming sequences, especially sections involving the whip for climbing and traversal, are where patience will wear thin. The enemy AI across both characters is a consistent weak point, and you will sometimes feel more like you're working around the game than playing through it. Visually, the Chrome Engine 3 produces beautiful open-air environments, mountain vistas, desert plains, mine shafts and riverside settlements that look convincing even today in a painterly sense. Character models are another story, stiff in animation and carrying that late-2000s waxy sheen. The cinematic score is one of the game's strongest assets and does more for immersion than any single gameplay system. Note for modern players: online multiplayer features have been officially discontinued as of late 2024, so the rifleman, gunslinger, miner, and sniper class modes are offline only now. The single-player campaign with its gun duel mini-games and episodic chapter structure is what you're here for, and it runs roughly 8 to 10 hours. Call of Juarez is a game that was doing something rare for 2007: a Western FPS with a dual-protagonist structure, authentic period weapons that degrade and explode if neglected, and a story that has enough pulp-novel energy to stay interesting. The sequel, Bound in Blood, addressed its main criticisms and is the tighter game. But the original holds its own as a curio with genuine atmosphere and one of the more memorable preacher-with-a-gun protagonists in the genre. Go in with calibrated expectations and you'll find more to like than the Metacritic score suggests. Alex, Scout Team