Call of Juarez: Bound in Blood (PlayStation 3)

Graphics

There are issues, there are some texture glitches and there’s definite pop-in when you’re riding the big open planes. These are minor details though compared to the sheer vastness of the environment. It has been created with a painstaking eye to detail and evokes just the right feeling of ‘being there’ that elevates the game from the run of the mill shooter. The graphics themselves are excellent, there’s a good level of detail to the character textures, models and environments and nothing seems out of place or badly created. The only texture glitch we spotted was on one of the guns, where it flickered slightly a couple of times at a certain angle. It happened on no other weapon.

Animations

There are numerous death animations and the game delivers the whole experience in a visceral, yet non-brutal manner. The animations are consistent with a Spaghetti Western and everything moves really well. Ray and Thomas are really well animated and so are the horses, they run and gallop convincingly. Every bit-part character is done well and the cut-scenes are excellent, top marks for that.

Physics

The physics in the Chrome 4 engine are decent enough; there are ragdoll effects and big explosions. Fire carries well in this game though doesn’t feel as ‘real’ as it did in the first title. Thomas’ lasso physics are better than the whip physics by far and everything does feel as though it has a weight and solidity to it. The enemy soldiers stagger convincingly when hit with enough force and bodies fly through the air in a slightly over the top manner – just right for this kind of game.
AI

The AI is good, for both enemies and allies. There are a couple of glitches now and then, enemies get stuck and it’s easy to shoot them in the back. A few times a trigger didn’t kick in and I had to hit up a checkpoint to fix it. Your partner AI does a solid job of covering your back as you engage in gunfights with the enemy and the enemy AI can use the environment, take cover, hurl lamps to smoke and burn you out of hiding. They’ll also use dynamite to blast you if you’re not careful. Standoff AI is fairly competent, it will try and mislead and trick you, moving and evaluating your position before the clock chimes.

Music

The game has an excellent score, it evokes the atmosphere of the Wild West perfectly and swells, ebbs with the action in the game. Tense scenes invoke a feeling of just that and coupled with the great cut-scene direction the music delivers on the overall experience nicely.

Sound

The sound in the game is good, there are some really nice spot effects and the weapons sound decent as well. The gallop of the horse’s hooves on sand and rough stone changes like it should. All in all, nothing to complain about sound wise.

Voice/Dialogue

A fairly competent job has been done by the voice actors, it’s not too over the top and the lines between Ray and Thomas are especially natural. Ray’s dark gravelly voice is one of my favourites and he was my favourite from the first game. Thomas’ lighter and more ‘cowboy’ tones come through in spades and his wittier repartee compared to Ray is obvious. The script and voice are good, not brilliant but they certainly don’t let anyone down.

Multiplayer

There are some issues at the moment with the mp in Bound in Blood. There are some drops in and out and quite a chunk of lag. We expect these will be fixed since Ubisoft have delivered some amazingly good online shooters for us in the past. There is the usual Deathmatch and various mp variants on offer, nothing is really innovative here. There’s a class and bounty system available and you earn cash to buy various things in mp. It’s a competent addition and feels more integrated, it doesn’t feel as though the developers shoe-horned anything in. There is a cool Legends mode where you play various Wild West confrontations and historical battles across the fairly expansive and well made maps.

All in all the mp is solid barring those issues and feels quite fun.

The last bullet

Whilst it doesn’t break any new ground in an industry that is often beset by shooters, it does one thing that I wish more games would. It plays in a rewarding manner and it’s actually worth finishing the story, it will take gamers around 7 hours or so if they blast through it and around 10 or more hours if they want to unlock the secrets hidden away in the game’s various levels. It’s also not a World War 2 shooter and that counts for something in my book, since gaming is packed to the teeth with those and we could do with some more Bound in Blood style games.

Good stuff, worth buying for definite.