Cowboys are pretty cool, there's just something about the Wild West that's always translated well into video game format and the whole fast on the draw gunslinger trope has made for some pretty memorable characters. Red Dead Redemption is the only game I think I've played that managed to capture this theme so flawlessly but aside from that is also the Call of Juarez series which had something of a rocky start. And yet probably the biggest shock is that bound in blood is actually a pretty damn good game and I'd say it's arguably the best game in the Call of Juarez series.
THE STORY
The main focus of the story is around ray McColl returning from the first game and his brothers Thomas and William. Thomas of course being the stepfather to Billy candle, the other protagonist from the first game. During the prologue for bound in blood, ray and Thomas are fighting in the American Civil War before they disobey a direct order and become deserters to head home and protect their land. However, when they returned home they find the place destroyed and have no choice but to go on the run to avoid their former commanding officer.
From here, they head to Mexico to look for the eponymous gold of Juarez before things start to get a little bit complicated with a love triangle and a few side characters shoehorned in to expand the plot. The whole notion of rebuilding their family home goes out the window and then turn into a couple of other dickheads that do nothing but talk shit to one another and go on about how badly they want to get laid like a couple of prune house.
I already knew ray was an asshole from having played the first game and in this storyline he isn't exactly winning me over. Unlike the first game however, bound in Blood has an actual sense of humor and doesn't take things quite as seriously there's a fair bit of banter between ray and Thomas that's fun to listen to and most of the voice acting is pretty good stuff even if as I said both of these guys are colossal Dicks for the most part.
At the start of each chapter you're able to choose between playing as Ray or Thomas which will often significantly affect the way a chapter plays out. Raised something of a bullet sponge able to dual wield revolvers and take a bit more damage whereas Thomas relies on his rifle, bow, throwing knives and wrote for a more platforming orientated playstyle. It seems Ray a fat piece of shit that can't pull himself up a Ledge to save his life so we'll have to rely on Thomas to help him along as well, It's all just trying to reinforce the whole bond between the two brothers.
Then there's a lot of moments where you're breaching a door which is that mechanic we've seen in countless call of the duty games where you bust the door down and everything goes all slow-motion so you can shoot a bunch of people really quickly. Ray also has the best ability in the game I think which is where I can throw dynamite with his left hand somehow magically lighting it despite holding a pistol in his right hand. Outside of their alternate routes during the levels, they're basically the same in terms of how they control with one exception during concentration mode.
Both characters have access to concentration mode which is like a form of bullet time I guess where time comes to a near standstill and you can take out a bunch of bad guys really quickly. This thing fills up by shooting a certain amount of enemies though once it's filled it has a time limit which is a bit odd and annoyingly it resets after cinematics or scripted sequences.
With Ray, you drag the crosshair across the screen and tag enemies but with Thomas you have to kind of lurch the mouse backwards quickly as the crosshair locks onto an enemy simulating the motion of the revolvers hammer I suppose. Either way, they're both very effective modes and fun to use. Overall, though the shooting is much better than the first game it actually feels like you're firing a weapon now not a pea shooter and the arm and hit detection feels much more cohesive.
A lot of the weapons do fly very slowly though I guess that's kind of the point given the theme and age of a lot of the guns you're using but a lot of the better guns you get your hands on improve the basics like damage and reload time anyway. Throughout the chapters you find cache which you can then spend blowing ammunition and new weapons replacing your rusty rifle with a superior and eventually superb version gives the characters an actual sense of progression makes you feel more powerful later in game.
There's a few cool chapters which are essentially free roam where you can complete three different side tasks to earn a bit of money. Most of these just include riding around on your horse then killing a bunch of bandits. These are a nice addition though I wish there was some sort of map to help you get around and the lack of any consistent checkpoints during these segments can be a bit of a pain in the arse as well.
A new addition to the shooting is this sort of cover mechanic where the game locks you behind an object when you crouch near it now this isn't as intuitive as it should be and I found myself not using it all that much because of it.
But by far one of the weakest elements in the game is the jewels which are just horrible. A staple of any Western jewels aware, you and another man sort out your differences by seeing who is the fastest on the draw. This kind of thing should really be in a western game - the cornerstone of the genre and yet inbounding blood it's a frustrating clunky fucking mess mostly because they do a horrible job of explaining how it all works.
All you're told in a few sentences of text is that you wait until you hear the Bell then you reach for you're going to draw it, but the game doesn't tell you anything else like where you're actually supposed to drag the mouse to, whether or not your position and angle to your opponent has any bearing on your speed and the first few times I managed to get my gun out of its holster I had no idea whether or not I was controlling the crosshair either.
It's just not implemented very well and learning it becomes a real chore of trial and error. To make it even worse they occur almost every single mission in the game so until you get the hang of it. It becomes really frustrating and rage-inducing. Maybe it's better on the consoles with the controller or something I don't know but on the PC it's just a half-assed mechanic. The first opponent I had a duel with took me 15 attempts before I finally passed it, I mean you will get better at it the more you play the game but on the flip side they occur so frequently that it begins to lose its luster.
GRAPHICS AND SOUND
The music is great, the sound is great the game also looks considerably better than the prior game in almost every single way. The character models look much better even if the animation still isn't all that good and the outdoor environments are about twice or even three times the size of anything we saw in Call of Juarez. Certain levels I'd even say almost look photorealistic it's just a gorgeous looking game at times, it's exactly what you'd expect from a sequel and it ticks all the boxes I mean I did have a little bit of an issue running it in Windows 7 until I disabled my second monitor at which point the game ran flawlessly.
MINIMUM SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS
OS: Windows® XP SP2 and SP3/Windows Vista® (only)
Processor: 3.2 GHz Intel® Pentium® 4 or 2.66 GHz Pentium D/AMD® Athlon™64 3500+
Memory: 1024 MB RAM (2 GB recommended)
Graphics: 256 MB DirectX 10.0/9.0-compliant video card with Shader Model 3.0 or higher (see supported list*)
DirectX®: 9.0c/10.0 (included)
Hard Drive: 4 GB free
Sound: DirectX 9-compatible sound card
Peripherals Supported: Windows-compliant keyboard, mouse, gamepads
Multiplayer: Broadband connection with 128 kbps upstream or faster
*Supported Video Cards at Time of Release
ATI RADEON X1650-1950 / HD 2400-2900 / 3650-3870 / 4650-4870 series
NVIDIA GeForce 6800 / 7600-7950 / 8600-8800 / GTX 260-280 series
REVIEW/RATING
Graphics 7/10
Sound 8/10
Gameplay 7/10
Controls 6/10
Effect 7/10
OVERALL REVIEW/RATING
7.1\10
DEVELOPER
Techland
PUBLISHER
Ubisoft
GENRE
Action
MODE(S)
Single-player, multiplayer
RELEASE DATE
30 Jun, 2009
CONCLUSION
A couple of jewels throughout the campaign would have been great and then the few partaken would have had you really emotionally invested but they happen so frequently, it ends up being a lot less cooler than it should be. But I'll stop being a negative Nellie, look I still think the bound in blood is a far superior game to the first, it does a good job of carrying the story in with the events of the first game and the vastly improved controls and visuals really differentiate the game from its predecessor in nothing but a good way. In my next review, we're going to be taking a look at the next game in the series “Call of Juarez: The Cartel”.
Kindly checkout my previous reviews:
Narcosis Full Game Review for PC
Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon Wildlands Full Game Review for PC
Far Cry [FPS] Full Game Review for PC
Call of Duty® 4: Modern Warfare [FPS] Full Game Review for PC
Call of Duty®: Modern Warfare 2 [FPS] Full Game Review for PC
Resident Evil 7: Biohazard Full Game Review for PC
Images were gotten from store.steampowered.com
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