A competent prequel bearing a few major flaws, Bound in Blood still proves itself as the pushing force of the genre.
The story continues to twist the spaghetti-Wild West, sending us to times when Ray McCall was a "normal" deserter, living a daredevil cowboy life with his brothers, Thomas and William. After fleeing the war he and Thomas soon get enough work to deal with: Apart from getting their family home destroyed and being declared as traitors to the country, they learn that a mercenary leader called Juarez is searching for enormous treasures hidden somewhere near a town called, well, Juarez. While the younger brother, William, is sceptical of the myth, he soon has no choice but to follow the eldest brother into cooperation with bandits, as Ray has more than Gold at his heart's interests. Thomas, on the other hand, is willing to follow his brothers to any perils, or so it seems.
The involving, interesting story takes place in an unmatched Wild West dripping with atmosphere all over it. As more and more plot turns take place, you begin to see just how exactly did Ray turn from the hot-headed brother to the religious brutal killer seeking revenge, how the dedicated Thomas began to slowly walk away from his brothers seeking personal rewards, and how William tries to turn them away from the savage life they've plunged themselves into. Brilliant character work done back in Call of Juarez is multiplied in the prequel, creating believable heroes that stay for a long time, and proudly representing a dangerous, cruel world of family relationships and treachery.
However, Techland decided that the right choice would be to make the gameplay itself a little more straightforward. While you can choose to play as Ray or Thomas on most levels, the differences are not as drastic as they were in the original. Ray is Ray, with brutal force and skills like dual-wielding and ability to tear off stationary turrets ready at hand. Thomas, on the other hand, is the sneaky sort, though not as stealth-oriented as Billy. He can utilize throwing knives and bows, making him invaluable for silent kills. Not to mention his augmented speed and agility, allowing him to climb ledges and use a lasso for reaching extreme heights. These differences allow the brothers to strategically attack their opponents, and while it's fun to work tightly with the AI partner, helping him to climb up, commencing team door breaches and covering him while he's accomplishing a plot objective, it's actually sad that there is no cooperative component. The excellent twelve-player multiplayer with some unique modes is more than enough, but still, the game is obviously asking for an actual friend controlling the character beside you.
There are no pretensions to the core mechanics, though. Apart from the obvious differences listed above, both heroes navigate traditionally and carry two pistols, one heavy and one special weapon, with the latter being knives, a bow, a stationary Gatling gun and so on. There are occasional stores or at least single merchants where you can trade for new or better quality weapons, using the looted money as currency. Speaking of which, finding secret objects have become of bigger importance in Bound in Blood, seeing as there are dozens of smartly hidden secrets(Which open up bonus content), ammo and gold in each level.
The weapons handle in the best traditions of Call of Juarez: tough, but accurate, giving you an edge against foes, but still feeling realistic. You'll get the primary gear of the Wild West, though specific models are not listed and the guns are merely referred to as, for example, Quickshooter or the Volcano Gun. They all have their small amounts of unique characteristics, meaning there's always a right option for one fight, wrong one for another, thus making choosing weapons a little of a tactic. But obviously real tactics occur when you are IN the heat of battle, not before it: Despite being unnaturally dumb, the enemy will attack in strong, overwhelming numbers, often pinning you down and forcing you to use the intuitive, but FPS-uncommon cover system. Approaching a crate, barrel, wall etc. makes Ray/Thomas drop down to it, and the mouse converts to a movement/peeking instrument. Utilizing the system may feel strange at first, but it will soon prove that it's a life-saving element of the gameplay, undoubtedly.
Bound in Blood has action written all over it. The amount of possibilities to dispatch of yet another unlucky foe is off the charts. Apart from the basic shooting mayhem, both of the heroes own the re-incarnated "Concentration Mode", which charges with every kill(depleting if not used), and allows for a barrage of deadly bullets once activated. It works differently for each of the brothers: As Ray, you'll have to quickly paint the targets before time runs out, while Thomas does the aiming himself but relies on you to pull the trigger. A similar system occurs when breaching doors, with Ray and Thomas bursting into the room simultaneously: time slows down, and you have to gun down as many surprised faces as you can while the targeting crosshairs move to the center of the screen. Crowning these "mini-kill-games" is the glorious quick-draw duel system. Apart from representing a unique way to portray boss battles in seconds BUT retaining the difficulcy, it looks absolutely cinematic and makes the tension run all over you. As you slowly strafe from side to side to keep your enemy in your sights, the mouse controls your hand, bringing it closer and closer to the revolver. As soon as the bell sounds you'll have mere seconds to draw, aim and fire as time slows down. Showing great balance, the boss has absolutely equal chances to you in winning this deadly showdown.
As you can see, excellent atmosphere was a guaranteed hit for Call of Juarez 2 even if it would be nothing outstanding in the visual aspect. But it's Techland, so you'll have to cope with the fact that all of the above comes tightly packed in one of the most beautiful and optimized universes ever developed. First off, I would like to draw an awkward parallel, with, prepare, Tom Clancy's HAWX. Understandably, a poor comparison, but remember how the awful environments looked strikingly realistic from up above in HAWX, because of the excellent shading? It's more or less the same here. While offering no firepower regarding close-ups(Not just faces. Everything), zoom out to the bigger picture and the amazing shaders will make the world look like a living, breathing being. Similar systems(It's called Deferred shading, just in case you're interested. It's basically a three-dimensional technique which calculates divided shaders and combines them before producing) have been used in games like S.T.A.L.K.E.R, InFamous and Killzone 2, you do the math. Additionally, the warm color gamma and masterful optimization show that Chrome Engine 4 has made a big step forward from it's predecessor, CE3(Call of Juarez).
Alas, the static beauty of Bound in Blood is as far as the visual presentation goes with pride. The first and major issue is the animation. Unforgivable for a game of such a calibre, the cranky movements of the characters are very hard to overlook, despite the fact that that's what everyone will try to do once blessed with the beauty of the graphics. Basic movements are decent, but as soon as a character does anything more than a secondary gesture, you'll see an image of a broken robot low on battery. Facial animation is not helping the situation one bit, as the somewhat normal faces appear to be made of rubber, and characters try as hard as they can to move the mouth as little as possible, without as much as hinting to the existence of at least one of the fifty other muscles in the human face. There is another issue I would like to address, called limited interaction. Apart from a few breaking crates, nothing will budge from it's place, with bulletproof cacti surviving a dynamite explosion and even the water being oblivious to two men jumping and splashing around in it.
Fortunately, it's more than compensated with the sound experience the game provides. The music, considering the specifics of the genre, is incredibly perfect and fitting for the atmosphere and blends in with the game like no other. Voice overs are, true to the traditions of the first part, professionally done, giving unique charm to characters like Ray, who was and remains one of the most memorable characters of the series. Even the Apache accents are mimicked believably, and more than once you'll witness the native language itself being used. Apart from the obvious, we get a tranquil background ambiance reinforcing the eerie beauty of the game's levels "in nature".
Once again Techland have proved themselves to Ubisoft and the gaming world as hard-working developers pushing the edges of existing genres and making unique games. Even more, they've proved that it's possible to give worthy continuations to such games, making minor tweaks where we can't see and major improvements on obvious mistakes to polish the series to perfection. Despite understandable weaknesses and a potential yet to discover, Call of Juarez gained an exceptional prequel which will make many remember the good old spaghetti, the tensing duels and the backstabbing nature of the Wild West. Heed the call!