A unique but flawed expirience that can be both easy and difficult to reccommend at the same time, for various reasons.
Did call of Juarez truly provide a definitive Wild West gaming experience? The short answer is "Yes". It provided an interesting backdrop for a story, and stuck to its western guns as far as a plot line. Are they a bunch of bandits, up to no good, killing and looting with their eyes on the greatest treasure of gold known to man? Yes there are. Are there smoking guns, beer bottles, texas twang and showdowns at the saloon? You bet! There's even some solid humour, native Americans, and horse back riding. So yes, Call of Juarez certainly is the first game in semi-recent memory to really stick to the western theme, and stick to it well.
The portrayal of the story is, in fact, expertly done. The voice-overs for the two main characters are, in my opinion, flawless. Furthermore, the back-and-forth design of playing a 'good-guy' and a 'bad-guy' in an alternating way each chapter, and even having those two both running from and chasing the other, respectively, throughout the tale was a truly engrossing, and nearly brilliant take on story-telling. I found myself really caring for each character, wincing when one made an ill-informed decision, and yelling out in disdain when it looked like one of my two characters had finally killed the other; among hundreds of reactions I felt throughout the game's course. In this way, despite it's imperfections, I'll remember the story of Call of Juarez fondly for many years. It was that well done.
Having said that though, a theme or story won't make a game for most people. Although the story of a game is very important for me personally, most gamers, believe it or not, more often favour gameplay over anything else, and that's where this game can run into problems. The general shooting is fairly well done, while the slowing down of time for an accurate shot feels alright, but not so great. It's not like what you would expect, in a sense. Because the crosshairs are continually pushed slowly towards the middle of the screen while in this mode, you can't really be as accurate as you'd like, and it quite frankly doesn't make too much sense either, as you wonder why Reverend Ray would slowly aim his pistols down the centre of the screen when there's enemies on the sides. All in all, the slow-down shooting, though fun and powerful, can also be frustrating, as you drag your mouse forcefully to the left, trying to re-route the automatically meandering crosshairs; an over-sight in design that took a bit of fun out of the whole experience.
Beyond this, it's worth mentioning that the AI is just average. It deffinetly gets the job done in representing a bunch of out-classed Western goons, and although that might be sufficient for some, bear in mind that I was playing the game on the hardest difficulty and beat it as such, with my only real trouble coming from falling deaths, scripted ambushes, and boss-fights. Truth be told, the scattered men in saloons or caves, are easy prey on the hardest of difficulties especially in the levels played as Reverend Ray. Nevertheless, there were times when I was pinned down, by gunfire on all sides, and I felt like I was in a real western gun fight, popping above a crate to fire two shots from a six-shooter before ducking under the return fire from size or so goons in vantage points. In that way, the AI can deliver tha exhilarating western shootout experience, but as said, that's only on it's best day. Other times, I had Iroquois simply chasing me, zombie-like, with tomahawk in hand, as I simply ran backwards, shooting them dead as I did so. The AI makes no evasive manoeuvres and takes no cover, unless cover has already been afforded to them as the scripted programming intended. All in all, the AI is passable, but as you can see it certainly leaves something to be desired.
More than this, several gameplay features in the game feel antiquated too. There's frequent use of health bottles that heal you on pick up, and there's such expected things like secret wanted poster pickups with pictures of the developers that kind of takes you out of the game. What's more, there's a few really silly boss battles, and a potential for the game to get repetitive, as if it were not for the story driving the experience, all you'd be doing is shooting, a duelling constantly. Some have made a lot about the "platforming" elements in this game as well, but I actually enjoyed those mostly. It lended a sort of adventure, or, Indiana Jones-esque feel to the game, which was welcome and refreshing in a First Person Shooter.
As a final word, there are things the game does wonderfully; representing the old west, and the story itself are chief among them. There are also things the game does poorly, with repetitive combat that's only made satisfying by the blood, poorly mapped stealth missions, and only average AI among those detriments. In that sense, what it really comes down to is what you're willing to deal with for the experience. For me, I put up with the rough stuff, and found a wonderfully told story, with a decent adventure shooting game along side it that was, in some respects, a breath of fresh air.
Often times people seem to say that different people will get different things out of games, and for Call of Juarez this is the most true. I enjoyed it for the reasons I listed, but I see the flaws in it as well. To me it was a decently good game, with some memorable moments, and is thereby recommendable to anyone with the attachment that they themselves may like it less than I, or even more.
It's just one of those type of games, I confess.
7.5/10