If you like Westerns and you love a good Wild West shootout, snag a copy today.
Set in southwest Texas in the late 1800's, you follow Billy, a misunderstood young man who is quickly blamed a murder he did not commit. Billy is on the run, and uses his special skills of climbing and swinging with a bullwhip to scamper across mountains, ravines, and valleys along the way. The story bounces from Billy to Reverend Ray, possibly one of the coolest protagonists in any shooter. Billy is something of a jackrabbit, hopping through the story and doing more dodging than fighting. Ray is a bulldozer, shooting everything and everyone that poses the least bit of threat as he pursues Billy. Ray's only real special talent is the quick-draw (called "concentration mode"), where time slows down and you can sight up your shots easier, but still take hits if you're not careful.
The combat missions are beyond rewarding, with the exact look and feel of a Hollywood Wild West shootout captured. Guns sound authentic, men crumple and roll when hit, bullets fly, fire burns, and whether you want to hide-and-shoot or run forward guns blazing is up to you. Billy carries a bow and arrow, which, like Ray's quick draw, slows time for a second while you line the shot up. It's better than any sniper rifle at medium ranges, and if you've played Tale Worlds' Mount & Blade or even Oblivion, you'll be deadly with the bow in no time. The physics during combat are truly amazing as you have to account for distance, time your shots, and lead out a running target. The AI during combat is more than adequate and will take cover and fire cautiously, sometimes with deadly accuracy. It also responds to combat actions, where in one fight Billy aimed too high and the arrow went through a bandit's hat, taking it off his head. The bandit stopped, looked behind at his hat, then turned and kept firing.
The other non-combat missions, which are mostly Billy's, can be somewhat trying and you'll be salivating for the next mission to play as Ray. Stealth missions, bland jumping puzzles, and an over-long mountain climbing expedition that has absolutely no bearing on the story whatsoever yet is necessary to complete for some reason do drag the story down somewhat, but all those things are only temporary and the story continues shortly after. The truest frustrations, at least for the PC version, are the quick-draw duels and fistfights you have with an end boss in most missions. The mouse is not the best tool for either of these and you'll quickly grow tired and frustrated at having to reload your save over and over.
Much of the American voice acting is superb, despite cheesy Hollywood lines, and the accents and inflections fit well with the dingy settings and authentic-looking outfits. The graphics are nothing shy of gorgeous, capturing beautiful terrain and the expected Hollywood Wild West towns. Dust chokes the air, clouds roll by in a gorgeous sky, and if you're still enough in some places you'll notice that butterfly had a shadow of his own. With Windows Vista and Direct X 10 on my GeForce 9800 card, however, there is an annoying pixilated graph pattern to the trees and shrubs, almost as if they were made of wire mesh rather than a flat texture. It's very distracting but the only true technical complaint I can make.
A bigger problem is a combination of graphics and game play, which, I'm sure, was implemented to be an asset but turned out to actually hinder the game's quality. Stand on a high point in some spots and you can see forever, even spotting some landmarks of places you've passed. You can walk back to a lot of these locations (horses are grossly under used in this game) but there are no encounters of any kind to be had. There are miles and miles of beautiful open terrain to rival that of Oblivion, and all of it is wasted in terms of use. Techland should have could have made a Mass Effect-style Western RPG with all that space and added a whole new level of depth, doubling the amount of side missions without getting bogged down in extra story arcs, but they passed on a brilliant opportunity.
The only other complaint I can make is the ending, which comes all too quickly, is disappointingly typical, and leaves one major story issue unresolved. I burned through this game in about a full day's worth of game play. It wasn't that I had the difficulty on easy, but just that I didn't want it to stop. I wish they had made the game bigger, but the quality mix of action and story certainly gave the feel that this was time well spent. Pulse-pounding chases, frantic gunfights, and a beautiful setting make the game worth your while. Call of Juarez is severely underrated by critics; if you like Westerns and you love a good Wild West shootout, snag a copy today.