The Spydr Web: Video Game Reviews

[DSpydr84]

New banner courtesy of Yawkey Way. Excellent job sir

[Buzzman]

I like these reveiws. Im intrested in hear about Call of Juarz 2. Ive read about it and magizines and saw some videos and the game looks fun but realyl have no clue if it will be. Ive never played the 1st either but im def gonna [ick that up sometime soon sine its so cheap.

[Rylo]

Your Madden review is going to be excellent I already know.

[DSpydr84]

Excellent news: Call of Juarez STILL hasn't arrived in the mail. Since tomorrow is the 4th, and Sunday is Sunday, the soonest I'll get it is Monday! Great job to everyone in the GameFly work force for getting this thread off to a shitty start.

[Krebs]

haha, that sucks lol, cant wait

[DSpydr84]

Call of Juarez finally made it. Playing soon and will have the review up in 7-14 days.

[StealthShot]

I don't know if gamyfly would let you rent this but Pro Yakyuu Spirits 6 it's a japense baseball game made by Konami it comes out in 2 weeks.

[DSpydr84]

Call of Juarez: Bound in Blood

We Are Family, I Reckon

Let me get this out of the way right off the bat: it takes some MAJOR cojones (that's spanish for "balls" for the French guys out there) to make a game based in the wild west. Let's face it, this isn't 1970 anymore. Gone are the days of assless chaps, boots with the spurs, and quick draw shootouts. This game would've been appropriate if M*A*S*H* was still a huge TV series, but since shows are now geared more towards Lil Wayne showing off his car collection, it just feels out of place. For a game that has some catching up to do from the get-go, Call of Juarez: Bound in Blood has a hard time keeping pace.

The graphics in the game will hardly blow you away. There's plenty of jagged transitions, things popping in and out of the screen, and ugly animations that literally pull you right out of the story. It's often distracting to follow the dialogue when I'm constantly noticing things out of place or appearing in thin air like a Houdini act. As far as the "pretty" factor is concerned, Call of Juarez is pretty much what we'd expect from a game on a next-gen console (might be even a bit below average).

But for a game that lacks in looks and expectations, the gameplay is actually pretty good. Call of Juarez is a first-person shooter that plays like a third-person shooter. The cover system is surprisingly responsive and effective, and climbing over obstacles is a breeze. It gives the game a unique feel and it was pulled off quiet well. There's also a "Concentration Mode" that let's you knock out multiple opponents at one time with ease, which is another solid addition.

The story revolves around two brothers, Rob and Thomas (Matchbox-20 fans at Ubisoft?) McCall, who go on a quest to find a treasured Medallion, and their encounters along the way is the meat and potatoes of the game. The problem is the story doesn't begin as a "gripping" wild west tale, but that doesn't seem to matter as it's all fluff for the gameplay interactions. It would've been nice to have a cool story to go along with this game, however, considering it's generally a single player "story mode" game.

There is a wide variety of missions in the game, keeping everything fresh and fun. You can choose to control either brother before most chapters, and both have their strengths and weaknesses. A few objectives take a bit of a learning curve and you'll die a few times, which is sometimes annoying, but for the most part they are all diverse and entertaining. Luckily for you, the game saves after every checkpoint (and there are a LOT of checkpoints), so you should be in good position to restart what just killed you without having to go through much else. The missions are well varied; sometimes you're controlling a gaitling gun and shooting enemies down in a field, then you're blowing up bridges, then you're cruising on a canoe and busting a cap in a cowboy's dome.

With the two brothers being the focal point of the game, this obviously opens the door for a two-player co-op story mode, so call a friend over and.... wait.... they don't have co-op story mode?! You made a game centralizing around two people going on the same journey in basically the same direction, and a co-op mode was not included? This was a HUGE flaw by Call of Juarez, and although co-op isn't the coolest thing out there, it just seemed flat out obvious to include something like this. Once again, we get short changed.

The "boss" battles are all identical, as they're all wild west shootouts. You move your hand towards your gun, wait for a bell to ring, whip your gun out and pull the trigger. Once you get the hang of it, these battles really aren't of any difficulty at all, and since it comes down to one shot, they're very easy to restart if you do get shot. The concept was cool, but it gets dull after the first few times. It would've been cool to see them mix it up once and a while, especially at the end of the game. Talk about anticlimactic.

The multiplayer in this game is about as weak as any game I've seen. I have a theory that says either make multiplayer great, or don't make it at all, and Call of Juarez should've taken the latter. You get a couple game modes, and some guns to pick from, but it generally just feels thrown together and rushed. It's as if Ubisoft would not let this game ship without a multiplayer aspect, because that's exactly how it plays. It's tough to compete with games like Call of Duty or Halo in this game mode, but when you're not even trying, you don't have a shot.

So certainly, since all of these factors are holding the game back, there's no doubt the story mode is exceptionally long and provides hours of gaming, right? Well, my play-through lasted a whopping 6 hours and 20 minutes on medium difficulty, and although I consider myself a pretty good gamer, you'd be hard pressed to squeeze 10 hours out of this game. Combine that with a pathetic multiplayer and no real reason to play the story again, and you've got yourself a "maybe I'll rent it" title.

At the end of the day, Call of Juarez: Bound in Blood is a good game that just leaves WAY too much to be desired. Almost everything in the game could be improved upon for the next installment, and Bound in Blood is nothing more than a rental at best. Average graphics and an average story combined with a short play time make this game, well... average.

Grade: C

+ Solid, fun gameplay
+ Unique first person cover system
- Average graphics
- Average story
- Pitiful multiplayer
- Way too short

[Rylo]

Damn it looked awesome too.

Good review man.

[DSpydr84]

I think I'll use this thread as an opportunity to tell you guys a little bit about GameFly. Not only is it terribly slow (takes a week for a game to get here and back), but you can rarely pick up the new/hot releases since they are all "out of stock".

Call of Juarez took 7 days to arrive at my house, I ordered it on Monday and received it the next Monday (even though some of that is credited to the 4th of July on that Saturday.. there's still no excuse for mail to take 5 days to get from Pittsburgh to Buffalo).

I shipped it back last Thursday, they got it back Tuesday (yesterday), and they've yet to ship my new game in return. I have NCAA 2010 and InFamous on my Q, and although these are popular games, I think I speak for everyone when I say THAT IS THE POINT OF GAMEFLY.

Really unhappy about it so far, and that this thread had to suffer for it. I was expecting to have at least 3 new reviews up by now. For anyone that was thinking about getting GameFly, this guy rates it an F. How's that for a review.

[DSpydr84]

Fallout 3 on the way :/

It's the only game they would ship me. GF is literally useless.

[TheImmortalGoud]

Waiting on that Fallout 3 review.