Call of Juarez Review

Billy's missions, on the other hand, can get dreary at times. Techland needs more practice in designing good stealth missions. The AI reacts unrealistically to situations when your character is spotted by not even bothering to chase after you for a couple of steps (just as long as you manage to get out of their line of sight). Furthermore, the overall level design doesn't really work in the game's favor. While this is far less noticeable in the action missions (where you are busy shooting and enjoying the rollercoaster ride-like action), the stealth missions will have you running into invisible walls and sort of noticing the repetitiveness and the constrictiveness of some of the maps.

Looking at the big picture, however, the story and the atmosphere in CoJ will be good enough to keep you going, so I wouldn't go as far as to say that the Billy missions ruined it for me. There were some that I found exciting (things pick up in the later stages).

Call of Juarez is also accompanied with a top-of-the-line musical score. By and large, the voice acting is decent enough to make the Wild West theme moderately authentic - by Hollywood standards anyway.

Call of Juarez, besides introducing a striking game character in preacher Ray, also tries to use the physics in a rather innovative manner. High ledges become deadly traps and your heroes are hardly able to just jump off of them merrily. You'll have to watch your step. You'll have to watch for the camp fire. The weather conditions like the wind and rain also play a role, giving the whole game a grittier feel. This also extends to the weapons, which are definitely fun to use.

While not quite realizing its full potential, I found Call of Juarez to be an enjoyable and refreshing shooter experience. The way that the story is set up was fun and new. Those of you looking for a good Western shooter should definitely purchase it.