Call of Juarez

As compared to the Science Fiction genre or the World War II genre, the Wild West hasn't been tapped to its fullest. In my opinion, nearly every aspect of this era screams for a game; you had damsels who were in distress (a lot), hard ass guys who would rather eat a bullet than back down from their cause, native Americans who could scalp you before you could say Injun and a whole lot of emotions like betrayal, loyalty, revenge, deceit etc, showcased by movies like The Good, The Bad and The Ugly. Now, there were a couple of blink-and-you'll-miss them titles like Atari's Dead Man's Hand or Rockstar's Red Dead Revolver that tried capturing the essence of the West, but failed miserably. Last year, developer Neversoft released Gun, a free roaming third person action game set in the Wild West which was the closest I came to an enjoyable Western experience. Now, nearly a year later we have Polish developer Techland (Chrome) giving this genre a shot with Call of Juarez (CoJ), a first person shooter that is enjoyable and entertaining throughout... well, almost.

CoJ is pretty similar to Capcom's Shadow of Rome in a way that you're constantly switching to and fro between the game's principal characters (unfortunately, you cannot do so as you please; the game does that for you). First up is Reverend Ray, a reformed gunslinger who now serves the Lord, in a violently endearing way. The other playable character is Billy Candle, a drifter who's desperately searching for the legendary gold of Juarez. Frustrated with life and the way things are going, Billy heads back to the town of Hope (pretty ironic name for such a shit hole) to meet his beloved 'ma'; but unfortunately things don't go as planned and the family re-union is cut short when he finds his 'ma' and 'pa' (step pa actually) brutally murdered. If that wasn't bad enough, Billy gets framed for their murder and is caught fleeing the crime scene by none other than Billy's stepfather's brother, Reverend Ray. A bloody game of cat and mouse ensues...