Call of Juarez

The original and bold, Call of Juarez draws you into it’s brutally clichéd Wild West adventure complete with a fun online mode, interesting story, gritty violence, and authentic gun play.

It's easy to look at Call of Juarez and see a game split down the middle, one half great and the other horrible, but to give it the credit it deserves, such a bold use of divided narrative just about makes it worthwhile for the most part with the style of both sections always perfectly in character and the ever switching perspective from hunter to hunted driving the game along even when the on screen action becomes less enjoyable.

Anyone looking for the next great western-themed game will no doubt adore Call of Juarez. The switch between characters adds depth and variety and the addition of multi-player gives the game legs outside of finishing the single-player adventure.

Most importantly the game is FUN in a way that immerses you completely in its cheese ball single player adventure.

Considering there have been so few western action games over the last dozen years or so, anyone who's a fan of this style owes it to themselves to at least give Call of Juarez a shot.

The dual-protagonist storytelling manages to be both compelling and original, the multiplayer is a guns-blazing good time, and the entire aesthetic (not just the graphics, mind you, but the art direction, music, and sound) will have you ordering up a good sarsaparilla in no time.

At any rate, call of Juarez is a solid, serious and pleasantly woven first-person action yarn with a lot of value on the disc. [July 2007, p.64]

Like a lot of grumpy Eastwoods, Juarez treads the line just West of parody with Ray's juxtaposition of gravely scripture one minute, and then little red circles with lines through them hovering over whiskey bottles the next.

Incredible atmosphere. [Issue #22, p.84]

While not a purchase for everyone, it's still a solid if not groundbreaking game with just enough fresh ideas to make the game fun to play.

The outright fun this game brings should result in a higher score, but the gameplay snafus on Billy's missions really weight it down. I still highly recommend this game to FPS and Old West fans, though.

Refreshing, and sure to delight all those men with no names out there. [Aug 2007, p.71]

There's plenty of extra goodies to keep you busy if you like to eke out every scrap of play-time for your money, but multiplayer is a fairly token addition that is underwhelming and under-populated as a result.

Take two doses of Clint Eastwood badassness, a great Old West story, a slight bit of cheese, and the occasional frustrating misstep in level design, add them all together and you have Call of Juarez in a nutshell.

A game not afraid to take chances and have fun with itself. The atmosphere is excellent, thanks to a great cinematic score and a great variety of gameplay including horses, dueling, stealth and flat-out action.

Playing as Billy isn’t bad but you’ll start feeling like Reverend Ray should have been the real star of the game. In the end, the single-player game just doesn’t hold a candle to the enjoyable online multiplayer.

Despite the flaws, Call of Juarez is a decent effort from Techland that is definitely worth a look.

When it's bad, it's not too bad. When it's good, it rules. A great Western with a few niggles.

Call of Juarez takes few risks with its setting or genre, but it does what it does well enough to be enjoyable.

If Call of Juarez skipped its forgettable multiplayer and adopted a sandbox world more like Oblivion with fleshed out areas to explore and side missions, it could have been the gunslinger I’ve been waiting for all these years. As it stands, it’s a respectable if unambitious title that should tide over Western fans until the holy grail of six shooters rides into town.

Despite its frustrating enemy AI and the limitations of your arsenal, Call of Juarez has plenty of pistol packin’ heat for the average buckaroo, with a decent, profanity-laced storyline and a bevy of unique multiplayer modes.

Call of Juarez has a few flaws but is still a solid game that's recommended to those who want a shooter but are sick of killing Nazis.

Ray's action focussed levels are great fun and highlight how great the game could have been with a clearer focus. In the end though, the mix of gameplay styles doesn't really work.

The frustration of the platforming and stealth in Billy's levels is too much to go unnoticed, but thankfully the villainous Uncle Ray saves the day with his rootin' tootin' shooting action.

It’s got a solid storyline and plenty of racy language (although not quite on the level of “Deadwood”), and while the action isn’t groundbreaking, it’s enjoyable. That said, there are a number of places where the game just doesn’t deliver the goods, and we can’t help feeling like this could have just as easily been a last-gen title.

So in the end, Call of Juarez isn’t a title worth much more than a rental.

There’s just not a lot of “wow” here and it feels like a Vectrex game: it’s the same gameplay as any other on-rails FPS, but you’ve just changed the overlay on the screen to a Western.

At its best, the game is a fun and interesting diversion, but it's rarely at its best. It's a good first effort and I personally hope it's a sign of more to come.

Call of Juarez could've been a uniquely hard-boiled journey through the late 1800s, but it kicks up too much distracting dust to be worth the trip. [July 2007, p.78]

There is some fun to be had throughout Call of Juarez, but it’s despite the various bizarre and just plain bad design choices that litter the experience.

Call of Juarez resembles an archaeological dig -- in order to locate treasure, players must dig through lots of crap.

Speaking of headaches, as the final poison icing on the cake, the game possesses what I none-too-kindly call "Dead Rising Text."

There will be inevitable comparisons to Neversoft's GUN, but CoJ feels much more a next-gen version of the lackluster Dead Man's Hand than anything else. And it's about as worthwhile a purchase.

More old than wild wild west. [Aug 2007, p.98]

Call Of Juarez has mined its source material well, collecting a wealth of imagery that it then squanders on lacklustre and dysfunctional gameplay. [Aug 2007, p.93]