Two brothers, Ray and Thomas McCall, are Confederate soldiers during the American Civil War. Hearing of the Union's next move to Atlanta, the two abandon their posts to go save their Georgian homestead, including their mother and younger brother, William, from the oncoming Yankee army. Though their mother passes away from the stress of age and captivity, they manage to rescue William and take back their homestead from the Yankee soldiers. Unfortunately for them, their desertion doesn't sit well with their commanding officer, Colonel Barnsby, who swears to hunt them down and hang them.

Now the three McCall brothers are on the run, living town to town on whatever they have left, but with hopes that they will one day rebuild their once pristine country villa. Soon, a quick run in with a federal marshal turns their situation from bad to worse, leaving them with no choice but to head south, to Mexico. With nothing more than the wish to rebuild their home guiding them, and maybe the prospect of meeting a few girls during their travels, Ray decides the best thing for them to do is to search out and find a legendary, and cursed, Aztec treasure which they will be able to use to reestablish their home. They will soon see that they are in store for nothing but trouble, as they find themselves involved with a Mexican Gangster, mixed up in the middle of a war between rival Native American tribes, a love triangle that threatens to tear their family apart or get them all killed, and more.

That's the basic premise behind Ubisoft and Techland's Call of Juarez: Bound in Blood, the recently released prequel to their 2007 western first-person shooter, Call of Juarez. A slight problem that arises from this though, is that if you played the original game, you've probably got a very good idea of what happens at the end of this story, especially because this game opens near the end. I only played the demo for the original Call of Juarez and I knew the story's outcome as soon as I saw the intro sequence (not the menu intro, but the game intro). That said, it is still a very worthwhile story to play through, loaded with plenty of twists and turns to keep you interested throughout.

Gameplay

“It's a first person shooter”. That is what Jeff would likely say if he played Bound in Blood. In fact, as I was answering him to tell him my first impressions on the game, that's the line he interrupted me with. And he is mostly correct. As far as first person shooters go, this is yet another one in a continually growing pile as far as most of the control aspects go. If anything, it's actually missing a couple of the control features found in other first person shooters. You've got your regular moving control stick and looking control stick, your primary and secondary fire triggers, a jump button, a reload button, a focus/zoom button, a use button and melee button. What? There's no melee button? What do you mean there's no melee button? How am I supposed to hit people if I run out of ammo or, say, am trying to get that achievement for only using the bow and arrow in one of the game's chapters? And why can the computer controlled enemies melee?

Yes, that's right. Bound in Blood controls like nearly every other first person or third person shooter out there, except there's no way to perform hand to hand combat. Come to think of it, I think I would have had a very similar issue with Brothers In Arms: Hell's Highway (another Ubisoft title), except I never got that close to enemies in that game. Another ability that appears to be missing, though I wouldn't even be complaining about it if it weren't for the fact that the computer controlled enemies can do it, is evasive dodging. I wouldn't care so much if the computer controlled enemies weren't able to do it either, but compared to the real human player who doesn't get the ability at all, the computer controlled enemies are acrobats!

However, aside from those little issues, the game controls wonderfully. Throughout most of the game's levels, you can choose to play as either Thomas or Ray, and each has their own strengths and weaknesses. Thomas, for instance, is the more agile brother, which gives him an edge when it comes to climbing or sneaking. He can't do certain things that take more strength though, like break down doors or carry mobile Gatling guns. Ray, on the other hand, is more powerful, so he can carry heavier objects or break his way through stuck doors. His bulk puts him at a disadvantage though, since he can't reach the higher areas. He also can't move quite as quickly as Thomas can. Their abilities also play out in the type of weapons they can carry within their inventory. Thomas is able to carry throwing knives and a bow and arrow, allowing him to move more quickly and with added stealth. He can even use a lasso to get to prohibitively high places. Ray, being the one who prefers using brute strength to solve his problems, usually carries a few sticks of dynamite on him for special occasions, or any time a chicken gets in his way.

One of the cool features of the Call of Juarez franchise, retained and improved for Bound in Blood, is Concentration Mode. When you have killed a certain number of enemies, usually anywhere between four and six depending on the weapons you're using and your accuracy, pressing the Concentration Mode button will slow down time and, depending on the brother you are playing as, let you look around and target any enemy in sight (Ray) or auto target and let you use your gun as a quick shooter with astounding accuracy on any enemies within range (Thomas). There is also a dual Concentration Mode for certain kick-open-the-door-simultaneously situations, where the two brothers will each take one side of a door, kick it open, and the cross hairs will move in a slow arc, glowing red when over enemies and meeting in the middle before resuming regular speed. And you don't just control the shooting, but the basic aiming as well, so if an enemy on one side of the screen is just a bit too far from the regular path of one of the cross hairs, you may still be able to catch him and then move the cross hairs back to catch the rest.

One of the biggest benefits of being able to play as either Ray or Thomas is the inherent replay value. While there are many overlapping sections, there are certain parts which make playing as one or the other unique. Whether you're parting ways because one of the brothers, likely Ray, can't make it to a specific area, or because you simply chose to play as one or the other, the experience will have a bit of a different taste both times round.

That all leads to the one aspect that really brings this game down, not because it's annoying or boring, but because it makes me feel like the game ends up completely centred around it. That aspect is the quick-draw duels that cap off what seems like almost every level or run in with a major boss. Yes, it's a cool “Wild West” bit of nostalgia, but was it really necessary in those situations where, once you've already chased down a major boss and shot him multiple times, the major boss says something like “Hey, you got me! Now why don't we finish this like men?” Why, if I've already taken out all of your men and shot you multiple times in various regions of your person, would I care to leave myself open to be taken down in one shot? And another thing! How is it, after I've shot you so many times, that when you come out for this quick-draw duel, you aren't even limping in the slightest?

I know it's supposed to be big a dramatic – heck I even kind of like the mechanics behind it – but it just felt far to prevalent within the whole game for me.

Multiplayer and Online

Aside from the story campaign mode, Bound in Blood also contains full featured online multiplayer for up to twelve players, with five different game modes, Wanted, Posse, Shootout, Manhunt and Wild West Legends. There are also eight multiplayer maps and 13 character classes available on the disc. Also available is a Bounty Hunter option for all game modes, which allows players to be rewarded with the bounty value of the players they kill. The more deadly a player, the more their bounty value will be.

Within the five multiplayer game modes, wanted is the most simple. It's basically free-for-all, except that you have to be the “Wanted” in order to score points. So you've got to kill the “Wanted” to become the “Wanted”, and then you can go nuts. Posse is up next on the list, and it's a basic team game in which the team with the highest score wins. Shootout is another free-for-all game, except that the real reward comes in picking your targets with extra scrutiny. The winner in a Shootout game will be the player with the highest bounty on their heads. You have to seek out other highly valued players and take them out to increase your bounty. The stakes are high in this game, but so are the rewards.

The fourth game mode is Manhunt, a team version on Wanted in which teammates have to protect their “Wanted” for 60 seconds to score a point or kill their opponents' “Wanted” to prevent them from scoring. The top player on each team will always be selected as that team's “Wanted”, so if he starts to run away with a higher score at some point, it's likely that he'll end up being the one for quite some time, or for the rest of that game.

Finally, the fifth and final, and my favourite, multiplayer game mode – Wild West Legends. This objective-based team-play mode recreates classic Wild West famous events, like the shootout at the O.K. Corral, the capture of Billy the Kid and more. Each of the multiplayer maps has been designed with a Wild West Legends objective, including one called Magnificent, quoting The Magnificent Seven film. In Wild West Legends, teams are split into Lawmen and Outlaws and must either protect or defend vital locations. The defending team simply (simply, right) has to run out the clock, while the attacking team must make an assault run on each objective point within the game, often blowing it up or “opening” it with dynamite. The positions then switch for a “Revenge Match”.

The online multiplayer is quite a bit of fun, when it works, but I noticed a few persistent problems while playing. If it weren't for the fact that my connection meter read green most of the time, I would attribute these problems to lag, but it did. The first problem was the rampant disconnection that happened during my first few times playing. My connection would be great and suddenly, bam, I was tossed from the game. I would be able to reconnect twenty seconds later without issue, but it would happen again another few minutes in. Another problem that appeared to accompany the rampant disconnection was the inability to move. Whenever this happened, a strange blue ball with red scratches would appear in the middle of the screen and I would be completely immobile. Sometimes it would only flash, so I would still be able to move for short period, until it went solid again. The final problem was bullseye shots that didn't kill. I'm not talking about those shots that just barely missed, but two or three direct hits when the guy is running towards you doing the same thing, apparently more successfully when you try to fire off that last shot. I'd say that was lag too, but if your opponent is running towards you, even if there is lag, the direct shot should eventually hit regardless.

I've got two final complaints regarding the multiplayer modes in Bound in Blood, and they are quite simple. How could they not include a cooperative story mode so friends can play both stories together? How could they not have thought a game like this would be amazing when played cooperatively? The game already has System Link capabilities. Even if you somehow weren't able to manage to get it to play split-screen, it still should have been done for System Link and Xbox Live. And since I'm already on the topic of split-screen, why didn't they include split-screen multiplayer or split-screen multiplayer with System Link and Xbox Live capabilities? I just don't understand it.

Environment and Graphics

The environment and graphics in Bound in Blood left me a bit conflicted. Some times I felt that the graphics were absolutely stunning, while other times they looked sub par, especially when compared to the standard of “stunning”.

The environments in each chapter, overall, were quite impressive. Almost all the levels have an open world feel, because they essentially are open worlds. The ingenious thing the development team did for the environments was to make them extremely expansive, but limit your ability to head too far out, requiring you to stay “near” your brother (as long as you were “in bounds” you could usually explore as much as you like, but go too far and you'll have basically forfeited the mission). The only problem arises during the side quest sections between certain chapters. This was solved by making the edges of the world either extremely steep, unclimbable mountains, or sheer cliff drops. The nice bit about this solution is that these areas provide for some great vista views, at least on the cliff drops.

The only issue with the environments is that when you get a bit too close to some elements, like the corn stalks in the McCalls' cornfield, the detail doesn't go up far enough. The cornfield is actually the best example. When you're running through it standing up, it appears loaded with corn stalks. Crouch and it isn't quite as impressive. Since your main objective in that level is to sneak through the field undetected, the way the field is laid out looks rather odd from the crouched position. While standing, it looks like rows of corn, but while crouched, those rows suddenly become a mess of grouped corn with some open areas. I'm not really sure how they managed that.

I also have a slight bone to pick with the design of the character models – not so much with how they look, but how they act. I found the character models to be quite detailed, even at a decently close range. Some of them could have used some more work, but overall they were well designed. Their movement, on the other hand, is what gets to me, especially in the cutscenes. The only problem I have with the in-level movement is the weird effect that happens while you're running. When holding one gun, it's not so bad. Your character's shooting hand swings back and forth in a sort of fist pumping motion while running. While holding two guns though, the movement is ridiculously exaggerated, almost to a cartoony level. Your character's hands swing up and down wildly, criss-crossing your body at precise intervals. It's similar to what athletic runners look like when they sprint, except that the hands aren't thrusting at your character's sides, but in front of his face.

The real problem is with the motion captured movements in the cutscenes. The movement in the cutscenes is so over-exaggerated that it takes away from any realism may have been there to begin with. Everything from Ray and Thomas tussling with each other, to the basic movements of the native chief, Running River, are simply overdone. The worst case of this is with Ray and Thomas' love interest, Marisa. Her hips swing so much when she walks that she must knock over tables when crossing a room!

Enough about the bad though, let's talk a bit about the good stuff. Bound in Blood contains some very nice fire effects (not crawling fire, but still nice), as well as some very cool gunfire trail effects. One of the particularly stranger, but definitely cool features was the interactive nature effects. They didn't go as far as to include roaming deer, foxes, wolves or anything that large (even horses are stationary unless you ride them), but there were things like crawling insects on trees (which I only noticed because I was hiding from a sniper behind one) and butterflies that seem to have a particular affinity for landing on the edge of rifles – an impressive added touch. The coolest effect of all was the depth of field effect. If something was too far away, it would be realistically out of focus, but if you used the focus/zoom button it would then come into focus, while the surrounding area would become blurred. Quite cool.

Sound

I have nothing but praise for the sound effects, music and voice acting in this game. Every sound I heard was spot on, from the different sounds when walking or riding on various surfaces, to the gunfire and explosions. Even something as simple as reloading a gun sounded good. The music felt like a nice mix of classic western-themes, but with a more rock feel added during large firefights. It gave a modern attitude to this classic styled game without ruining the feel. Finally, the voice acting was superb. I especially enjoyed the voices of Ray and Thomas. The attitude and experience of their “years” was ever present, and that was likely also thanks to some very good dialogue writing. Some of the best parts aren't even in the regular gameplay, but in the “Memory” secret pickups which can later be viewed or listened to in the Secrets menu.

Conclusion

Call of Juarez: Bound in Blood is a great prequel to the original game. It has a captivating story that can be played from two different angles and some moderate replay value, including online multiplayer for up to twelve players over System Link or Xbox Live. However, it lacks some things that should have naturally been included, like the melee and dodging abilities given to the computer controlled players, and a cooperative story campaign or in-house multiplayer. The environments and graphics are, for the most part, quite stunning, but certain aspects aren't detailed enough or simply go too far.

With all of these hit, miss or odd, but interesting features, Call of Juarez: Bound in Blood ends up feeling like a very impressive tech demonstration for what Techland is able to put into a game, but not a finished product. I wouldn't be sure about picking this game up in store, but I can highly recommend it as a rental.