Call of Juarez: Gunslinger

Not a bad shooter, but a pretty basic one, and it starts to feel repetitive even over the course of its relatively short length. The storytelling shows flashes of potential with how it handles its unreliable narrator, but in the end that doesn't rise to much more than a gimmick, and the story itself turns out to be kind of an aimless historical outlaw shooting gallery that didn't hold my interest. Visually and technically, it's solid, but like every aspect of this game, unexceptional.

Call of Juarez Gunslinger is 10 years old by this point, but the graphics hold up due to the cartoony style. The bright, colourful style makes people draw comparisons to Borderlands. I haven’t played the other games in the series but it seems the previous game; The Cartel was much maligned.

You play as bounty hunter Silas Greaves bounty hunter who arrives at the Saloon in Abilene. There he tells his stories to a curious crowd.

As you play the levels, the dialogue overlays the action, and you end up in situations where his audience questions a detail, and Silas corrects himself which then changes in the scene e.g. the types or number of enemies. He even describes venturing into the mines which doesn't end well, so he then corrects himself and says it was a stupid idea, so he went an alternate route, then you see planks of wood falling into place to make a bridge. I do wonder if they took influence from Bastion with the narration and the way the levels can form around you.

Along the way he meets, or battles the likes of Billy the Kid, Jesse James, Johnny Ringo, and Butch Cassidy. Often these battles are questioned when his audience claim they are still alive, or died in a different battle. Silas sometimes adds the addition that the bullet wound wasn't fatal.

Aside from the presentation though, it's really just a fairly standard first-person shooter. You will be using revolvers, shotguns, rifles, while dynamite acts as a grenade. An unlockable ability allows you to dual wield weapons. There's some bullet-time moments where Silas can "concentrate" to slow time and highlight enemies. He can have a chance to dodge a fatal bullet, which is on a cooldown timer. Silas can take a fair few hits, and has regenerating health when staying out of the firing line. You are constantly looking for cover, hiding behind objects like rocks or buildings, then popping out for a few hits.

You are scored on your performance. I think it was a basic 50 XP for a standard kill but you'd get more for a headshot like 150 then further bonuses for combo kills and if it was a long-range kill. You can sometimes take advantage of explosive barrels for multiple kills.

When you level up, there's 3 categories that you can assign your point to: Gunslinger, Ranger, Trapper which are geared towards the gun types.

The boss battles come down to a standoff where you eye up your enemy and wait until they are about to draw their weapon. You can draw first which is classed as a dishonourable kill. You move your hand to hover over the gun, and move the target reticule over your opponent who slowly paces side to side. When he begins to draw, you click to draw, then click again to shoot, possibly adjusting the reticule to aim. There's a few variations on this mechanic, like one where you just have to dodge all his bullets, and the final battle which is a 3-way Mexican standoff, so you have to toggle between the targets.

5.5 hours might be a little short for some, but that's pretty standard for FPS games. Better players could finish it a bit quicker than I did; since I did replay sections of the final levels which featured a difficulty spike. There's a new game plus mode and "arcade mode" which is pretty much just the campaign chapters with a leaderboard system.

The Western theme works well with the FPS genre, and the presentation gives it a lot of charm and makes it stand out.

A short yet witty tribute to spaghetti westerns and tales of the Wild West. One of the best linear shooters I've ever played with a pretty good story to boot.

Playing as Silas Greaves as he relives his days of vengeance and bounty hunting, COJ:G combines simple yet skill-based gunplay with a "better than you'd think" narrative campaign to give you one of the best linear shooters of the best two decades. It's a crime this game isn't praised more as it is criminally underrated given the price and entertainment value that you can get out of it. Not to mention, it has one of the best implementations of old west dueling I've ever seen in video games.

As someone else put it, Gunslinger perfectly represents the Xbox Live Arcade-era of games. Games with a quality price that gives you more entertainment and replayability than most AAA games while exploring mechanics and themes that the bigger companies might not touch.

just a good stupid fun time shooting shit as a cowboy. it has a fun arcade style score system so you really are rewarded for not playing like shit, the artstyle is kinda nice, the game can be challenging but fair and rewarding. its a good time.

7/10

Call of Juarez: Gunslinger in a game in which you can pretty much beat in one setting, but dont let that scare you. Its a very solid fps.

Its western setting, cell shaded graphical style and unique narration are more than enough to set it apart. It uses an unreliable narrator, and cleverly ties that to the game, as you witness the scenary change around you as the narrator changes his story on the fly.

Best of all, its really fun to play. Its very arcadey in the sense that missions have highscores, and they are very focused on the shooting itself. The guns are solid to shoot and there is a varied arsenal, and using slow motion to go for headshots is really satisfying. That said, the visuals did make detecting enemies in the scenary a bit hard at times. It also features some duels, which have yet to be represented in a game in a way that they are fun.

In the end i guess that its good that its quite a short game because things start getting repetitive and annoyingly difficult. Definitly worth playing.