There is one candle, but three graves...
Call of Juarez is a Wild-West first-person shooter, originally released by Techland in 2006. Billy Candle, an impoverished young man who’s down on his luck, is accused of a crime soon after returning to his hometown. The local preacher, a retired gunslinger called Reverend Ray, gives chase across multiple varied locales in order to enact justice via his jury of six-shooters.
It’s time to dust off some old compadres.
Back when it was first released, this title was on the cutting edge of technology and graphics for a short while. Its draw distance may not be that impressive even at maximum settings, but the art direction is pleasantly vibrant and nuanced. Most smoke effects respond to force; you can shoot or whip into clouds of dust or steam and see the particles dissipate outwards, a detail that still impresses me to this day. A free DirectX 10 update, bundled with the Steam version, attempts to further enhance the visuals via post-processing effects such as volumetric lighting and HDR eye-adaptation (the implementation thereof being a mixed bag), on top of a general makeover of the base graphics. Past the environments and objects, however, characters look dated thanks to the comparatively low-definition textures, small variety of NPC models and, most jarringly, animations that are various flavours of stiff. The jank has afflicted your own characters as well, as the crude full-body animations show when looking down.
Notable annoyance when quickly launching the game from the taskbar icon: it defaults to the DX9 version. You’ll have to launch from the Steam library itself and select the option to run in DX10. There are also plentiful reports of either crashes in certain situations or the game not working at all due to CD-key shenanigans. At least from my experience, otherwise, this game runs stable at 1440p on my Ryzen 9 3900X, 64GB RAM, 1070 Ti, Windows 10 system – though it lacks vsync and it cannot be forced on, thus suffering from both screen tearing and excessive GPU load.
The individual track pieces of the musical score are pretty good: strings, flutes, percussions and piano mesh together and give specific moods for each game sequence. Unfortunately, their transitions are not nearly as elegant and give the impression of a much more repetitive soundtrack. Sound effects are of generally good quality, with the firearms especially being commendable for their authentic yet distinctive firing sounds. Reverend Ray’s dialogue receives high marks for their delivery as the biggest praise I can give to the dialogue, while the remaining characters could have done with both finer audio mixing and better emotion. Billy’s a notable offender of both faults when one accounts for his tendency to speak quickly and bluntly.
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2546980483
Time to meet your maker, boy.
The draw of the gameplay is that the two aforementioned protagonists play radically different from one another. A large chunk of the game consists of revisiting common segments if not entire levels, which is done remarkably well overall. Billy Candle puts the “agile” in “fragile”: he is able to climb and use stealth to get around the threats that would easily pepper him full of lead if given the chance otherwise. On the other hand, Reverend Ray is a glorious juggernaut who can shrug off half of any incoming fire with his chest plate, can fan his revolvers to deliver rapid-fire death, and perform bullet time-enhanced quick-draws to dispatch of groups of baddies before the first body hits the floor.
On paper, these contrasting styles create an engrossing dynamic wherein the levels you snuck and climbed through as Billy can then be near-totally demolished as Ray. The reality, however, is that for half of the time the former’s stages are clumsy and sluggish affairs. The stealth mechanics are functional yet rudimentary: bushes conceal you from your enemies and loud sounds draw suspicion or alert, so you’re reduced to slow crouch-walks to pass stealth sections. To make matters worse, several portions are forced-stealth with no option to murder the opposition, and require a save reload if spotted. The remaining half of Billy’s episodes involve platforming, often aided by a whip to grab onto trees or wooden branches and swing across gaps. These, too, suffer from stiff controls and slow traversal, as if the repetitive climbing grunts weren’t bad enough.
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2546997250
Nowhere are Billy’s problems as aggravating as in the first episode, where you have to escape a town while under fire. This single sequence has a very high randomness factor; you’re meant to stop behind trees and rocks while the guns run dry, but if the baddies shoot you out of sync, you’ll just have to pray that they didn’t graduate from stormtrooper marksmanship. This is one reason I advise against playing on the harder difficulties and to frequently make manual/quicksaves: Billy can easily be two-shot in this sequence on Hard or above. Later levels as him, thankfully, become more enjoyable when they provide some form of self-defense and opportunities to kill enemy patrols – particularly with the aid of a bow and arrows to silently skewer from afar.
I came not to bring peace… but a sword!
Murder is the best solution – just ask Reverend Ray! One of the coolest preachers in video game history can gun down sinners with a six-shooter in one hand whilst uttering quotes from The Bible in his other. His levels are fast and frantic, and his toughness and gunslinging abilities are necessary in the face of enemy swarms. While the enemy AI and their reactions are nothing to write home about, the results of taking bullets to the face are as satisfying as they are hilarious. Seldom have I had as much fun with a game’s ragdolls as with Call of Juarez. Ray unintentionally encourages this kind of tomfoolery with his quickly recharging Concentration Mode: you could kill up to a dozen infantry with well placed headshots, or you can unload all twelve rounds into one poor schmuck’s face, melt it in a spectacular shower of gore and send the hapless body flying well into the distance. That being said, the game is quick to try and punish the player for wantonly attacking non-enemies.
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2551852617
No self-respecting Wild West shooter would be complete without one-on-one showdowns. While adequately rich in flair and tension, winning duels is accomplished by potentially imprecise mouse motions to emulate reaching for the gun and then bringing it up to shoot – remember this for an unmarked confrontation near the finale. You’re given the chance to lean out of the way of incoming fire, but you may want to shoot first and shoot fast… if only to dump all of your revolver’s rounds into the fallen opponent. Chivalry isn’t the only thing dead, here.
The story is divided into 15 episodes and a roughly even split between the two playable characters. All levels are largely linear with few distractions, aside from the occasional open-ended Billy stage. Hidden throughout the game are collectible wanted posters of the development team. A first playthrough may take between six and eight hours, with full completion and attaining all posters needing perhaps 15.
The gold of Juarez belongs only to the brave.
Call of Juarez is an ambitious and mostly satisfactory romp through the Wild-West, brought down by its dated animations and poorly paced stealth sections.
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