Spoilers: I
loved this game.
Call of Juarez has a rather spotty reputation, with the third entry considered by many to be quite awful. For some reason, they decided to scale back on the budget for the fourth entry and went digital
only, while approaching the series from a new
angle. And the end result, frankly, I think is fantastic.
Like previous games in the series, Gunslinger is a first person shooter with emphasis on Single player. And by emphasis, I mean that the only multiplayer of sorts to be found are the leaderboards where you can compare scores.
There are three different modes: Story, Arcade and Duel. Story Mode is the meat and potatoes of the game, here you take control of Silas Greaves, an old cowboy who stopped by a bar and is now telling of his exploits. His adventures takes him to do battle with real life cowboys, like the Daltons, Jesse James and Butch Cassidy. The most interesting
gimmick of this mode, is that it's basically a story, so sometimes Silas may remember that something happened in another way, or he could be corrected by other people that read about the ocurrance, thus altering the mission. Throughout each chapter, there are secret objects that grant the player Experience points, used to unlock skills from three different branches, and also give you little tidbits of history.
Arcade Mode is more of an endurance round, there's about 10 different stages in which you must kill every enemy or outlast every wave of enemies. In this mode, you can choose from three different
classes, each one has a different experience bar and skills to unlock, and a different starting weapons, though you can pick up weapons from fallen enemies. Then there's Duel, in which, as the name implies, duel other enemies in stand offs, there really isn't
much to this mode, but it's there.
The game plays like most other Modern First Person Shooters, you can only take a handful of weapons with yourself and your health regenerates if you don't take damage after a
while. Besides Dynamite, which acts like grenades, Silas can carry two different types of weapons: Revolvers(Can be
dual Wielded) and a Rifle
or a Shotgun. There are not many weapons, but there are few variations(3 kinds of revolvers, both normal and sawed-off versions of the Rifle and the Shotgun), still, they feel good, which is what
matters. Silas also has something called "Sense of Death", it regenerates with time, and when it's full, it let's you dodge a
fatal shot. Then there is concentration, which fills by killing enemies, that allows you to slow down time and marks the enemies in red so that you can aim at them more
easily.
The presentation is easily one of the game best
assets. The game has a cell-shaded look which looks fantastic. While the models for the common enemies are few, each major enemy looks really good. Character designs are pretty
snazzy, and whenever a new character is introduced, he gets a pretty
stylish intro. The stages themselves are very westerny, and many stages are a joy to look at, even though invisible walls("You are deviating from the story") keep you from going everywhere, are quite huge. Voice-Acting gets the job done, Silas is the one you will be hearing the most, and he makes for a great narrator. As for the music, it's very westerny and fits quite
nicely. As for extras, most chapters are named after Western movies, so if you are into the genre, it's a pretty cool
nod.
There's not a whole lot of replay value, although you do get a New Game Plus, with increased experience gain and you get to keep all your upgrades. There's also three different difficulty settings, if you are into it. For what it's worth, there are many secrets, and the game last quite a lot, plus, it's score-based gameplay
lends itself to repeated playthroughs, and Arcade Mode is a
blast!. There's not much to complain about, maybe how some stages reuse assets, but then again it's a downloadable game with loads of content, or how the AI may sometimes
spaz out. Honestly, neither thing bothered me, definitly one of my favorite games I've played this year.
9 out of 10.
