Call of Juarez: Gunslinger Review - Gun slinging action.

By Sam Coles:

The Call of Juarez series I feel is underrated, as I don’t often hear people talk about it and I understand the last major release The Cartel was received as well as a fart in a lift, but that is one out of three games. Call of Juarez Gunslinger was a small download only game released on the Xbox 360, PS3 and PC all the back in the summer of 2013, and was an excellent game with a fun story, great gameplay and a good looking art style. The question I have to ask is why have we not got another game in the series? It’s been over four years; maybe people are still too scared to make western games due to Rockstar Games’ Red Dead Redemption.

Call of Juarez Gunslinger is about a lone bounty hunter named Silas Greaves, who is an old man who walks into a saloon looking for someone. He ends up meeting people who have heard of his exploits; he then ends up telling them stories of his past where he spins tales of him riding with notorious figures in the old west like Billy the Kid and hunting down the legendary Jesse James. It’s a fun story because what is unique is that when he is narrating during gameplay things start to appear like wooden planks when he is running across a rooftop, or not remembering things properly where a gameplay segment starts again which leads to some humorous moments.  

Gameplay is a first person shooter, but instead of hiding behind cover waiting to pick people off, it’s all about pulling off stylish kills at high speeds similar to Bulletstorm, but less over the top rag dolls and exploding limbs. The game really encourages you to keep moving, because if you skip a beat your score will reset. How this works is that the more you kill in succession the more your score builds up coupled with more stylish kills which can consist of headshots, melee kills or causing a chain reaction with explosions.

What I like about the gameplay of this game, is that it has an old school feel as it encourages mobility and speed as you’re a sitting duck if you stay in cover. You can play it like a cookie cutter shooter, but the enemies don’t stay in the same place and will eventually start charging your position or flush you out with dynamite.

Visually the game looks really good; it shoots for a cell shaded look as Borderlands during this period was very popular so other publishers tried to replicate the success of that game with the graphics. Feedback from enemies when you shoot them is extremely satisfying as you see blood gushing out with a suitably sickening sound as it pours out. Although there can be some pop in issues, as I was playing this game on the Xbox 360 which I’m sure it is not an issue on the PC.

Overall Call of Juarez Gunslinger is a game that we need more of with its western setting and fast and frantic gameplay. It’s not expensive but it wasn’t expensive to begin with, so go download it on Steam, PSN or Xbox Live with the latter being playable on Xbox One via Backwards Compatibility.