Oh, baby, a game review! It's good to be back.
I like those sort of AA games, you know the kind I'm talking about. Stuff that is most definitely not indie, but hasn't really got the full brunt of a AAA developer behind it. I find it's usually a bite-sized piece of extremely polished fun, and a lot of hidden gems come out of that particular marketplace. I'd heard a lot of things about Call of Juarez: Gunslinger, the latest installment in the much maligned Call of Juarez series, and it had been on my radar ever since TotalBiscuit's WTF is... on the game, which showed it to be a fun arcadey shooter with a lot of personality. I had fairly high expectations for the thing, but, even then, it surpassed them.
Presentation:
Gunslinger's main gimmick lies in the presentation department: The framing device for the story sees Silas Greaves, an old bounty hunter, walking into a tavern and telling tall tales about his deeds to a few of the locals. It's a fairly charming idea on its own, but what's brilliant is its implementation into the gameplay: not only are we treated to an almost Bastion-style narration by Silas, as well as the occasional piece of dialogue with those around him, but Silas' storytelling actively affects the world around you: Pieces of scenery will pop into existence as he mentions them, the story will rewind as he remembers things wrong and corrects himself, or the action will slow down as Silas gets distracted by chatting with the people around him.
This works great as a gimmick, lending the game a huge amount of charm. The whole game is as much Silas telling his story as it is him over-fantasizing certain elements, and it serves as a subtle nod to the power of storytelling. As a result of fantastic voice-acting from Silas and company (with what little dialogue happens in-story being narrated by Silas as part of his story), as well as really fantastic writing, the game oozes atmosphere. This thing is full of that Western movie feel, which I was very happy about, because it's an aesthetic that games have severely underutilized.
Silas' tale is very well told, too, starting as what seems like a bunch of disconnected little adventures that soon build up into a larger plot. There's just enough of a through-thread to keep one interested without ruining each level's individual story and pacing. The only disappointment comes at the very end, which throws a twist at the player that's both extremely predictable and pointless, and wraps the story up annoyingly quick after, without giving a feeling of proper resolution. It doesn't ruin what's been a very fun tale up to that point, but it does leave one with an unfortunately sour taste in their mouth to finish the adventure.
The solid story is backed up by really charming visuals: gameplay takes place in a very stylized world, effectively using a comic-book style to convey the action. The only issue is that things can occasionally look too busy, making it hard to see enemies. Cutscenes at the start of every chapter, taking place in the tavern where Silas is recounting his story, instead look a lot "harder", if that makes any sense, than the gameplay, though are still very stylish. The only thing that feels slightly out of place are the boss-introduction strips, looking like something straight out of a comic-book. Whilst this theoretically meshes well with the in-engine stuff, there's an odd disconnect there. Still, these rarely come up, once a chapter at most, and as such are pretty harmless.
The whole package is backed up by an extremely Western-feeling soundtrack, which does a good job of even further giving the game its Wild West ambiance. Action scenes in particular stand out, getting appropriately bombastic tunes to get your blood pumping.
Presentation Verdict:
9.5/10
There's not a lot to say about Gunslinger's presentation because it's just so damn good. The game looks and sounds great, and has a simple but entertaining story to boot. A couple small but important flaws hold it back from a perfect score, but you'd be hard pressed to find yourself caring too much.
Gameplay:
As one would expect, Gunslinger is a first-person shooter, though it takes a much more arcadey approach than most games in its genre nowadays. Aside from a few difficulty spikes, dispatching your enemies is typically fairly easy, with the real challenge coming from looking good whilst doing it. Several sorts of trick-shots get rewarded with extra points, from the basic headshot, to shots piercing through light cover, to the extremely hard to pull off ricochet shot. To boot, as you kill enemies in quick succession, you'll build up a combo multiplier, where each subsequent kill in the chain will grant you more points. Keep in mind, however, the combo multiplier doesn't actually directly grant that times as many points: a times two headshot will get you 150 points, whereas a normal headshot awards you 100 points.
This is a fairly fun incentive to play the game differently, and a lot of the different weapons promote going for different strategies to maximize points: If you're dual-wielding revolvers you'll want to get a lot of low-point kills to build your combo up high, hopefully finishing your chain off with a more stylish kill, whereas if you're taking enemies out from a distance with a rifle you'll be focusing more on making each individual kill give you as many points as possible without being that bothered about your combo. This, as well as the fact that every gun feels great to shoot, makes up for the fact that there really aren't that many weapons in the game: there are four sorts of pistols and three sorts of rifles, as well as dynamite. You're only ever allowed one type of pistol (which you can gain the ability to dual-wield very early in the game) and one type of rifle at the same time, which is slightly disappointing, but the game is short enough that you won't have time to get bored of the limited number of possible loadouts.
Perhaps the biggest issue with the points system is that there simply aren't enough types of trick-shots. Most of the time you'll only really be scoring headshots, since most of the other ones are too dependent on enemy behavior: you need an enemy to be behind light cover for a piercing shot, you need an enemy to be running for a runner bonus, and so on. This means that going in close and personal is very much encouraged, which I personally enjoy, but might be disappointing for those preferring to play a more patient game.
Of course, the points you obtain from level to level aren't only for bragging rights (though the games online leaderboards make bragging rights a very relevant aspect), they're also used to level up your character. You can get several upgrades that make fighting easier for you, divided up into three skill trees: Desperado (based around dual-wielding pistols), Ranger (based around rifles and accuracy), and Trapper (based around shotguns and getting in close). I'm in two minds about these: for a long time, it felt as though my upgrades were doing very little to help, but by the end of the game I really felt like the things I'd bought early on were now doing a good deal to help me keep my combo up. However, one defect of the system is that the more powerful abilities are locked away quite high-up the skill trees (aside from the first ability in each tree, which are arguably the three most useful abilities in the game), meaning you're strongly encouraged to stick on one tree until you've finished it.
This means that you're quite limited to what approaches you can take. Whilst you can do alright with a rifle from the very start, shotguns and dual pistols are very hard to effectively use without dying until you pretty much fill out their trees. In my playthrough, I got completely through the Desperado tree and about halfway through the Ranger, putting one or two points into Trapper along the way, meaning I was pretty much locked into dual pistols if I wanted to get decent scores on the last few levels. Whilst it's satisfying to feel uber-powerful as you mow down hordes of enemies with dual pistols in the later levels, it's disappointing that I was pretty much forced to ignore any shotgun I found. I just wish the baseline for dual pistols and shotguns was more in range with the baseline for rifles: reasonable, just not as godlike as you'd want.
Of course, there's also a few twists here and there. In the presentation section, I mentioned how Silas' tale affects the gameworld, and this makes for a very entertaining experience. You never quite know how any given encounter is going to be modified by Silas' storytelling, meaning there's always an element of the unexpected. Some of the more entertaining levels involve replaying parts of the level with different approaches, as Silas changes his story for one reason or another. This means that, although levels tend to be fairly small and linear, there's always something interesting around the corner. You're also encouraged to explore by the Nuggets of Truth, collectible items that give you a bunch of experience as well as a small bit of information on the real-life version of an event or a person mentioned in the game, which I found fairly interesting reading.
Aside from this, the game also has two fairly cool mechanics: as you kill enemies, you'll build up your concentration gauge, which allows you to briefly go into concentration mode (read: bullet-time), where the game will slow down, your enemies will be highlighted, and you'll get the fairly valuable "Eyeblink" skillshot on every enemy you kill. This initially seems like a rather tired mechanic, which we've seen in several games before, but as you level up you'll unlock more interactions with concentration that make it a joy to work it into comboes: for instance, you can get a Desperado unlock that fully reloads your guns as soon as you enter concentration, meaning you can negate reload times, which are a big enemy of getting your combo multiplier up high. Combine this with any of the numerous other insane concentration-upgrading unlocks, and you're in business.
The other signature mechanic of the game's main component is Sense of Death: as you play the game, you'll fill up a Sense of Death gauge. Once this is full, if you're about to take a killing shot, the game will slow down and focus on the bullet coming at you, which you can dodge to either the left or right: essentially a mini-quick-time-event without a prompt. A successful dodge will result in your Sense of Death gauge emptying, Silas regaining a small bit of his health, and enemies around you being vocally surprised at your apparently miraculous feat, giving you a tiny bit of time to start making a comeback. It seems like a fairly small mechanic, and I originally thought of it as pointless, but I found myself really appreciating it as I got to some of the harder levels: it makes for some truly badass moments of recovery from a seemingly unwinnable position, and fuels that movie "lone cowboy vs the world" feel very effectively.
So, the main component of the game is an entertaining, if simple shooter. The main problem comes in the boss fights, of which there are two types: in-game shootouts and duels. Shootouts put you in the typical gameplay engine, where you're fighting against a powerful enemy with a health bar. These typically occur in an arena of some kind, with the boss either moving around the edges or sitting at a set position and firing at you, as well as calling in waves of goons. The problem is, these aren't very entertaining. Aside from one fight that breaks the mold and has you come up against a powerful gun-toting foe that runs around the arena just like you, these fights boil down to "wait for the boss to pop up/have a break in his firing pattern, then shoot him". Considering how the game is designed for lightning fast, run-and-gun action, this just isn't fun. Some bosses outright have gatling guns, which the loading screens instruct you to wait for breaks in fire with, and these are by far the low points of the game. What's particularly frustrating is when the game forces you to use dynamite on a boss: dynamite, despite taking up a fourth of the weapon select wheel, is next to useless in normal combat due to how small its explosion radius is, and how difficult it is to accurately throw. The boss that sits in an armored gatling gun and forces you to throw dynamite at him was my least favorite encounter of the game.
The other type of boss fight is the duel. This tries to capture the classic feel of Wild West dueling, but doesn't really succeed. You and your opponent stare each other down, and you're made to juggle two indicators: your focus, which you do by keeping a wide reticle on your opponent and zooms you in, making for an easier shot, and your draw speed, which you do by tapping A and D to keep your hand close to your gun. The issue is, after playing the whole game, I still haven't been able to figure out how draw speed works: it seems to arbitrarily decide whether my speed will increase without me doing anything, or what direction I have to push to make it increase otherwise (though A seems to work a lot more often than D).
After a while, you hear a heartbeat sound, indicating that you're ready to shoot. Shortly after, your opponent will draw their gun and shoot at you. You've got two options: waiting for the opponent to draw before you shoot, resulting in an honorable kill that nets you a decent amount of points, or shooting before your opponent does anything, resulting in a dishonorable kill that nets you no points. The issue is that it's too easy to get an honorable kill because of the heartbeat sound. The idea behind the duel system is that you'll be juggling adjusting your two parameters and watching the opponent's hand. Pay too much attention to parameters, and you'll wind up not noticing you're getting shot, pay too much attention to your opponent and your draw will be slow and hard to aim. The problem is that, after the introduction of the heartbeat mechanic (which happens very early on), no opponent shoots before you hear the heartbeat indicator, meaning you're safe to focus completely on maximizing your advantage before then. By the time the heartbeat plays, you're pretty much guaranteed to have enough focus and draw speed to be able to win if you wait for them to draw first. This means that duels are almost never tense.
Also, despite the fact that the last few duels have a few extra gimmicks thrown in, dueling is just not particular fun. Even at its best, it feels like an annoying slow-paced balancing act that's getting in the way of the shooty shooty bang bang fun. I appreciate the idea behind the mechanic, but, even as rare as it is (there's either no duel or one duel every chapter, with a total of fourteen chapters), I got tired of it by the end.
Fourteen chapters may not seem like that much, especially considering each chapter is only about twenty minutes long, but I felt the game ended pretty much on queue. You spend just enough time at a very high power level to feel satisfied, and the game's just long enough to not outstay its welcome. I beat Gunslinger in about 4 hours, and felt like I got just enough of what the game had to offer to be happy. I'll actively praise Gunslinger for lasting exactly as long as it did.
Gameplay Verdict:
8/10
Gunslinger is a lot of fun to play. It's fast, it feels good, and it's got a good amount of style. There's just enough there to keep you having a blast for the four hours the game lasts, and you'll leave feeling good about yourself. There's a few unfortunate flaws in what's otherwise a really good gameplay experience, but the game's short enough that they don't have time to become major annoyances.
Overall Verdict:
(9.5+8)/10
8.75/10
Gunslinger is a truly joyous game. It's got a lot of personality and charm in its presentation, and it's a blast to play. It highlights what gaming can do do differentiate itself from other artforms in its storytelling, whilst it reminds you just how much fun a good shooter can be. For its low price, Gunslinger is more than worth trying out, even if it is over quite quickly.
I like those sort of AA games, you know the kind I'm talking about. Stuff that is most definitely not indie, but hasn't really got the full brunt of a AAA developer behind it. I find it's usually a bite-sized piece of extremely polished fun, and a lot of hidden gems come out of that particular marketplace. I'd heard a lot of things about Call of Juarez: Gunslinger, the latest installment in the much maligned Call of Juarez series, and it had been on my radar ever since TotalBiscuit's WTF is... on the game, which showed it to be a fun arcadey shooter with a lot of personality. I had fairly high expectations for the thing, but, even then, it surpassed them.
Presentation:
Gunslinger's main gimmick lies in the presentation department: The framing device for the story sees Silas Greaves, an old bounty hunter, walking into a tavern and telling tall tales about his deeds to a few of the locals. It's a fairly charming idea on its own, but what's brilliant is its implementation into the gameplay: not only are we treated to an almost Bastion-style narration by Silas, as well as the occasional piece of dialogue with those around him, but Silas' storytelling actively affects the world around you: Pieces of scenery will pop into existence as he mentions them, the story will rewind as he remembers things wrong and corrects himself, or the action will slow down as Silas gets distracted by chatting with the people around him.
This works great as a gimmick, lending the game a huge amount of charm. The whole game is as much Silas telling his story as it is him over-fantasizing certain elements, and it serves as a subtle nod to the power of storytelling. As a result of fantastic voice-acting from Silas and company (with what little dialogue happens in-story being narrated by Silas as part of his story), as well as really fantastic writing, the game oozes atmosphere. This thing is full of that Western movie feel, which I was very happy about, because it's an aesthetic that games have severely underutilized.
Silas' tale is very well told, too, starting as what seems like a bunch of disconnected little adventures that soon build up into a larger plot. There's just enough of a through-thread to keep one interested without ruining each level's individual story and pacing. The only disappointment comes at the very end, which throws a twist at the player that's both extremely predictable and pointless, and wraps the story up annoyingly quick after, without giving a feeling of proper resolution. It doesn't ruin what's been a very fun tale up to that point, but it does leave one with an unfortunately sour taste in their mouth to finish the adventure.
The solid story is backed up by really charming visuals: gameplay takes place in a very stylized world, effectively using a comic-book style to convey the action. The only issue is that things can occasionally look too busy, making it hard to see enemies. Cutscenes at the start of every chapter, taking place in the tavern where Silas is recounting his story, instead look a lot "harder", if that makes any sense, than the gameplay, though are still very stylish. The only thing that feels slightly out of place are the boss-introduction strips, looking like something straight out of a comic-book. Whilst this theoretically meshes well with the in-engine stuff, there's an odd disconnect there. Still, these rarely come up, once a chapter at most, and as such are pretty harmless.
The whole package is backed up by an extremely Western-feeling soundtrack, which does a good job of even further giving the game its Wild West ambiance. Action scenes in particular stand out, getting appropriately bombastic tunes to get your blood pumping.
Presentation Verdict:
9.5/10
There's not a lot to say about Gunslinger's presentation because it's just so damn good. The game looks and sounds great, and has a simple but entertaining story to boot. A couple small but important flaws hold it back from a perfect score, but you'd be hard pressed to find yourself caring too much.
Gameplay:
As one would expect, Gunslinger is a first-person shooter, though it takes a much more arcadey approach than most games in its genre nowadays. Aside from a few difficulty spikes, dispatching your enemies is typically fairly easy, with the real challenge coming from looking good whilst doing it. Several sorts of trick-shots get rewarded with extra points, from the basic headshot, to shots piercing through light cover, to the extremely hard to pull off ricochet shot. To boot, as you kill enemies in quick succession, you'll build up a combo multiplier, where each subsequent kill in the chain will grant you more points. Keep in mind, however, the combo multiplier doesn't actually directly grant that times as many points: a times two headshot will get you 150 points, whereas a normal headshot awards you 100 points.
This is a fairly fun incentive to play the game differently, and a lot of the different weapons promote going for different strategies to maximize points: If you're dual-wielding revolvers you'll want to get a lot of low-point kills to build your combo up high, hopefully finishing your chain off with a more stylish kill, whereas if you're taking enemies out from a distance with a rifle you'll be focusing more on making each individual kill give you as many points as possible without being that bothered about your combo. This, as well as the fact that every gun feels great to shoot, makes up for the fact that there really aren't that many weapons in the game: there are four sorts of pistols and three sorts of rifles, as well as dynamite. You're only ever allowed one type of pistol (which you can gain the ability to dual-wield very early in the game) and one type of rifle at the same time, which is slightly disappointing, but the game is short enough that you won't have time to get bored of the limited number of possible loadouts.
Perhaps the biggest issue with the points system is that there simply aren't enough types of trick-shots. Most of the time you'll only really be scoring headshots, since most of the other ones are too dependent on enemy behavior: you need an enemy to be behind light cover for a piercing shot, you need an enemy to be running for a runner bonus, and so on. This means that going in close and personal is very much encouraged, which I personally enjoy, but might be disappointing for those preferring to play a more patient game.
Of course, the points you obtain from level to level aren't only for bragging rights (though the games online leaderboards make bragging rights a very relevant aspect), they're also used to level up your character. You can get several upgrades that make fighting easier for you, divided up into three skill trees: Desperado (based around dual-wielding pistols), Ranger (based around rifles and accuracy), and Trapper (based around shotguns and getting in close). I'm in two minds about these: for a long time, it felt as though my upgrades were doing very little to help, but by the end of the game I really felt like the things I'd bought early on were now doing a good deal to help me keep my combo up. However, one defect of the system is that the more powerful abilities are locked away quite high-up the skill trees (aside from the first ability in each tree, which are arguably the three most useful abilities in the game), meaning you're strongly encouraged to stick on one tree until you've finished it.
This means that you're quite limited to what approaches you can take. Whilst you can do alright with a rifle from the very start, shotguns and dual pistols are very hard to effectively use without dying until you pretty much fill out their trees. In my playthrough, I got completely through the Desperado tree and about halfway through the Ranger, putting one or two points into Trapper along the way, meaning I was pretty much locked into dual pistols if I wanted to get decent scores on the last few levels. Whilst it's satisfying to feel uber-powerful as you mow down hordes of enemies with dual pistols in the later levels, it's disappointing that I was pretty much forced to ignore any shotgun I found. I just wish the baseline for dual pistols and shotguns was more in range with the baseline for rifles: reasonable, just not as godlike as you'd want.
Of course, there's also a few twists here and there. In the presentation section, I mentioned how Silas' tale affects the gameworld, and this makes for a very entertaining experience. You never quite know how any given encounter is going to be modified by Silas' storytelling, meaning there's always an element of the unexpected. Some of the more entertaining levels involve replaying parts of the level with different approaches, as Silas changes his story for one reason or another. This means that, although levels tend to be fairly small and linear, there's always something interesting around the corner. You're also encouraged to explore by the Nuggets of Truth, collectible items that give you a bunch of experience as well as a small bit of information on the real-life version of an event or a person mentioned in the game, which I found fairly interesting reading.
Aside from this, the game also has two fairly cool mechanics: as you kill enemies, you'll build up your concentration gauge, which allows you to briefly go into concentration mode (read: bullet-time), where the game will slow down, your enemies will be highlighted, and you'll get the fairly valuable "Eyeblink" skillshot on every enemy you kill. This initially seems like a rather tired mechanic, which we've seen in several games before, but as you level up you'll unlock more interactions with concentration that make it a joy to work it into comboes: for instance, you can get a Desperado unlock that fully reloads your guns as soon as you enter concentration, meaning you can negate reload times, which are a big enemy of getting your combo multiplier up high. Combine this with any of the numerous other insane concentration-upgrading unlocks, and you're in business.
The other signature mechanic of the game's main component is Sense of Death: as you play the game, you'll fill up a Sense of Death gauge. Once this is full, if you're about to take a killing shot, the game will slow down and focus on the bullet coming at you, which you can dodge to either the left or right: essentially a mini-quick-time-event without a prompt. A successful dodge will result in your Sense of Death gauge emptying, Silas regaining a small bit of his health, and enemies around you being vocally surprised at your apparently miraculous feat, giving you a tiny bit of time to start making a comeback. It seems like a fairly small mechanic, and I originally thought of it as pointless, but I found myself really appreciating it as I got to some of the harder levels: it makes for some truly badass moments of recovery from a seemingly unwinnable position, and fuels that movie "lone cowboy vs the world" feel very effectively.
So, the main component of the game is an entertaining, if simple shooter. The main problem comes in the boss fights, of which there are two types: in-game shootouts and duels. Shootouts put you in the typical gameplay engine, where you're fighting against a powerful enemy with a health bar. These typically occur in an arena of some kind, with the boss either moving around the edges or sitting at a set position and firing at you, as well as calling in waves of goons. The problem is, these aren't very entertaining. Aside from one fight that breaks the mold and has you come up against a powerful gun-toting foe that runs around the arena just like you, these fights boil down to "wait for the boss to pop up/have a break in his firing pattern, then shoot him". Considering how the game is designed for lightning fast, run-and-gun action, this just isn't fun. Some bosses outright have gatling guns, which the loading screens instruct you to wait for breaks in fire with, and these are by far the low points of the game. What's particularly frustrating is when the game forces you to use dynamite on a boss: dynamite, despite taking up a fourth of the weapon select wheel, is next to useless in normal combat due to how small its explosion radius is, and how difficult it is to accurately throw. The boss that sits in an armored gatling gun and forces you to throw dynamite at him was my least favorite encounter of the game.
The other type of boss fight is the duel. This tries to capture the classic feel of Wild West dueling, but doesn't really succeed. You and your opponent stare each other down, and you're made to juggle two indicators: your focus, which you do by keeping a wide reticle on your opponent and zooms you in, making for an easier shot, and your draw speed, which you do by tapping A and D to keep your hand close to your gun. The issue is, after playing the whole game, I still haven't been able to figure out how draw speed works: it seems to arbitrarily decide whether my speed will increase without me doing anything, or what direction I have to push to make it increase otherwise (though A seems to work a lot more often than D).
After a while, you hear a heartbeat sound, indicating that you're ready to shoot. Shortly after, your opponent will draw their gun and shoot at you. You've got two options: waiting for the opponent to draw before you shoot, resulting in an honorable kill that nets you a decent amount of points, or shooting before your opponent does anything, resulting in a dishonorable kill that nets you no points. The issue is that it's too easy to get an honorable kill because of the heartbeat sound. The idea behind the duel system is that you'll be juggling adjusting your two parameters and watching the opponent's hand. Pay too much attention to parameters, and you'll wind up not noticing you're getting shot, pay too much attention to your opponent and your draw will be slow and hard to aim. The problem is that, after the introduction of the heartbeat mechanic (which happens very early on), no opponent shoots before you hear the heartbeat indicator, meaning you're safe to focus completely on maximizing your advantage before then. By the time the heartbeat plays, you're pretty much guaranteed to have enough focus and draw speed to be able to win if you wait for them to draw first. This means that duels are almost never tense.
Also, despite the fact that the last few duels have a few extra gimmicks thrown in, dueling is just not particular fun. Even at its best, it feels like an annoying slow-paced balancing act that's getting in the way of the shooty shooty bang bang fun. I appreciate the idea behind the mechanic, but, even as rare as it is (there's either no duel or one duel every chapter, with a total of fourteen chapters), I got tired of it by the end.
Fourteen chapters may not seem like that much, especially considering each chapter is only about twenty minutes long, but I felt the game ended pretty much on queue. You spend just enough time at a very high power level to feel satisfied, and the game's just long enough to not outstay its welcome. I beat Gunslinger in about 4 hours, and felt like I got just enough of what the game had to offer to be happy. I'll actively praise Gunslinger for lasting exactly as long as it did.
Gameplay Verdict:
8/10
Gunslinger is a lot of fun to play. It's fast, it feels good, and it's got a good amount of style. There's just enough there to keep you having a blast for the four hours the game lasts, and you'll leave feeling good about yourself. There's a few unfortunate flaws in what's otherwise a really good gameplay experience, but the game's short enough that they don't have time to become major annoyances.
Overall Verdict:
(9.5+8)/10
8.75/10
Gunslinger is a truly joyous game. It's got a lot of personality and charm in its presentation, and it's a blast to play. It highlights what gaming can do do differentiate itself from other artforms in its storytelling, whilst it reminds you just how much fun a good shooter can be. For its low price, Gunslinger is more than worth trying out, even if it is over quite quickly.
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