Call of Juarez: Bound in Blood First Look Preview

Remember when you used to play at Cowboys and Indians when you were little? Running around with your fingers pointing out, pretending they were guns; galloping around on make-believe horses; waving your hand over your mouth to make that unmistakeable “WAH-WAH-WAH-WAH!” Red Indian noise. Yeah, that was all great fun… but what about those moments where you had to play as some gimp with a whip, a bloke who preferred to hide away from the other cowboys? They were a bit crap, weren’t they?

As Western-themed FPS titles go, the original Call of Juarez did a lot of things right. It looked good, most of the gunplay was very enjoyable and the under-used setting ensured that the action felt rather fresh. Unfortunately, the game was also somewhat let down by the fact that it forced you to spend half your time as a wimpy chap named Billy who specialised in crawling about and sneaking past people. These stealth sections were harsh and largely quite irritating. This was a cowboy game, after all – and we wanted to be shooting men in hats, not skulking about in the dark like some kind of woodlouse.

Happily for all concerned, Techland have decided to completely scrap the stealth sections for Bound in Blood – their forthcoming prequel, set many years before the original story. While little Billy is nowhere to be seen, the Bible-bashing gunslinger Ray McCall will return – and this time he’s joined by his brother, Thomas (sadly there’s no appearance from their sister, Davina). At the start of the tale, the siblings are fighting for the Confederates during the American Civil War, defending a doomed outpost from an invading force of Northern troops. This episode forms a distinctly more-interesting-than-normal tutorial level that ends with the brothers deserting the army so that they can head off to save their mother. Unfortunately this decision incurs the wrath of a man named Barnsby, their commanding officer. When the South eventually lose the war, he takes it personally and blames men like the McCalls for the Confederate loss. Years later, he becomes something of a nemesis for the outlaw brothers, setting out on a private vendetta to destroy them.

To me this sounds like a pretty decent basis for a story, and Techland claim that the resulting adventure has been heavily inspired by a whole brace of classic westerns, like The Wild Bunch and Sergio Leone’s The Man With No Name trilogy. Like its predecessor, Bound in Blood should be pretty easy on the eye. The game has been put together using an improved version of the Chrome engine, and in a recent demonstration this seemed to result in large, open levels with a rather impressive draw distance. The graphics may fall slightly short of Far Cry 2, the last Ubisoft-produced bag of eye candy, but they’re certainly not that far behind. The Western setting lends itself well to large outdoor environments, and the new prequel seemed fairly adept at handling high standards of texture detail.

From what I was shown earlier this month it seems as through there will be plenty of things going on in the virtual Wild West. The opening tutorial almost resembled an 1864 cousin to Call of Duty (not a bad idea, in fact), and some of the later stages seemed equally chaotic – big explosions, lots of Indians fighting against Barnsby’s men, and a horse-drawn wagon carrying a gatling gun. Despite all this bedlam, the game seemed to be maintaining a pleasingly slick frame rate – something that I’m taking to be a good sign. Having ditched the stealth pretensions Techland seem to be primarily focusing on action set pieces; if they can keep everything running smoothly even during the busiest moments, the game will certainly benefit.

Despite the absence of stealth, there should still be a decent amount of variety on offer. Ray and Thomas have different approaches to gun play – the former focusing on pistols, the latter sniping with a rifle – and for most levels you’ll have the option of playing as either of them. Both outlaws will have to use the game’s new snap-to cover system that automatically kicks in whenever you move near to a piece of scenery. Apparently you’ll be able to use pretty much anything you like as a bullet shield, though obviously some objects will be better than others. It’s an interesting idea to completely scrap the use of a cover button, but provided the system is smart enough then it could potentially make gun battles a lot more fluid.

In addition to their individual skills, Messrs Ray and Thomas will also be able to pull off their own special bullet-time style attack, dubbed “Concentration Mode”. Slow motion shooting played a significant role in the last game, and it’s received a bit of a makeover for this second outing. Ray’s version gives him a short window of time in which he can assign crosshairs to nearby enemies; when this expires, he’ll shoot anyone he painted with a target. Thomas’ mode, meanwhile, is more immediately focused on speed: he’ll aim his rifle automatically, while you concentrate on firing as quickly as possible. In neat twist, this uses a separate set of controls that mimic the action of cocking-back the hammer – you pull the right trigger, then smack the right analogue stick downwards with the palm of your hand. It could be a bit gimmicky, or it could be a lot of fun – we’ll just have to wait and see.

In addition to these character-specific Concentration Modes, there are a further two that only kick in during certain situations. The first of these is used when both McCalls are about to storm into a room, guns blazing. You’ll get a few seconds to compose yourself, then the brothers enter the room and time slows – leaving you to take out as many targets as possible using a pair of targeting reticules, controlled via both of the analogue sticks. Finally, there’s a fourth variation used for classic quick-draw duelling. Apparently this will use a perspective close to your gunfighter’s leg, with the sticks first used to position your hand, and then for the draw itself. This last mode wasn’t shown off at the demonstration, so it’s not entirely clear how it will play out – though I’m quite up for giving it a try.

While the double-sibling setup for Bound in Blood sounds ideal for co-op play, this feature won’t be available during the central campaign. Techland explains that there are several reasons for this, the largest being that the brothers will eventually diverge paths and come into conflict with each other. On the plus-side, there should be plenty of opportunity for co-operative gameplay during the five multiplayer modes on offer. These should see two teams of up to six gunslingers competing in a range of games, including one based upon famous events from the history of the Old West – think train robberies, and the shoot-out at the OK Corral. There will also be a mechanism whereby players will have bounties on their heads (hard cash, not the chocolate bar) that increase as they do better online; killing these players will net you more points than someone who’s only just started playing the game.

It sounds like a clever idea, although it’s not yet clear whether this arrangement will only exist within individual matches, or if it’ll be part of an over-arcing ranking system. Either way, it sounds like a neat way of folding traditional cowboy mythology into established gaming principles. You could arguably say the same thing about the Concentration Modes too, though it’s hard to say how well the rifle-cocking idea will work without having tried it. Nonetheless, there’s a lot to like about what I’ve seen of Bound in Blood. Western games are still fairly uncommon, and a truly great one could easily carve itself a comfortable place within the ultra-competitive market for FPS gaming.

Call of Juarez: Bound in Blood will be released this June on PC, PS3 and Xbox 360.