Call of Juarez: Bound in Blood

Techland and Ubisofsed have relea the first images for Call of Juarez: Bound in Blood after its announcement, a little more than a month ago.

Even though the images aren’t in the max resolution possible, they’re more than enough to see the good job that the Polish development team is doing. The game is scheduled to launch this year on PC, PlayStation 3 and XBox 360. There’s not much known about the game, except that it’s a prequel to the current Call of Juarez title.

Ubisoft announces Call of Juarez: Bound in Blood, a prequel to the western-themed shooter Call of Juarez, is under development at Techland. The game will be released for Windows, Xbox 360, and PlayStation 3 later this year, and here is a brief description: "Call of Juarez: Bound in Blood transports players from a ravaged Civil War-era Georgia to the Aztec ruins of Mexico. In the wildest West ever depicted, players can embody both McCall brothers in an intense Wild West storyline full of greed, lust and lawlessness that takes place during a legendary period of American history."

It wouldn't be right to say there's been a resurgence of western-themed games lately, because they were never really a force to begin with. If you don't count recent games like GUN and Red Dead Revolver, you'd be hard-pressed to find enough titles to count on one hand. In any case, riding this recent pseudo-wave is Call of Juarez. Like GUN, its story seems pretty well-developed, with enough interesting gameplay flourishes to make it somewhat unique among the throngs of first-person shooters on the horizon.

The term first-person shooter doesn't fully apply to Call of Juarez. The gameplay is more akin to a third-person action-adventure -- not unlike GUN, as a matter of fact. There are two playable characters in the game, and when you're playing as one of them, you'll be in full-on FPS mode, while the other character is played from a third-person perspective, with sequences like sneaking around and riding horses.

The FPS portion of the game revolves around Reverend Ray, who cuts an imposing figure, and embodies a popular Western archetype: the gunslinger turned preacher. The levels that are centered on this hardened man of the cloth, for the most part, will resemble your standard FPS fare. The pacing will be characterized by careful cover-to-cover movement, as the enemy AI in our demo was brutal, and not above filling you with lead if you're unprotected for more than a few seconds.

The Reverend has a few cool tricks to even the odds, however. The first will be somewhat familiar to anyone who's been playing shooters for the past five years or so. It's Call of Juarez' take on "bullet-time" -- Reverend Ray, being the consummate gunslinger, will draw both his guns, and, while time is slowed, he'll be able to unload multiple rounds at his helpless enemies. When you initiate the ability, your aiming reticle will split in two, and follow a fixed path over any enemies in front of you. You can't directly control it, but rather, you simply click the mouse button corresponding to the particular reticle as it floats over any enemy you want to kill. It's a bit more challenging than it sounds, as the timing it a bit tricky, but once you get it down, it can certainly turn the tide of an ugly encounter. If that fails, then you always have the Word -- rather than equip a second handgun on your left hand, you can hold a bible. No, not to smack heathens with it; when used as a weapon, it will cause Ray to spout fiery sermons that will send the weak-hearted packing.

Billy is the second character, and his approach is much less direct. His scenarios will be based around stealth and exploration rather than direct confrontation. One sequence I got to play, which takes place early on in the game, involved winning the trust of a hermit by hunting bunny rabbits for him on horseback. Yeah, really. He gave me a bow, lent me his horse, and sent me to gallop around the prairie to find the little critters. They were conveniently demarcated on my mini-map, though actually nabbing them with an arrow from a first-person perspective was nowhere near as easy as you would imagine it to be. In any case, this brief Billy scenario served to showcase the sort of gameplay you'll encounter with him -- specifically, you'll won't always be shooting at the people you meet.

The story that ties these two together is quite knotty. Turns out that Ray's brother is married to Billy's mother, and the two never quite got along. When Billy's mother and stepfather turn up murdered, well, the Reverend knows where to point the finger. Billy, of course, takes flight, and Ray gives him chase. Both of their paths lead to a small town in Mexico named Juarez. It's no secret that they'll eventually reconcile their differences, but there's no telling how much blood will be shed before this happens. We'll have more on Call of Juarez as its development continues.