No problem, I hope you enjoy it.

PS - There is no horse armor.

Well that’s annoying. For some reason my response post never showed up. Hmmmmm….

Anyway, I heeded your advice and snagged Call of Juarez on eBay for $30 including Shipping! So I will hopefully be playing it next week. Looking forward to it as it sounds like a good time based on your description.

Thanks for the in depth response!

If you enjoy GUN, odds are you will really like Call of Juarez. I’m not into Western films much, but loved GUN even though it’s not exactly a game of the year or anything. I guess it’s being able to be in a virtual Wild West that had it’s appeal to me. It’s really fun and that’s what makes it stand out, and for the $11 you paid, it’s a really sweet deal.

Call of Juarez is a worlds apart from GUN with some primary differences, a couple major differences that will really drive you nuts because they are idiotic in a “WILD” West setting. Definitely not a $60 game, but I think it has price dropped to $40 and may be worth it at that price point. The graphics are outstanding compared to GUN because GUN was just a port over from the original Xbox. The storyline is nothing spectacular, decent, and you get to switch off between two characters, “Billy” and “Reverend Ray,” you play both the protagonist and the antagonist. The game play and controls are pretty good, riding a horse and shooting from the horse seems solid. Using the whip to latch onto branches and leap across gaps on a mountain side is difficult and frustrating, you may lose a 360 controller to anger. The bow and arrow play absolutely rocks.

Here are a couple of things that may turn you off completely:

1.) You cannot kill or harm any innocent people who are not enemies in the storyline. For instance, you walk into a saloon and the card player at the table calls you something and verbally threatens you, naturally you draw your gun to shoot him in the face. Then the game pauses and a window pops up that says “Harming innocent citizens, horses, or corpses, will NOT be tolerated in this game” and then it states that it will restart if you continue to do so. Naturally, I wanted to test the boundaries so I tried to shoot the guy 3 or 4 times ignoring the warning and it kicked me back to my last save point. It’s suppose to be the fricken “WILD” West so I don’t understand this concept and it’s Ubisoft, which makes it even more puzzling. I’ve never had a game do this before. However, as a consolation, there is plenty of gunning down bad guys, gore, and violence elsewhere in the game.

2.) Many parts of the game rely on sneak tactics, it’s not a basic run and gun like GUN is. Again, a really odd choice for a Western, but it’s not horrible, but can be frustrating. Many times there will be a group of bad guys that are next to a fire you have to sneak by and then there is a whole section during a lightning storm where you have to sneak by a really large group of baddies using rocks for cover, but if lightning flashes they may still see you. Also, in the beginning you need to steal a few things and you have to sneak by or either be sent back to the beginning of the scene or shot by the person. I don’t want to give away any serious spoilers so I won’t go deeper into it.

Most FPS lovers walked away from the game, Western fans still loved the game. I’d say you at least have to give it a try and if you can find it for $30 or less it’s probably worth it to have in your collection. Again, odds are if you like GUN you’ll like Call of Juarez.

I agree. I can see it going down a similar path as the film industry. Every year we get buried in garbage by the big Hollywood studios, but every now and then a film comes out that is well made, challenging, and a pleasure to behold. This seems to be where gaming is going. No matter the console, a large number of games are quite lame and just shoveled out to “cash” in. But then there are the companies that care about their product and image and they unleash the memorable titles on us. I hate to see it go the way of the film industry, but that seems to be where we’re headed.

As long as a few great games are released a year though, I think we’ll be able to manage. Right now we’re in kind of a Golden Age of gaming, but it won’t last forever. So I guess we should enjoy it while it lasts. :)

@ChrisS

That’s interesting. I remember reading that one of your “weapons” in that game was the bible. So I guess this explains it. Is that game any good? Westerns are my favorite genre of film, but rarely is there ever a quality video game released in this genre. I enjoyed Gun, but it wasn’t exactly mind blowing…

Thankfully I don’t see the gaming market ever going 100% down the “in it only for the money” direction and there will still be games made just for the idea that it would be a good game rather it would sell well.

Yeah I was also shocked and happy at Nintendo saying no plans for Wii sports 2 but I can help but laugh at mario party 8, at there current rate they might take over FF and EA’s sports games for most sequals.
Or (fingers crossed) now that the wii has a mario party they will do something else.

I can see what you’re saying about the pendulum possibly swinging to far the other way towards M-rated games. I don’t think that will happen unless things go the way of The Running Man in the future, but anything is possible.

As you imply this would definitely be a bad thing. I think there is plenty of room in the industry for all types of gaming to co-exist (evidenced by the success of games as varied as BioShock and Pokemon). The danger is… When companies take the straightest path to the bottom line we, the consumers, usually end up suffering.

I did find it refreshing that Nintendo said that they have no plans at this time for a Wii Sports 2. They indicated they didn’t want to just toss something out there for the sake of making a quick buck. Hopefully this is a sign of things to come from them and they will actually try to start pushing the envelope with the motion control concept.

Although they did just release Mario Party 8 recently, so I guess they’re somewhat selective when it comes to this philosophy. :)

And by the way, yes, Dave & Buster’s is heavenly. It combines some of life’s greatest things: Greasy bar food, games and booze. I was surprised at how much fun shuffleboard can be when coupled with a high-quality tequila.