It's a bit like Unforgiven...
Nick Haywood rubs off the lipstick and throws the stilettos back into the cupboard after realising being ‘called out’ in the old West means something entirely different…
One of my favourite, although flawed, shooters of all time was Lucasarts’ gun-fightin’ Spaghetti Western inspired Outlaws. Sure, there was plenty wrong with it but at a time when everyone was obsessed with rocket launchers, railguns and anti-gravity jump pads, Outlaws was a refreshing change. Times move on and now we’ve got the likes of Call Of Duty 2 for a bit of history based shooting action but, as FPS games become more sophisticated, the focus is still very much firmly within the ‘sci-fi’ category of environments and storytelling.
Click for larger imageSo Call Of Juarez, released amid all these lasers and ion blasters, is a breath of fresh air, taking the genre straight back to its true roots by giving a game set in the Old West, where the law was all about who had the biggest posse and the fastest draw. But rather than romanticize the era in a John Wayne style, Call Of Juarez is a gritty, Clint Eastwood ‘Unforgiven’ style shooter that offers up not only a different era and real world weapons but tailors the gameplay to the time too.
