Culture

Platforms: Xbox 360, PS3, PC, (1.5/5).

Call of Juarez 1 and 2 were interesting for roughly, if not exactly, two reasons. #1: The Wild West, at the time, was a cool and totally underutilized setting for an FPS and #2: you played as two protagonists with polar opposite goals, one grizzled preacher chases, and one bow wielder runs away. The game's storytelling, which forsook clumsy cutscenes, forced you to empathise with both characters. Even if the actual shooter gameplay was clunky, and remains that way, chasing - or running from - a character that you cared about was rather surreal.
 
Here's the thing: Red Dead Redemption came out in 2010 and everyone got really bored of the Western aesthetic part way through Mexico. Worse is that with The Cartel, Techland have stripped away, like a vulture on the bones of a Deputy, everything that made Call of Juarez meaningful and unique. It's not even set in the West anymore (not that in 2011 that would have salvaged much). But a shooter about a trio of gritty cops, dealing with gangsta gangsters and hip-hop hookas, is not exactly a refreshing tale. Each character is completely unlikable as well, and each one spouts laughable dialogue.
 
Shooting is, at best, functional. It ticks all the boxes. You shoot enemies. With guns. And the enemies fall over. But every gun you pick up feels weak, like you're spattering enemies with a loose BB. Cars, on the other hand, will explode in response to a single stray round. It does feel reasonably modern though, with a few weapons types and iron-sighting. There are loads of enemies on screen at once too, which is nice.
 
A bigger problem is the game’s level design, which piles formulaic decisions on top of an already formulaic genre. You will drive a car, which is boring, have a large shoot-out, which works okay-ish, and then engage in a drawn-out slow motion sequence – which is okay the first time you do it, but happens so often that it becomes absurd and loses all impact.
 
I see cars, staircases, and big scary men with big scary tattoos in every shooter, nay, every action game I've ever played. I could be looking at cacti man! Or horses! Sand! In the West you could get away with being nasty. I mean, it was harsh on the farthest reach of civilization. Here, in commercial modern society though? Everyone just comes across as whiny.