Call of Juarez: Bound In Blood (Xbox 360)

Platform: Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, PC

The wild west is coming to your living room

As a videogame genre the Western has led to more dead ends than happy trails, with only a few entries ever really capturing the attentions of wannabe console cowboys. Enter Ubisoft’s Call of Juarez: Bound in Blood, a game that offers up a bullet-riddled, next-gen setting replete with gun-toting desperados, high-noon showdowns and scantily clad showgirls. Set during the height of the Civil War, the game follows the exploits of the McCalls, a family of Confederate soldiers turned guns-for-hire in search of both revenge and a lost Mexican treasure. As a prequel to developer Techland’s original Call of Juarez, the game does occasionally border on the clichéd, but overall it’s surprisingly well-written, with a plot and characters that manage to remain both fresh and familiar. Gameplay-wise, the first person shooter puts players in control of one of either two McCalls: the up-close-and-personal pistolero Ray or his sharpshooting brother Thomas; with the option to occasionally switch between the two to complete certain objectives. The somewhat brief story mode then alternates between standard run ’n’ gun missions, a few bits of open-world exploration and climactic quick-draw boss battles known as “Showdowns.” The game does suffer from some occasionally repetitive moments and an inexcusable lack of two-player co-op, yet despite these minor flaws, Call of Juarez: Bound in Blood remains an entertaining blood-and-guts soaked spaghetti western that offers plenty of fun for gunslingers looking to scratch their itchy trigger fingers and ride off into the sunset.