PS3/Xbox 360/PC; £39.99
What is it about Wild West games? We know they can be highly enjoyable, as the two previous iterations of Call of Juarez and last year's Red Dead Redemption proved, so why have they always been so rare?
Buy it from
PS3
PC
XBox 360
Call of Juarez:<br/>The Cartel
Ubisoft
Still, we foolishly thought, at least here's a new Call of Juarez game to satisfy our craving for Sergio Leone-style grit and shoot-outs. But such expectations were cruelly dashed, as it is set in the present day, featuring a storyline that teams a DEA agent, an FBI agent and an LA Homicide cop as a makeshift task-force taking on a Mexican drug cartel.
Completely changing the essential nature of an established franchise is an unprecedented move for the games industry, and one struggles to fathom the reasoning behind it. In the case of Call of Juarez: The Cartel, you even suspect that it may have been moved to the present day at some point during its development, as it still sports a number of missions set in places like Death Valley and Juarez itself, in which the meticulously created environments are straight out of a Western, yet the modern characters and weaponry seem incongruous.
Once you get your head around Call of Juarez's abrupt reverse-ferret, though, you find a game that is well executed and pretty enjoyable to play, without really excelling in any particular area.
The environments, admittedly, are fantastic, and state-of-the-art visual trickery such as depth of focus imparts an impressively high-tech feel. The controls are great, aided by a Concentration mode that you can trigger after killing a certain amount of enemies, which causes everything to enter slow-motion for a period.
Perhaps the most imaginative aspect of the game is that each of the three characters – tank, sniper and all-rounder – have their own agenda. The DEA man, for example, is in hock to the bookies, and must collect drugs (unseen by the other two) for his man in the cartel to shift.
The storyline is basic but functional: the trio are drafted in to go after the Mendoza cartel after it bombed the DEA offices. The action begins in an impressively believable rendition of LA's dodgiest environs, but soon branches out into more countrified territory.
The gameplay doesn't vary enormously, mainly consisting of shooting hordes of enemies whose AI is sufficiently honed that you have to take a careful approach, making heavy use of cover (the game uses a manual rather than automatic system, which is sensible and works well).
There are plenty of set-pieces reminiscent of Call of Duty's Breach and Clear sequences, in which you kick in doors and take on a roomful of drug-runners, with a slo-mo period giving you the edge. There are car-chases galore, and helicopters armed with rockets and machine-guns provide the equivalent of boss-battles.
In other words, it's a perfectly decent game (although in no way spectacular), with a three-player drop-in co-op mode and the characters' different secret agendas adding some replay value. But all the way through, the abandonment of the Western theme nags at you. Can we have our six-shooters back, please?
What is it about Wild West games? We know they can be highly enjoyable, as the two previous iterations of Call of Juarez and last year's Red Dead Redemption proved, so why have they always been so rare?Buy it from
PS3
PC
XBox 360
Call of Juarez:<br/>The Cartel
Ubisoft
Still, we foolishly thought, at least here's a new Call of Juarez game to satisfy our craving for Sergio Leone-style grit and shoot-outs. But such expectations were cruelly dashed, as it is set in the present day, featuring a storyline that teams a DEA agent, an FBI agent and an LA Homicide cop as a makeshift task-force taking on a Mexican drug cartel.
Completely changing the essential nature of an established franchise is an unprecedented move for the games industry, and one struggles to fathom the reasoning behind it. In the case of Call of Juarez: The Cartel, you even suspect that it may have been moved to the present day at some point during its development, as it still sports a number of missions set in places like Death Valley and Juarez itself, in which the meticulously created environments are straight out of a Western, yet the modern characters and weaponry seem incongruous.
Once you get your head around Call of Juarez's abrupt reverse-ferret, though, you find a game that is well executed and pretty enjoyable to play, without really excelling in any particular area.
The environments, admittedly, are fantastic, and state-of-the-art visual trickery such as depth of focus imparts an impressively high-tech feel. The controls are great, aided by a Concentration mode that you can trigger after killing a certain amount of enemies, which causes everything to enter slow-motion for a period.
Perhaps the most imaginative aspect of the game is that each of the three characters – tank, sniper and all-rounder – have their own agenda. The DEA man, for example, is in hock to the bookies, and must collect drugs (unseen by the other two) for his man in the cartel to shift.
The storyline is basic but functional: the trio are drafted in to go after the Mendoza cartel after it bombed the DEA offices. The action begins in an impressively believable rendition of LA's dodgiest environs, but soon branches out into more countrified territory.
The gameplay doesn't vary enormously, mainly consisting of shooting hordes of enemies whose AI is sufficiently honed that you have to take a careful approach, making heavy use of cover (the game uses a manual rather than automatic system, which is sensible and works well).
There are plenty of set-pieces reminiscent of Call of Duty's Breach and Clear sequences, in which you kick in doors and take on a roomful of drug-runners, with a slo-mo period giving you the edge. There are car-chases galore, and helicopters armed with rockets and machine-guns provide the equivalent of boss-battles.
In other words, it's a perfectly decent game (although in no way spectacular), with a three-player drop-in co-op mode and the characters' different secret agendas adding some replay value. But all the way through, the abandonment of the Western theme nags at you. Can we have our six-shooters back, please?
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