3.5/5 ★ – beearmy's review of Call Of Juarez: Bound In Blood.

Slight tangent, but I really miss games like this. These days it’s rare to see this kind of 6-8 hour, strictly single player shooter that was so common on the 360. I’m sick of every game needing a roadmap and live service. Not every game needs to be like this, or also be a 50+ hour grindfest designed to make you slave away at nothing else but that game. That aside, this is an enjoyable western FPS from the 360/PS3 period. You play as two brothers who are soldiers in the Confederate Army, which again is something unlikely to be done these days. I chose to play as Thomas, as he specialises in the rifle which absolutely destroyed everything and carried me through the entire game. Yes, it’s not exactly sticking to the western aesthetic, but the dual wield pistols were objectively worse. One major flaw, which I think many others would agree on, is the duelling feature, which happens maybe once a chapter. It’s just flat out unfair. Only by the last two or so duels was I able to win a duel without dying at least 5 times prior. It should’ve either explained what you need to do better, or make the time to win a little longer, because as it is it’s incredibly short. The only saving grace was that playing on the Series X meant I could reload in within seconds. I also thought that the boss fights they had, not counting the duels with major characters, were a bit weak. They are just regular enemies that don’t die in one hit, and without a boss health bar to indicate if you’re even doing damage. It just seemed a bit lazy. It’s not all negatives however. I enjoyed the two instances where you’re free to ride around a small sandbox and pick up side missions, even if said missions weren’t anything special. It was a nice change of pace. There was one side mission, however, which I failed without warning and it wouldn’t let me retry, which was very annoying. Overall, a nice short FPS that is varied enough to keep you engaged, even if at the end of the day all you are doing is shooting. Maybe the perfect definition of a 7/10 game.