Call of Juarez: Gunslinger is a 2013, Action-FPS/Shooting Gallery game for PC, PS3, and Xbox 360, developed and published by Ubisoft. It is available via Steam, PlayStation Network, and Xbox Live Arcade, and is the fourth entry into the Call of Juarez franchise. The games stars Silas Greaves, a bounty hunter out for revenge.

Shoot out!

THE GOOD:  The first thing you notice when playing Call of Juarez: Gunslinger, is the near 2 gig file size, which is rare for a digital download on PSN or XBLA, this surprised me as I was expecting no more than 600mb, but Ubisoft made very good use of the game’s immense size, immense for a download title anyways.

Look at that scale.

This game is HUGE, I was expecting to complete the game within 4 hours, in actuality,  it took me about 4 days to complete, this was mostly due to me playing about 3+ hours of the game per day, however, so I’d say actual gameplay time rounds up to perhaps 10 hours. That’s the standard gameplay time for an FPS out on retail release, which is quite impressive for a digital download.  The game features three modes, story, duel, and arcade.  Duel Mode, is a continued cycle of previous boss fights now put in the form of a duel, while arcade is an endless shooter mode that pits you up against wave after wave of enemies as you try to rise your final score as high as possible.

Duel mode in action.

The story was nicely written, there were some funny back and forths between Silas, and another character named Jack. This provided comic relief throughout most of it’s telling. The story was mostly revealed via still cut scenes and voice overs from the characters. Iconic Western characters  have pretty large roles in the game, which I thought was an awesome inclusions. The developers did a really good job leaving the player guessing on rather or not Greaves’ tales were true or not by the climax of the game.

There was also a cool bullet time effect reminiscent of Red Dead Redemption’s and you could also dodge incoming bullets while in this mode, as well as on special occasions. Gameplay was fun and challenging, enough to get you frustrated, but not enough to make you want to put the controller down out of sheer rage.

Gunslinger’s bullet time.

THE BAD: Sometimes doing a leap of fate didn’t work, about a quarter of the time I died trying to make the jump and there were also times when jumping while running wouldn’t work period, which made for awkward moments. Aiming was off at times as well for the handguns, and you could run out of bullets fairly quick.

THE UGLY: One personal gripe I had (which in no way effects the initial score), is that one of the bosses I faced was near impossible to defeat. He would throw two sticks of dynamite at you, while also firing his weapon, and multiple enemies would come out to aid him. In fact, the only reason I beat him when I did was due to luck. It seems that I shot him while he was preparing to throw dynamite and it exploded in front of him, I was just quicker with the aim I suppose.

OVERALL THOUGHTS: Call of Juarez: Gunslinger is a fun, challenging game, it can get a bit frustrating at times, but the story & gameplay gets you to press forward. Jumping over gaps and aiming with the handguns didn’t always work, and I had trouble with one particular boss. The play time is equal to a retail release, and Call of Juarez: Gunslinger could easily go toe-to-toe with retail FPS, for “First-Person Shooter of the Year”.