Call of Juarez: Gunslinger (2013) (Computer game)

A fourth and, from a story point of view, unrelated entry into the Call of Juarez series. In many ways this is the best Western shooter since Outlaws. It also has some obvious weaknesses—from a computer game point of view more than a western point of view—but these are fairly easily overlooked due to the quality of the storytelling.

The story concerns "Silas Greaves", a legendary bounty hunter who's wandering into a saloon in his old age and is relating the story of his life. It's fairly immediately obvious that he may be exaggerating his adventures, if not outright lying (this provides a nice way out of the problem that Billy the Kid is portrayed as having killed an amazing 21 men, but most western computer game heroes blast their way through hundreds of hired guns – it just isn't true). There's various points throughout the story, when to amusing effect he changes his story (thus changing the game level or making you replay a section in a different way) having talked himself into a corner or been called out of some fact. In one level you play the Dalton brother's bank robbery from three different accounts of the events. The reactions from his listeners—their increasing incredulity at his exploits (and how he always conveniently has some dynamite on his person when needed)---are also entertaining. It's mentioning that the ending of the story is genuinely quite good and quite resonant, and perhaps more so than you'd expect from what initially seems to be one man's tale of how he killed every famous outlaw in the old west.

Some criticisms of the game. It's a bit short (but it's also cheap, so fair enough!). It's very linear (in that you're forced through each level in a very specific order), and at times this is pretty obvious. The invisible walls marking the edges of the explorable area are pretty easy to find, slightly breaking the illusion. While the storytelling is inventive, the gameplay isn't particularly with it being a straightforward "shoot lots of people to win" type game. I did occasionally get frustrated at the "and then this convenient bridge appeared" mode of storytelling, particularly on "the attempted train-robbery on a viaduct" level, where I felt it was over-used. There's also a lot of reuse of level design: I'm pretty sure there's only one town set for the entire game, and it's just approached from different angles (this could be a concession to the idea that it's mostly in his imagination, but I'm pretty sure the budget played a part).

However, for the entertainment value (the gameplay is fun, even if not original), and for the price, it's well worth the time. (I also enjoyed the fact that most of the enemy taunts sounded like they'd come from the same recording session that produced the Outlaws ones).

I played the XBox 360 version. There's no evidence to suggest this is much different from the Playstation 3 or PC version.

See also: Rock-paper-shotgun have a good review that's well worth reading