Call of Juarez Cartel

I've always had a bit of a soft spot for the Call of Juarez games. Not because they're good - they're mediocre at best. But because they have a go at something a bit different. For starters they've had a focus on having a couple of different characters who are supposed to play differently to each other. Not such a big thing now, perhaps, with the popularity of class based shooters like Team Fortress and so on, but the Juarez games made a good stab at trying to mix up the single player. That and the fact that I think the Western genre is pretty under-represented in gaming. You'd think with its focus on gunplay there's be lots of Western shooters, but apart from the two Red Dead games and this series, that's about it.

The new game, however, is fucked.

For starters, it's not a Western. It's set in modern LA and is about drug cartels. There are three playable characters, but they seem to play almost the same. And the gameplay is awful.

The biggest problem is visibility. The levels are really foggy with a close draw distance. There's nothing to indicate enemies, they don't appear on the radar and often get lost in the background. A lot of the time the only indication that enemies are there is your damage indicator to show you which direction you're getting shot from, and the muzzle flares. Becuase your enemies seem to ahve no problems with visibility and are damn accurate from beyond your range of sight.

I played as the female character who is the long range specialist, as I like sniping. A bunch of times I'd get shot, look down the sights of my rifle and see nothing, all the way to where the fog draws in. Then I'd advance and eventually see an enemy. Talk about a game playing to it's weaknesses.

Apart from that it's just bland level design, dodgy AI, horrible sound recording, invisible walls and every other complaint you have about modern shooters. Shame, this is a series I always felt had some potential that it wasn't quite reaching, but now it seems further away than ever.

For anyone who hasn't seen gameplay yet: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P9fbSd6kLsA (Spanish, but you get the idea, and it was the first long video I could find)

Yeah, it looks to me like everything is worse than it was in the previous two games, but that's about all I can say since I haven't played it yet. It's not out on PC until some time in September. Don't think I'll play it, of course, but a little bit inside me died.

The thing that bothers me the most is that Techland was developing something this shitty at the same time they're making something as amazing as Dead Island...

Meh, I didn't think this is going to be good anyway.. a western set in modern times. Great! ..not that I care anyway.
But damn you have a wierd-ass avatar Sexbad!