Call of Juarez: Bound in Blood

If there's one concern which niggles at me about Bound in Blood, it's that the game is telling an origin story for Reverend Ray, which by extension means that the Reverend Ray we know and love isn't here. He doesn't exist yet. So certainly, you're playing as Ray, and the concentration mode and wanton disregard for human life are present and correct, but the deranged, Bible-spouting madness of the first game isn't, which takes away some of the charm. It feels like a churlish criticism when in every other respect Bound in Blood is a better, more polished game than the original, but I'd hoped to spend more time with Reverend Ray, and his more mentally stable (albeit still talking like a rock crusher) younger self just isn't quite the same.

What may compensate for the lack of the good Reverend, however, is the addition of new multiplayer components. Acknowledging that the concentration mode wouldn't work in multiplayer, Techland has instead built a whole new multiplayer side which shares themes and some weapons with the main game, but that's about it.

In a variety of mostly team-focused modes (there's deathmatch there too, but it's clearly not the main event), you choose from a set of class archetypes and head off into the fray - capturing objectives, blowing up weapons caches, or whatever the objectives of the map demand. One team plays lawmen, the other plays bandits, with the sides generally switching after each encounter.

Familiar so far, perhaps, but the game does something rather clever with its points system. Each kill is rewarded in dollars, and as you build up kills, the bounty on your head grows. Thus, killing someone who's on a winning streak will award you vastly more dollars than plugging some poor spod who's only just spawned. Dollars aren't just your score, either - they can be used to upgrade the abilities of each character class, although the upgrades are reset at the end of each map.

The game modes hold together nicely, and a really nice touch is the custom maps the team has designed for multiplayer - many of which are directly inspired by famous scenes from Westerns or from the history of the Old West. If you're looking for a gunfight at the OK Corral, Bound in Blood is the right game for you.

Due to launch in early July, Call of Juarez: Bound in Blood is shaping up to be a pretty fine way to spend a wet British summer weekend - regardless of whether you grew up with cowboys or space marines. While borrowing liberally from some of the FPS genre's best for many of its touches, it's also not a series that's afraid to innovate - concentration mode is still great fun even in its second iteration, and a new dynamic cover system mixes elements more commonly found in third-person games like Metal Gear Solid or Gears of War into the FPS recipe. Besides, he may not have picked up his Bible yet, but I'm still enjoying a bit more time behind Ray's trusty six-shooters.