Visually, Call of Juarez is a tasteful homage to the Old West. Landscapes are all about Big Sky country, scrub brush and mile-high train trestles, interiors chock full of rough cut lumber and lamp oil light, equipment almost smells like tanned leather and weathered steel. It's all quite stunning, really. Unfortunately, as a game, as a first-person shooter (FPS) with all the trappings of Western, Call of Juarez is terrible.

First, you're given little opportunity to explore what looks like a grand scale wild west, because each level is circumscribed by impassable landscaping or, in some cases, immovable bystanders with the apparent permanence of a fixed repulsor field rooted in the magnetic core of the earth. Nope, you can't wander down that alley until you go talk to the guy in the bar who tells you to go wander down that alley. Huh?

Worse, as in worst of all worse things that could happen to a Mature-rate, blazing six-shooter and thunderous shotgun gunning game, Call of Juarez crams some arbitrary sense of morality down your throat and hopes you choke on your own gag reflex. In some bizarre and clearly misguided mandate that even ignorant, knee-jerk reactionaries would think twice about, Call of Juarez will not let you shoot innocent people, nor horses nor corpses. In fact, it warns you with a pop-up window saying as much at every opportunity, popping the Old West illusion every time. That's fine, on the one hand, commendable that Ubisoft is taking such bold steps so that its Mature-rated game -- rated thus for, among other things, "blood" and "intense violence" -- doesn't get confused with all those other M-rated "murder simulators."

Then again, who pays $50 to be mothered? Who buys a game intended for ages 18 and older just so they can be first confined and then scolded like a child? Serial killers, maybe. Psychopaths with an Oedipus complex might even pay $51 for such ill-conceived id-bashing therapy. But gamers should expect their games of make-believe with pretend horses and authentic weaponry to, you know, be fun for the sake of fun, for catharsis or stress-letting or post long-day-at-the-office virtual Clint Eastwood-ing at least. Yes, yes, shooting people in real life is bad. You get that, right? Shooting horsies is just mean, you meanie, and shooting the dead is Necrocide in the 1st Degree, punishable by law with a sentence of no less than 2 hours in a chair in the corner and no TV for the rest of the week.

Of course, Ubisoft has every right to set ethical parameters within the games it sells -- and, again, you could even commend the company for it. Problem is, said parameters are myopic, inconsistent, and wholly lent to a double standard. That is to say, while you can't shoot Joe Bystander and the horse he rode in on, you can shoot dogs. Yup, wild dogs are fair game. No advocacy group, apparently. And you can shoot all the bad guys you want, because in Ubisoft's world, Vigilantism is a good thing, and bad guys lack the capacity for redemptive qualities, never show remorse nor penitence, so you might as well gun them down like dogs. And their dogs, too, while your at it. Oh, and if you need something, like tools or weaponry, just steal it, because thievery is a-okay, especially if you're stealing from "innocent" racists hurling ethnic slurs your way, also a-okay. Nothing immoral there. Nothing immoral about your gal-pal in the whorehouse, either.

But wait, there's more. Why not take Call of Juarez online for some as-advertised "bloody 16-player multiplayer battles"? Check you moral compass at the door and Ubisoft will too, because everyone's evil online and should be dispensed by the holier-than-thou before they dispense with you.

Then again, you could just skip it altogether and go play Bejeweled, which is not only free, but also crams nothing down your throat for free.

TIP: In Call of Juarez, press the tilde key (~) to bring down the developer console then type Cheat.GiveRifle() to get a rifle, Cheat.GiveAmmo() for full ammo, and Cheat.GiveDynamite() for, you guessed it, dynamite.
 
 

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