In Call of Juarez, you'll play the various missions in the single-player game from the perspective of two very different characters. The first, and most foreboding, is Reverend Ray, a former gunslinger turned to the cloth who looks mean and acts even meaner. The second character is Billy, also known as the Candle because of a shiny medallion he wears.
While you play as two different characters, their stories, as well as their lives, are intertwined. Revered Ray just happens to be Billy's stepfather's brother (his stepuncle, I suppose). Billy never really got along with his stepfather and, after one particularly nasty fight, he ran away from home. He returned home a few years later only to find the bloody, lifeless bodies of his mother and stepfather, along with a bloody message scrawled on the wall that reads "Call of Juarez." Unfortunately, Ray just happened to be making a visit to see his brother at the time and found Billy standing over the dead bodies with his trusty whip in hand. Billy runs to avoid the Rev and find the killers, while Ray runs after Billy, hoping to track down the kid that killed his brother. How's that for family values?
As a former gunslinger, Reverend Ray is definitely the more straight-forward of the two characters. He's pretty much the embodiment of badass. Not only does he sling a mean gun, but he also wears a mighty cowboy boot that he can use to kick in doors, punt opponents and knock over objects in the game environment. For your arsenal, Techland is aiming for a number of historically accurate weapons to be included in the game, which should include pistols, rifles, a bow and the aforementioned whip. As a priest, he also carries a Bible, which he reads versus from while holding a pistol in the other hand. Using the Holy Book, he can call down the Word of God on his enemies. His powerful voice affects the morale of his opponents, and if effective, enemies will run away or simply freeze in place, quivering in their boots.
Billy, on the other hand, is more sneaky and covert than the Reverend. Like Garrett from the Thief series, Billy prefers to hide in the shadows and avoid direct contact whenever possible. While he can use guns like the priest, he favors the whip, which he can use not only as a weapon, but also as a tool to climb up high. Since he's more of a nimble character, Billy can jump further than Reverend Ray and can get to hidden places in the levels.
In our demo we saw both a populated town as well as wide open terrain. Walking through the streets of the town as Revered Ray belting verse after verse from the Holy Book garnered some ornery looks from the townsfolk, making some scatter while just pissing off others. We quickly switched the Bible for another pistol, opting to tread through the streets duel-wielding our six shooters. Using the left and right mouse buttons, you can fire each of the pistols independently of one another, although you can still only aim in one direction.
Call of Juarez includes some more advanced combat techniques and unique twists on the standard first-person shooter controls as well. For example, if you hit the "X" button, you go into focus mode, where your view narrows and the background environment goes blurry while the target directly in front of you becomes bright and easier to hit. If you tap the "Z" button, you'll go into a manual firing mode where you can shoot faster with one of the pistols, sliding your other hand over the top of the hammer in the process. There's also a concentration mode which slows down gameplay. It's similar to bullet time, but instead of manually aiming at targets, two cursors pop up with you have duel pistols drawn and move slowly over enemies, allowing you a certain amount of time to fire to clear the screen of as many enemies as you can. You can also lean left and right, using walls, barrels and other bits of Old West standards for cover.
As most towns back in the Old West were constructed primarily of wood, wood physics and properties, including combustibility, will play an important role in Call of Juarez. Not only can you burn wooden objects directly, but these objects will in turn burn other flammable objects they come in contact with, creating a huge chain reaction. Burning wood isn't just something to avoid or a graphical effect in Call of Juarez. You can use it to create a block of sorts and hide from enemies, or to smoke people out of buildings so you don't have to go in and get them yourself. One mission in particular that we saw which fire played a starring role involved Billy trying to escape a burning building, having to jump from rafter to rafter in the process.
The outdoor area we saw was basically a vast valley with tons of trees. The level was meant just to show off what you can do on a horse, so it wasn't very populated. As this is the Old West, horses play a big part in the game, and are a necessity when traveling in the wilderness. Not only can you fire your weapons or use your whip from the horse, but you can also use the horse itself as a weapon and run over any baddies that get in your way. The horse also has defensive advantages as you can ride low in the saddle and use the horse as a shield.
Call of Jaurez is built on Techland's Chrome engine, and while it may not be as pretty as Half-Life 2 or Quake IV, it does support a nice array of effects and physics. In addition to the flames and fire physics we talked about earlier, we saw some impressive heat ripples, liquid physics and ragdoll physics in action.
Although we didn't get to play it, Call of Juarez will feature a full multiplayer side similar to Counter-Strike, with two teams competing against one another. Call of Juarez will also feature historical events in the multiplayer side where you can play as Jesse James, Wyatt Earp, Billy the Kid and other historical Wild West figures in real-life events such as famous bank robberies and train hijacks.
While what we played was still very early in development, Techland CEO Pawel Marchewka told us that Call of Juarez has been in development for a while, and should be released sometime in early to mid 2006.
