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Incline Call of Juarez - Gunslinger

Darth Roxor

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One more thing I like: the level design is actually pretty well thought-out, at least so far basing it on the first two levels. I mean, sure, they are all shameless shooting galleries, but they have plenty of sideways useful for all kinds of guns - ladders with lots of rooftop jumping, covered back alleys, etc.
 

hiver

Guest
Went through first couple of missions.

The art style is very pleasing. The combat simple and easy.
The best thing so far is the narrative style.
I winced seeing what they made Billy the Kid look like... but at least they had enough face to counter such idiocy with those "nuggets of truth" that show the actual character as he actually was.
So then it all more or less fits with the unreliable narrator style of the story.

I cant help but imagine "The Good, the Bad and the Ugly" done with this engine and this art style.
 

bert

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The whole game is quite consolized. You've got lazy fucking level design and Call of Duty linearity with the excuse of 'oh it's an unreliable narrator' so the routes to the next area literally pop up in front of you because they don't trust people to make their own deductive reasoning on which way to go next. You die if you drop down on anywhere or go where the game doesn't want you go to go, which is painfully apparent in the boss fight with the guy in the armored car with the gatling. What's that, you want to rush up to his blindside? The game actually damages you even if his bullets don't.

Which brings me to my next point, boss encounters: What the fuck were they thinking? No, wait, I don't need to know. You know for a wild west cowboy game they sure force you into literal pits an awful lot. At least two of the bosses in the game are done by having you stuck in a pit and shooting the boss as he pops from cover to cover while you occasionally have to deal with reinforcements to keep things from getting stale. Yawn. And don't get me started on the so called boss fights where the guy has a fucking gatling. You have to sprint from conveniently placed cover to conveniently placed cover, waiting until the gatling fire stops in between doing it. Is that really the best you can do?

The weapons are also quite bland and not too balanced. You've got 3 types of six shooters (balanced, fast or strong) which you can dual wield, a lever action rifle and a shotgun. But the thing is, once you get dual wield Rangers there's no need to really use anything else in the game because while they're supposed to be slow but strong, their slowness is completely off balanced because now you've got two and you reload crazy fast once you get the right skills leveled up. You might use the rifle on the occasion such as when you're out of ammo or some fucks are very far away (Not always likely, considering the console levels) but that's about it. You also get a sawn-off rifle or shotgun. Yawn. Where's my Sharpes rifle, pepper guns, derringers or Volcanic gun? You even go up against Indians, so where are my bows?! They're just fucking reskinned cowboys!

Atleast the duels are kind of fun. :2/5:
 

hiver

Guest
Yeah, that seems like its true, from what little i played. Streamlining is apparent.

Yet, as a streamlined game, its not so bad - overall.
maybe it gets some subconscious plus points since a decent wild west - cowboy game is something very, very rare.
 

Darth Roxor

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Streamlined call of duty linearity?

It's basically a first-person shmup, FFS niggers
 

MasPingon

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I'm a sandbox lover

Those points you made aren't even gamebreaking for Serious Sam/ Painkiller subgenre. Hell, this is how level design should look like in this kind of game - with player being allowed to just run forward without being interrupted by closed doors or some fucking puzzle. There is even a point where the game laughs at its linear stucture, letting you choose either to go by a ladder or an elevator(which is funny summarized by Silas). Guns are well balanced. You didn't have the need to use rifle? Well, I used it a lot. There are levels where you got to choose guns carefully, sometimes dual pistols or shotgun are more effective.(aspecially in arcade mode) Also, weapon change is insta(as far as I remember) which is fun ass hell, cause it allows you to do nice pistol-shotgun/rifle combos.

Btw, Duels are bad. It's the only mod in Gunslinger that isn't fun at all.
 

bert

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Since when did I say that Gunslinger should've been a sandbox game? This game isn't even close to the Serious Sam/Painkiller genre. While those games had wide, spacious maps with dozens of enemies on screen at once this game is dominated by a corridor map design. Not to mention there's very little parts of the map where you die instantly because you wandered off 5 meters into a place the developers didn't want you to go. Serious Sam itself had the occasional closed door key hunting.

The most notable area where you it wasn't one obvious corridor to another was the swamp level. But they screwed that up by removing the fog (Silas remarks that it was foggy as hell at the time) and also added obvious red bandanas as landmarks just in case the player ever got confused. It's like the designer initially wanted a swamp map with fog, but people stepped in and said to play it safe. Take the bank heist map for example, rather than plopping the players down on the outskirts of town and being told "MAKE YOUR WAY HERE" the game forces you through its narrative structure to go through the front door. So you kill your way in and then take out the three guys in the back and then the game teleports you back onto the roof overlooking the bank just to do the same shit all over again. It does this flashback moment in at least 3 different levels of the game. The Wild West was a frontier and filled with exploration, and Modern Warfare corridor popamole design contrasts harshly against it. Just think how much more better it could've been if there were more sideroutes to the maps.

I can't comment too heavily on the weapon balance, but 'choosing carefully' is a bit of an exaggeration considering how I simply discarded the shotgun and used the dual pistols instead in close combat where it was a bit redundant. Also, while you were able to dual wield two different kinds of weapons at the same time in the previous Call of Juarez games, this one you couldn't for whatever reason.
 

MasPingon

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Generally I agree with you, those faults weren't gamebreaking for me tho .Maybe because I rate this game through the lence of its price. I treat it as cool, little arcade game and wouldn't even compare it to 'legit' games like SS and PK.(tho it's stil the same subgenre). 2/5 is too harsh, the game has more advantages then those flaws you mentioned.
 

Angthoron

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Gave a try to the demo version, seems pretty fun so far. Weird enough, I have an easier time headshotting with a regular six-shooter than with the Ranger revolver, though.
 

Markman

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I give this western shooter a big thumbs up. Steam tells me I played it for 11 hours.
Its more of a arcade game where you try to keep the combo up, on the new game plus rerun I had no trouble keeping 10+ combo in shootouts.
I like the little touches like all the western legends and duels with em, the last breath slow-mo mechanic where you dodge to the sides to avoid the killing bullet and constant "no no, this is what happened" story changing. Its a game and doesnt try to hide it. It would be worse if they made it a new fag game with constant cutscenes and cinematic experiences. Teh epic majestic story of Silas Greaves driven by revenge where he kills any western legend you heard or read about powered be epic sountrack by Jeremy Soule.
 

Angthoron

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How do I do the Hand Speed thing properly? Is there some rhyme or reason to it? I'm sure it's supposed to be done by wiggling the thumbstick, but on kb+m so far it's been unintuitive as fuck.

Halp bros!
 

Markman

da Blitz master
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How do I do the Hand Speed thing properly? Is there some rhyme or reason to it? I'm sure it's supposed to be done by wiggling the thumbstick, but on kb+m so far it's been unintuitive as fuck.

Halp bros!

Steer with A and D, and mostly just press A every 2 seconds to keep the hand over the gun.
 

Angthoron

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Darth Roxor

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Finished on Wild West difficulty, best potato dollars spent in a long time :5/5:

Also: "Smashing [enter] before the level loaded was considered dishonourable behaviour in the Old West" :thumbsup:
 
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Hated CoJ 2 and can't say I liked this much more. Played for about an hour before uninstall. Art style is very cool, everything else mediocre. Shooting wasn't very satisfying and black bars annoyed me. Might be ok as far as console shooters go, but I'm seriously burned out on this shit anyhow.
 

msxyz

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I bought in on Steam for 15€ (I wonder IF the 'XBox One DRM will bring down the costs' crowd will ever see such a cheap, new game on their beloved console marketplace :P ).

So far, it's entertaining... the best FPS I've played in a while, a story driven shooter which doesn't resort to cinematic cutscenes or over-the-top dramatic moments to keep its audience from falling asleep :P I don't like the cell shading effect added: while I don't mind toony graphics, I prefer softer color tones and the black outlines around all objects are quite distracting. I've been playing it for about 10 hrs and I'm halfway through the story, but I'm not in a rushing to finish it. The weapon choice is a bit disappointing; I always go for the Winchester and Colt ranger; the shotguns take too much to reload in close quarters and the other pistols are too underpowered, requiring several shots to bring down even the weakest enemies. Boss fights are annoying, duels are a bit better but I always have the impression I don't know what I'm doing right when I win.
 

DalekFlay

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I played this through in a couple days, which is unheard of for me in a shooter. Really enjoyed it... just simple, back to basics shooting in a very well designed world. It's too linear but I'm used to that now-a-days, and the low price made that easier to swallow.

Not gonna say it's amazing but I had a good time.
 

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