Think of Call of Juarez as a sponge -- it borrows elements and ideas from just about everything associated with the wild west. And based on what we played recently, it would be a mistake to let this one slip by without a look.
The 360 version features little to distinguish it from the PC game (read our PC preview), but is looking great on 360 hardware, and the controls are smooth and responsive. Although it took us a few tries to nail down the Concentration mode (a bullet time moment where you have a few seconds to shoot everyone before time returns to normal), we had no problems running and gunning through town as Preacher Ray.

Going back to our sponge metaphor, the level design has a lot of elements borrowed from other FPS games. While the towns really capture the look of the old west, the levels themselves mix the linear style of the Call of Duty series with Half-Life 2-style puzzles -- invisible hands stacking boxes not withstanding -- which gives us an idea of the development team's inspirations.


SCREENS: Look! It's Oregon Trail with guns. Instead of dying from Cholera, people die from bullets...or something. [Click the image above to check out all Call of Juarez screens.]


We enjoyed the horse riding levels, where we controlled the horse rather than the game turning into an on-rails shooter. The downside to all of this horse control was that we managed to plunge off a cliff, subsequently killing our horse. We survived the fall to continue saving the day, however, and later stole another horse to continue our adventure, but we couldn't stop laughing at the situation we found ourselves in.
The main issue we had with our hands-on time was that intermittent load times occurred, especially when we hopped on the back of our horse to chase down some bandits. Granted, they were not overly long load times and were merely there to load up the next area of the level, but we would rather wait a few more seconds for the entire level to load upfront rather than have interruptions during our exploration through the towns or countryside.

There looks to be plenty of potential in Call of Juarez -- gun fights, horse riding, gun fights while horse riding. And since the game has been in development for a number of years, hopefully it will spin nothing short of a splendid tale in the old west this summer.