Call of Juarez: Bound in Blood

[Chadling]

My best friend is forcing me to play through Donkey Kong Country: 1-3. It's meant to be torture (she enjoys watching me suffer through old games), but I love it. Man, oh man, but they do not make platformers like they used to. The levels are cartoonish but well designed, they require reflexes that are even more fine-tuned than you see in CoD4 (or some other shooter), and sometimes.... well, the developer just feels like punishing you for making it that far.

Oh, and Enguarde is awesome.

So, yeah, there's my homage to REAL hardcore gaming.

 

[AncientYoungSon]

Yeah, the uncanny valley effect, a game needs to either be unrealistic or perfectly realistic (which is almost impossible) or people feel uncomfortable.

I think uncanny valley refers only to when a human is trying so hard to look realistic but ultimately fails to look realistic and comes across as unsettling.

In this case, it's about an unrealistic situation breaking immersion in a game, which it is. There was no honor among gunslingers. Standing in the street like that was a great way to allow a friend of the other guy to shoot you dead from a window or rooftop.

 

[dantric]

yay! more insight into the terrifying depths of Yahtzee's mind! Love the vids and am pleased to have supplement material to read up on the reviews now.

I have no intention of playing Call of Wharez(as you say) even before I watched the review, westerns don't interest me in the slightest as a game, the concept of a "showdown at the OK Corral" just does NOT appeal to me.

The thing that stuck out at most at me, as with the other posters here, was the hardcore vs casual gamer section. I don't like the term hardcore gamer...to me that's the fratboy douchebaggery that sits and has shitty Halo/Gears of War matches with his douchebag buddies....or the 14-16 year olds whose parents dont give a shit about them and let them hide in their room playing the same games till their eyes bleed and their diapers need changing...they're hardcore, cause all they do is live and breathe the same game, day and night, trying to get to the top of the leader boards, they care nothing for the industry, the time and skill required to make a GOOD game.

I consider the gamer you described as "hardcore" more a Serious Gamer. Someone who is serious about the art of video games. Im an old fart on these boards here (31) and i have been playing games since i was 3 or 4 on Entelevision...many moons ago. I consider myself a Serious Gamer, Ilove video games. The current generation of games makes me sad, some are real eye candy for sure, but the quality of story, involvement, caring for the characters, skill required has gone way down. I mean Christ, if these kids tried playing Contra on the old NES, right now...they'd give up...that game was PUNISHING on stupidity and impatience...

ah well....keep up the great work Yahtzee, i look forward to your reviews every week.

 

[murphy7801]

Extra Punctuation: Call of Juarez: Bound in Blood

Yahtzee accepts the challenge: How would he fix Call of Juarez?

Read Full Article

I recently started a thread on ultra hardcore gaming on this website and found there to be alot of problems. Mainly people seem not understand what hardcore gaming is even on this site so we forever had to explain to them what sort games we were on about. Once we explain they said those games suck because they sound to hard don't want to do something they have to learn to be good at (thats a summary feel). So I feel hardcore gaming is a dying breed as things will continually get dumb down for the masses. I apologizes for my some what terrible use of the English language I,m dyslexic tend make mess of these things.

 

[Wolcik]

I guess making such quick time event might make game unavailble for some players, and one or two final boss that ride on buffalo and are armored in fridge wouldn't hurt.
At least half of those battles could use diffrent interface to vary the whole final boss thing.

Good point, Yahtzee

 

[Kilgorn]

okay very funny calling out that guy who said he liked wii sports resort, but for the call of juarez part i think that for impoving the showdowns you should have the ability to dodge or duck because thats as close to what they actually would have done back then as opposed to waving your willy around or hitting them with a chair since the town or other bad guys would be watching(i didnt play the game but im going to buy it) or even better a sniper somewhere. and if the shot isnt lethal you go back to first person and shoot in slow-mo or something

 

[Hyperactiveman]

Those last too paragraphs are pure gold!

 

[The Eupho Guy_v1legacy]

It is funny to see all the hardcore roaring their approval over Yahtzee's silly tirade about the Wii. For a response, read the following three articles.

The Wii is an easy target in an argument about "Casual" and "Hardcore" gaming. It isn't the only source, but it is the most easily recognised, if for nothing but the screeching of the fanboys of the other consoles.

Personally, I don't think gaming is in as worse shape as the "Hardcore" make it out to be, but there has been a noticeable shift in gaming trends since I started gaming way back in 1992. Where that shift takes us remains to be seen.

Also, I couldn't force myself to read those articles. I tried, but the holier-than-thou attitude and the sheer long-windedness of all three articles was a little too much.

 

[Yash]

I have to ask, how many of you actually owned a GameCube? Or played it regularly? Or bought the unique games designed for the Nintendo loyalists, like Pikmin? No? Well, there's your problem. You all complain about Nintendo selling out to the dreaded "casuals," as if they've abandoned you. Yes, you who didn't support them when they were actively trying to cater to you.

I liken it to a relationship between a young woman and her abusive, unemployed boyfriend who drinks too much. After she finally realizes that things aren't going to get any better, she moves out of the house and finds that life is a lot better without you in it. She gets married to a nice man, gets a house and a family, and lives a healthy, normal life. But just wait, one day it's going to come crashing down, and she'll be crawling back!

That is the reality of the situation. And here's another reality: Microsoft and Sony do not care about you. They only care about your money, just like any other corporation in the free market. They make the games you want because they know that you'll buy them, but if there's an opportunity for them to make more money than they already are, they will stab you in the back if they have to. In fact, I'd say they already have, what with both of them coming up with their own motion control systems, probably with software along the lines of Wii Sports and Brain Age, desperately trying to court the same market that Nintendo already won four years ago with the DS, and again with the Wii.

But just like with the NES, Nintendo will laugh at their competitors, because they'll always have their base, made up of the old and new fans alike. Especially the new fans, who are being introduced to Nintendo's traditional games like Mario - and it shows. New Super Mario Bros. has usurped Super Mario Bros. 3's throne, as the bestselling, standalone game of all time. And that sure as hell didn't happen on the backs of just core gamers. Nintendo will continue to reach out to new fans, as they always have. You don't have to like it, and I don't have to hear you whine about it incessantly, so play your Halo and shut up, scrubs.

Now excuse me, I want to go play Punch-Out. Because it's fun. Yeah, there's a word you don't hear every day.

 

[hoboweasel]

The two brother mechanic you suggested definitely seems like it would prove entertaining. xD Perhaps if the game developers would have thought a little more in the line of improvisational tactics and/or player choice, (or at least deviation from the repetitious boss fights) the game would have been better. (Sort of like how the game Scribblenauts seems to be enthralling everyone with its promise of gratuitous amount of said improvisation and player choice incorporated into gameplay... Also because it appears to be proficiently executed, as conveyed by the demo version. I hope the initial game turns out well).
P.s. could you do a review of Scribblenauts after it's released?

 

[hoboweasel]

The last two paragraphs... wow...

 

[LarsWestergren]

> 'Hardcore' doesn't mean 'Halo-playing twitchy fourteen-year-old douchebag.' 'Hardcore' gamers means the gamers who get into it. The gamers who have gamed since 256 colors were a distant wet dream. The gamers who follow all the hype and who want games with depth and innovation.

Amen Yahtzee. Preach it, brother! Though I would have said "who see through all the hype".

 

[geldonyetich]

Personally, I think "casual" and "hardcore" are rather arbitrary labels. That said, as far as Yahtzee's definition goes, I'm definitely under his hardcore label and equally resentful when the people who apparently have the skill to make games for me instead sit back and make games for the guys on the casual label.

 

[Lord_Seth]

It is funny to see all the hardcore roaring their approval over Yahtzee's silly tirade about the Wii. For a response, read the following three articles.

<a href=http://malstrom.50webs.com/washinghardcore2.htm>Washing the Hardcore Away
<a href=http://malstrom.50webs.com/newworld2.htm>The New World
The Bell Tolls for the Hardcore

tl;dr. I ordinarily hate to use that expression, but it's applicable here. You can't honestly expect me to read through 50+ pages of that.

 

[JackiJinx]

I have to ask, how many of you actually owned a GameCube? Or played it regularly? Or bought the unique games designed for the Nintendo loyalists, like Pikmin? No? Well, there's your problem. You all complain about Nintendo selling out to the dreaded "casuals," as if they've abandoned you. Yes, you who didn't support them when they were actively trying to cater to you.

Sweetheart, I had owned nothing but Nintendo systems from the NES up until the the GameCube era, in which I barely had a flirtation with a PS2 since my brother moved and took said system with him. Now it's several years down the road and I own a PS2 and a 360 and never touch my Wii. Scratch that, it's not even my Wii. It's the family's Wii.

It's not even that I hate the Wii. I just dislike that it's so limited and that Nintendo is aiming at such a general market, like it's trying to be the popular kids in high school. Nintendo has changed, not me, not the hardcore gamer market, just the game makers and marketers themselves. I liked things the way they were and will not settle for some floozy who is satisfied jiggling his hands for hours at a time to throw a virtual Frisbee to some no-named dogs.

And on the note of Microsoft and Sony, you'd have to be daft not to believe that they are in it for the money. Thing is, they make better products by one upping each other, as should all competitive businesses. And although Nintendo is also a game manufacturer, it's not currently pitting itself against any other motion controlled systems or games, and as long as there's profit to be made in the barely mediocre waggle games that are still being put out there, then there's little to no incentive to change tactics. This will (hopefully) change once Sony and Microsoft put out their motion controlled titles and incite true innovation into Nintendo again. But I won't hold my breath.

 

[cj_iwakura]

There are 'hardcore' gamers who own the Wii, they're just few and far between.

If the, oh, 2000 people who bought Castle Shikigami 3 are any indication, at least.

 

[Skreeee]

Anyway Yahtzee (eventhough youre probably not reading this) the Cowboys had a thing called honour, they'd rather kill through a totally fair showdown than my shooting someone in the face while he sleeps.

Christ, they're not Samurai. Besides Cowboys were men who would run the cattle from the Ranch to the Railroad, not Gunslingers who's enemies would drop dead in the street with an unexplained bullet wound.

Pistols at dawn, bring nobody

As for the cowboys stuff, you know what I meant with that..

Pistols? I choose the Banjo.

I see your banjo and raise you a fiddle!

Oh wait, that was in Georgia...and with the devil.

 

[Jay Cee]

Casual gamers certainly haven't earned the right to voice bias opinions.

I'd say STFU with all honesty but that's getting so old now that I may feel the need to cut myself.

 

[The Cake Is Annoying]

I've not played this game, but from the review and the comments about "Cowboy honour" it sounds like someone lassoed together Brokeback Mountain and a reaction test game. Marginally more fun than yet-another-WW2-first-person-shooter perhaps but probably less fun than just playing frisbee with the disc with a friend.

And has anyone ever called themselves a hardcore gamer to somebody's face? If someone described themselves as a hardcore gamer to me I'd laugh at them like they described themselves as a hardcore bedwetter. To me "hardcore gamer" sounds like someone who's got an online poker addiction or has stopped buying toothbrushes in favour of more gold for their World of Warcraft accounts.