u/jb3689

I do not follow the gaming industry and pop in and out every couple of years. I tend to think: well, I've missed the last X years of gaming - what's cheap and good? I can deal with some rust-bucket graphics since my reference point isn't much better than Gamecube.

Call of Juarez met that standard - overwhelmingly positive reviews and dirt cheap. It was... fine. I'll start off with the good I guess.

The gunplay is pretty alright. It's not as weak as a Bioshock but not as good as a modern boomer - maybe a bit weaker than a CoD. There aren't many weapons, but they do cover the range: short-range pistol, medium-range pistol, long-range pistol, repeat for large guns. I found myself sticking to the same guns the whole game. The game is pretty chonky feeling overall, so I thought a shotgun would do well, but most of the fights are too long-range for it to shine. There are some additional things too - throwing dynamite for example. The gunplay is supported by a basic leveling system which lets you specialize.

The premise of the game is truly brilliant. You are playing through the memories of a old west bounty hunter. He narrates the missions, but his memory is hazy and he needs to go back and revise things ("no wait - the guy was 10 feet tall, not 6"). This creates gaps and remixes in the story which you need to play through which are really cool. You only get a taste of what it can do, but it does get into some silly situations at times. The story itself is nothing to write home about - chasing dudes around for bounties. It's very linear.

Level design is just okay. There are maybe 4 different styles of level. The levels are oddly open considering the game is linear. I found a way to get lost in one of the mine levels and got myself way off track from the story. This led to wandering through lots of nothing as the story only spawns enemies at certain beats.

Gameplay centers mostly around shooting. The AI is not good. It comes from the era of duck-and-pop AI where you sit there and wait for the idiot to pop up to shoot them. It gets tiring quickly, but I persevered for the sake of completion.

The other big gameplay element is a quickdraw minigame. I hated this thing. It's a mix of "keep the cursor on the box while it moves" and quicktime events that was just tedious. It was fine if you got through it quickly, but having to repeat some of these a half dozen plus times was rough.

I wish I could say more about the game, but I really can't. It's a goofy game that tries to do goofy things, and most of them don't quite work. The core gunplay is okay but feels behind the curve. The game feels repetitive. The narration really is the carrying point even though I didn't give a damn what they were saying. Hard to recommend honestly, but maybe the intent of the game was the arcade play all along rather than the story. After the story, I had to put it down as I was pretty sick of the game even though it's short.

Detroit Become Human has been one of my favorite games of recent years, so story-driven games have been high on my radar. The Walking Dead and The Wolf Among Us are old standbys, but I've bounced off of games like Firewatch and Road 96 (What Remains of Edith Finch was pretty good).

As Dusk Falls feels a lot like DBH but with even less gameplay. For me, this is a huge plus as I always felt the walking-around parts of DBH were just a distraction from the parts I liked best.

The game does have some QTE's, but I didn't find them too annoying. I don't think any can force you to restart sections like they did in DBH, so I kind of appreciated them as unexpected ways to branch the story, though I'm not sure any did.

I won't spoil anything about the story, but I'll say it was fast-paced and grounded. It revolves around one central, coherent storyline but from several perspectives. The game does a very good job of centering around the characters. I found most of the characters very interesting and complex, but there were a couple of one-dimensional characters that I felt could have used some more refinement. There are four really solid moments which are vivid in my memory where they game surprised me or made me feel something significant.

The choices are really good and present you with interesting moral questions. I like how the outcomes are not always obvious in how they'll resolve. I did find myself asking for what seemed like a reasonable option C at times though and felt a little forced to act out of character. In retrospect, I think I would have roleplayed the characters a bit more extreme than I did - which feels like a testament to how strong I felt the decisions were.

In summary, I'd give it a 4/5. It's not as epic as DBH (which has some incredible sections that have prolonged high tension), but it's also a tighter package overall and offers a diverse cast of characters. I don't want to play again, but I am curious how a few decisions change things.

Pros:

* Fast paced story that keeps moving

* Mostly interesting characters

* Good decisions and opportunities to roleplay

* Mostly believable story (though it definitely still has moments of BS)

* Focused on the narrative with few other distractions

* Visual style bothered me a little at first, but I quickly forgot about it (there are even some cool benefits to only having to have stills)

* Played great on Steam Deck - the controls will swap if you use touch which is a little annoying

* Small detail, but I like how the achievements sometimes give you a preview of what the path-not-taken could have resulted in

* Good length - I finished in 6-7 hours over 3 evenings and didn't feel like I wanted anything more by the end

Cons:

* A few moments where momentum drops; some of the side characters are weak

* A couple of obnoxious details (e.g. why are the cops so violent?)

* Some loose ends aren't tied up as nicely as I would've liked; there are a couple of interesting minor storylines which the game stops discussing