That said, the action begins during a Civil War battle in 1864. Throughout the four Act, twelve Chapter campaign, players are able to select between two protagonists: Thomas and Ray McCall. Many of you will recognize Ray from the original CoJ; Thomas, his younger brother, plays similarly to Billy from CoJ. Depending on your play style, at the outset of nearly every mission, you can choose between the stealthy, long-range capable Thomas, or the brute force tank that is Ray. For the first mission, you play as Thomas, and are tasked with fighting back the Yankees who are determined to overrun a Confederate stronghold. Meanwhile, Ray is trying to hold a position near yours, but is under even more duress. With your trusty six shooter, lever action rifle, and steady aim, you blast your way through a few dozen Yanks to get to him. Together, the duo along with other CPU controlled Confederate soldiers, must stop the Yankee invasion with bullets, cannon balls, and dynamite (purposefully being a bit vague here to avoid spoilers).
After successfully holding off the invasion, the brothers decide to disobey orders and desert the Confederate Army in hopes of reaching their home before Sherman marches through it. Playing as either Thomas or Ray, you face dozens more Yankee soldiers who have already invaded your home and its property, arriving just in time to save your younger brother William.
With the Confederate Army eager to string the brothers by their neck for desertion, the newly formed trio (William being a non-violent, unplayable character) sets out for another town, with the dream of rebuilding their destroyed home once they harvest enough wealth to do so. On the run from the law after repeatedly getting kicked out of town, the brothers head south to Mexico where they meet Marissa, a beautiful lady who is oppressed by a gunslinger named The Rattler. Both brothers, although especially Ray, fall for Marissa, only to discover very quickly that she is currently in a relationship with Juarez, the leader of a large group of bandits. Juarez is intrigued by the brothers’ skill and wants their help in finding an old Aztec treasure, with emeralds the size of your fist…
I’m another few missions beyond this point, but the intensity in the storyline is really coming to a hard boiled point. Judging from the opening cutscene of the story — which takes place very far into the story, so I won’t mention it for spoilers sake — things are about to get real bad for the brothers.
Taking a step back, I’d like to discuss some more general aspects of CoJ: BiB. As with the first CoJ, the setting is in the old west and uses realistic old west weaponry, like six shooters and lever action rifles and double barreled shotguns, too. There are several types of these weapons that you can either find in the environment, or pull from dead enemies. Additionally, you will occasionally have the chance to purchase weapons and ammo at a store. Here you can find upgraded versions of these weapons that offer more power, faster reloading, or better accuracy. Unfortunately you cannot sell any of your current loadout towards the purchase of a new one, but gathering up enough funds to make a few purchases isn’t that hard. If you keep an eye out in the environment, you can find sacks of money, usually containing about $10 (with guns costing around $300-$1000). Furthermore, at the store I have found thus far in my campaign (there may or may not be another store later on), there were Wanted posters for three other side quests; completing these side quests earned you the posted reward. One thing I really liked about the side quests was that they were clearly defined, quick, fun, and integrated very well into the main game. So when you select to take on a mission, you don’t have to travel very far (by horse) to get to the mission perimeter, and, there are no load times.
Speaking of load times, CoJ: BiB does a great job on all of its load times. Now granted, load times don’t really make or break a game, but you definitely notice when they are fast and when they are abnormally long. With CoJ: BiB, during the initial load of a mission (i.e., not a Checkpoint load), the youngest brother William provides additional background information to the current situation via a narrative that is complimented by some nicely drawn art. Most times, the mission will be loaded, waiting for you to press Start or A, while William is still talking, which I thought was a fine way to “hide” load times within a cutscene of sorts. Quicker still are the checkpoint loads; should you or your CPU controlled brother die, or some part of the objective fail, reloading from a checkpoint is no problem — not only are checkpoints spread out with great generosity, but load times for these are well under five seconds.
Just as load times don’t really make or break a game, you can say the same about its presentation quality. Of course, gamers always appreciate a job well done. That said, Techland’s new Chrome Engine 4 powers CoJ: BiB (and is the first game to do so). The visuals are crisp, vibrant, and visceral, and overall I’m so far very impressed with the graphics. I have few complaints that would include some minor and rare clipping, out of sync cutscenes (where the audio doesn’t match the mouth animations), and I suppose the engine might possibly be to blame for two crashes I have experienced thus far, one of which locked up my new Jasper-core 360, the other of which was just a game lockup (i.e., I was still able to get back to the Dashboard). Anyway, CoJ: BiB does a good job of presenting the old west; perhaps unavoidably there are lots of browns and beiges, but given the setting, that’s proper. As far as audio, it’s good — not really outstanding, but the voice overs are nice, the effects are good, and the score is quiet, but does alright for itself.
Earlier I mentioned that CoJ: BiB is split into four Acts with about a dozen Chapters — I can tell this without having quite finished the game due to the Achievements list, by the way. Anyway, progress in CoJ: BiB is rather steady and straightforward. The health system is similar to that of Call of Duty (take cover if taking damage to heal) and the gameplay is balanced well enough that experienced FPS players can steadily make their way through the Story. The difficulty level, which is adjustable (I’m playing on default, Medium), is well balanced in that I always feel like I have enough ammo “and everything” to get the job done, and so long as I don’t rush into an outnumbered situation and use cover, I’ll survive. Sometimes that doesn’t work out, especially when the bad guys drop dynamite in my lap, but usually CoJ: BiB maintains that appreciable balance where you don’t have to sneak around on the edge of your seat in fear, but you are also not so confident that you can just blindly run forward. On average, I would say most chapters have taken me anywhere from 30-60 minutes to beat, with some of that time going towards trying to find the elusive Secrets that are hidden throughout the game. There are eighty-nine of these to find, all of which (at least all of the ones I have so far found) are either a still image of a historical picture or concept art.
Something else I’ve been pleased with in CoJ: BiB thus far is being able to play as either brother. You can choose at the start of a mission which brother you want to play as, and this can change what happens within the game, if only a little. For example, as Thomas, you carry a rope, which you use to lasso your way over pits or to get yourself up into a tree. You can only use the rope at certain points, but it’s still a nice touch. Furthermore, Thomas can use throwing knives and later, a bow and arrow, to dispatch his foes silently. On the other hand, Ray can take more damage, and is also more accurate with pistols at close range (where Thomas has better long range accuracy with the rifle, although the difference seems slight in my opinion). Ray can also throw dynamite to take out enemies and even a wall at one point. It’s worth noting that you can actually fail a mission if you stray too far away from your brother, but I’ve rarely felt like I was on a leash (you do get a warning message if you stray too far though). Also, you cannot hurt your brother, but should they die, the mission will fail. I have yet to actually have this happen though, which is cool; so long as you’re helping fight off the bad guys, the AI controlled brother does a great job of helping out, and staying alive.
There’s certainly more to say about CoJ: BiB, but I’m going to save that for the review, which I’ll post up later this week. I plan on finishing the story mode tonight and firing up the multiplayer soon after. Stay tuned for the full review.