Review: Call of Juarez: The Cartel

Imagine, if you will, a first-person shooter which not only employs three-person cooperative play, but contains a system where each person has their own sub-objectives within the story; sub-objectives that can greatly alter outcomes toward the end of the game. Imagine, if some of these sub-objectives also acted like mini-games where you can sabotage the objective of other members, and they can do the same to you. Imagine a franchise which has been previously set in the wild west, but now tries to take that iconic feel and incorporate it into a modern setting. A game which strives to tell a story involving the delicate matters of immigration and drug trafficking along the southern border of the United States, and how the overflow of violence from this practice can greatly effect those caught in the crossfire. And a game that transcends the standard corridor shooter by also incorporating vehicular based combat in an open-world setting.

Now take all of these brilliant ideas and execute them poorly.

Call of Juarez: The Cartel (XBox 360)
Developer: Techland
Publisher: Ubisoft
Released: July 19, 2011

Something went terribly wrong during the development of The Cartel. If you could picture the development of a game as a train, at some point some dastardly villain either either hit the railroad switch to take it off course or, like bandits in an old western movie, took the train over completely, robbed it of its greatest assets, and sent it on its way...a husk of its former self. Those early meetings in development were obviously great times. The very air electric with the rush of lucrative brainstorming, and the frantic jotting of ideas. You can almost picture the whiteboard, sprayed with the extravagant strokes of the marker, almost mimicking the excitement in the room when they were first made. The spilled coffee, dumped over as attendees jumped from their seat in a mad rush to incorporate another idea. The donuts, untouched. Each persons physical hunger satiated with the feast of ideas spread out before them. Oh, and how they gorged themselves on this feast. Their mind-bellies distended with hope, their creative souls now gluttonously sloven.

The future was unknown, so these were brighter times. A new game in a growing series was being created with fresh ideas. The universe was opening its legs with all the force of the Octomom about to splurge forth her 8-Octochildren upon the world. But here, instead of slobbering babies covered in the mess of birth, would be a video game. In their minds, the most glorious thing in the world.

But in this world all things die, dreams especially. And as Octomom's home was foreclosed, and she thought about entering the porn industry to feed her coven of children, so did the development of The Cartel continue, this time outside the bounds of hope and fortune. Beyond the reach of dreams and the purity of creative anticipation. Now it was subject to the harsh realities of development, like an invincible nightmare-monster who found itself pulled into the real world where it could finally be destroyed.

Playing The Cartel is much like entering a run-down museum which holds priceless artifacts in run-down display cases. There are elements of beauty and flashes of genius, but the building they're housed in is so dilapidated that you can't stop noticing the damaged foundation for fear that the entire thing will collapse and destroy everything within. The things I mentioned above, the cooperative play, the themes, the atmosphere, are all included and can be found in some form. But all of them seem to be so haphazardly woven into the cloth of the game that they hardly are able to make any impact at all. The sub-objectives, though a good idea in concept, only lead to players not ever leaving each others' side in cooperative mode, and only act as an almost unneeded xp generator in single-player. Even the inherent joys of coop-play itself is somewhat diminished when you realize that, since your single-player bot allies can never die, it's better to just play alone.

The 'old west' atmosphere is never truly realized in a contemporary fashion either, and it seems like it would have been a no-brainer to do so. Adding in some good sweeping vignette's of cars chasing each other through modern cities with Spaghetti Western music in the background would have gone a long way to capturing this ideal. But unfortunately, nothing this dramatic can be found. By comparison, Darkwatch seemed to have much more western blood coursing through its veins (and this one in a horror setting) than The Cartel has been able to drum up.

This entire ordeal is a bit unfortunate since the series has been heading in a very good direction since Bound in Blood. Some technical problems notwithstanding, there was a good game there, complete with some fantastically realized organic settings to backup the story. The Cartel, by comparison, seems washed out, stiff and boasts many more technical problems than its previous installment. Enemies will routinely appear out of thin air or run through objects. Enemy voice overs will play after you've killed everyone, and calling the AI deficient would be a massive understatement. And be it far from me to be petty, but something must be said about the menu system, which is completely made up of the most horrid looking DOS fonts to ever grace the screen since Sierra was king. It's just so strange, and doesn't make sense either aesthetically or with the games' general design. If this was a game about robots, or something technical, it would make sense.  But, No. It's supposed to be a western themed game, and here I am looking at DOS fonts. Did someone forget to replace the placeholder fonts with something more appropriate? Am I simply too daft to be getting some inside joke about the series that relates to this obtuse choice in fontage?

To be fair there are some high points in the game to be found. The characters themselves, and their interaction with each other, can be interesting at times. When you play the game you can do so in any of the three roles available, representing each person from your team, and each of these have their own specific abilities and weaknesses. It doesn't change the gameplay dramatically, but will alter the way you go into some situations. Also, each character has their own storyline and motives that you can only see if you play the game through their eyes. Again, though it doesn't change the actual gameplay it does expose a story that has been crafted with a little more care than the other technical aspects of the game. And for this you should feel grateful, if only because it does make for some fairly entertaining cutscenes to watch in between the missions. As gratuitous and ridiculous as they can be, they are still entertaining.

Overall, and in almost every way, The Cartel is the tale of a game that could have been. But unlike other contenders that might have found themselves shown in this light, one can still see aspects of the very ideas that should have taken root. They're there, but still small saplings, trying to make roots in dirt which is contaminated and dry. Never cared for correctly, perhaps seeded wrong or never watered enough, they sputtered when they should have shined. Grew limp when they should have stood tall.

If the Call of Juarez franchise is going to find itself riding into the sunset after this installment, it would be sad for it to go on such a note. It would be like the ending to Dead Man, when we should have been watching The Last Crusade. Hopefully they can give it one more go, this time making sure that sense of hope and that flight of ideas makes it all the way to the end.

 Score 45%
(40-49%: A bad game with a few good qualities)