XBox 360 Review: CALL OF JUAREZ: THE CARTEL

Here's what not to do with a brand: build up a formula for success (even if it's only comparative) and a brand identity across the release of two generations of the product with a very recognisable hook, and then completely throw it out of the window for the third generation of the product. Sort of like if Apple were to suddenly start making PCs - imagine that if you will. It might sound like folly, but that is precisely what the team behind the Call of Juarez franchise at Ubisoft and Techland have done. The relative success of that brand was down to it being one of the only Western shooter franchises on the market - until Red Dead Redemption came along and stole their thunder - and the brand identity was strong enough that the name completely fit the genre. But not anymore - now, buoyed by a desire to extend the brand into more modern territory, with Call of Juarez: The Cartel, Ubisoft have cast off the period Western setting, and attempted to align modern day America with the ye olde West of the first two games. Welcome to the New Wild West it proclaims - and you can't help but wish for the good old West. Some might say it's remarkably brave of Ubisoft to move away from their most distinctive, and indeed defining characteristic - I say it's a bad move no matter which way you look at it, thanks to the generally poor execution of the game. If you're going to make something this different from its predecessor (albeit linked by the genealogy of the protagonists - they're all descendants of past characters - and the flimsy equation that turbulent times make for some broad-reaching shared culture of violence across generations) it has to be much better than what went before. Otherwise, as with The Cartel, you end up pillaging the legacy of the vastly superior predecessors and leaving little but a bitter aftertaste that sullies the entire franchise. The first problem with the change of time is the modern day environments just don't have the same kind of charm as the Old West - admittedly there are some interesting locales used, and a better storyline would make the settings pop even more. It is fairly impressive to see a combat-based game not set in either a superhero world, or in open warfare, but that decision serves only to draw closer comparisons between The Cartel and sand-box actioners like Grand Theft Auto - and considering this sequel can't compare to its own predecessors, it is a hopeless endeavour to aim for any GTA fans. Additionally, the attempt to present the modern day US borderlands as a New Wild West is handled fairly lazily, trading only on the supposedly universal link of violence (and the ancestry thing) to convince of the link, apart from the one sequence in which you revisit the now abandoned streets of Juarez. But even then that link seems forced and rather insistent, and pretty much undoes any subtlety the attempt could claim to have had. Gone are the outdoor settings for the most part, as the range and prospector towns of the West are replaced with docks and clubs and grim modern cityscapes. Rather than base it in A Movie Wild West territory, Ubisoft have somewhat carelessly misjudged the Western as a B Movie, and made the modern equivalent, an ultra-violent, Tarrantino-lite Grindhouse derivative setting. We are supposed to believe that the aim of the game is to take down the Mendoza cartel and uncover the assailant in the Independence Day bombing of a government building, but there is no legitimate investigation going on here at all, and I'm pretty sure the police complaints department would have something to say about the spray everyone with bullets, and ask questions later policy that drives the majority of the game's gleefully hyperactive attitude to violence. Crucially though, The Cartel fails on two far more fundamentally important fronts - the characters and the storyline, which are just as important these days as playability, especially in a franchise that lacks the punch and power of say a Call of Duty or a Battlefield which can supercede both of those concerns with impressive visuals and an immediate thrill that sucks up the player. But The Cartel isn't as powerhouse as either of those properties, and should be relying on the substance of the games to create a hook. Sadly the characters are no-more than slightly off-putting stereotypes - and unnecessarily sweary ones at that - and the script that drives their exchanges is just plain woeful for the most part. Additionally, the story-line isn't exactly great, even despite the obvious references to famous film moments, and it's fairly difficult to care what happens to this particular band of "urban cowboys". The vehicle-based sequences are quite diverting, and break up the action pretty well, but the driving mechanism is nowhere near as realistic as it should be and it is altogether too easy to get the vehicle to do exactly what you want it to. On one occasion, I purposefully drove over a road-side crash barrier and up into some rocky terrain, and rather than flip or simply refuse to budge, as would happen in real life, the car I was driving chose instead to pretend it was a lighter-than-air beach buggy. In truth the mobility mechanics of the entire game are pretty shoddy - rather than interact with the terrain, characters and vehicles instead skate across them as if on ice-skates, and there is very little response in the rumble-response of the controller. Then there's the fact that the game seems to have a broken compass - first off it is far too easy to get lost, thanks to a painfully sparse radar when youre on foot, and labyrinthine side-roads (in that I kept going past where I was supposed to turn off). And be warrned, if you have the audacity to stray too far from the mission area you are annihilated in double quick time, without opportunity to redeem yourself. Oh, and most infuriating of all, your team members feel the need to shout out directions as to where your enemy is about to attack from - rather unhelpfully, these occasionally have no link at all to the actual location of the bad guys with dangerous guns and painful bullets. Which I suppose does help mix it up a bit. What we want from a game like this - one which so obviously positions itself as a no-holds-barred gleeful shooter (hence the link to the Wild West) - is a game that prioritises the gunplay, and thankfully that's one of the areas where The Cartel doesn't disappoint. We are treated to a fair armoury, and the targeting system works well - with a reasonable and wholly justified compromise in sharpness when you duel-wield weapons. The other thing the game does well is the customised collectibles for each character: since this is a three-way co-op game it's all about working together to beat the levels - or at least it is until the game throws its first curve ball. Each character has their own side-agenda, which means a different game experience for each chosen hero, so if you go for Guerra (which I initially did), you're committed to finding enough dirty cash to buy himself out of a gambling debt, which means his personal collectible is drug packages, carelessly discarded about the place and marked with a handy little eye when you get close. Key is, you have to collect them without the either two seeing you, which adds a little extra level of depth that is at least a little more diverting than the point and shoot monotony of the rest of the game. The other two of course have their own agendas: Evans' brother is in with a Compton street gang and is needless to say in trouble, so she must collect walkie-talkies. Which makes perfect sense. And McCall's all about catching/getting revenge on a man who wronged him back in 'Nam, so he picks up marked guns to help the FBI with a smuggling case (not entirely sure why this is deemed necessary to hide though?). In that respect, the game offers something few others of ilks ilk do, with the promise of three different experiences for the characters (and an inherent though brief suggestion of replayability), but by the time you're about a third of the way through it becomes clear that the game just isn't as fun as it thinks it is and few are likely to stick with it to start all over again with the other two playable characters. And really, there just isn't enough of an immediate threat to make the subterfuge episodes entirely compelling, no matter how nicely the idea plays out on paper. Sadly, the multiplayer mode is another case of undercooked content - the levels are basically just cops and robber stand-offs and it's difficult to feel particularly excited by them. This mode should have been based on the secret collectible aspect of the game, effectively like a mature hide and seek game where you must collect your own goodies while evading discovery and also trying to rumble your fellow players on their own hunts. Sort of like catch the flag - and there could be gun battles in their as well. But then, that's all fantasy, and the reality was of half-baked obligatory content. At the end of the day, you can perhaps see why Ubisoft would want to change the whole tone of the franchise, since it was never really charismatic or enduringly popular enough to justify even one sequel let alone two, but when one of the only things that marked it out as appealing is cast aside in a foolhardy attempt to achieve that new tone, all that really happens is you end up alienating the relatively small fanbase that already exists. And quite frankly, there are plainly too many uses of the word "motherfucker" for my liking. Call of Juarez: The Cartel is available to buy now on XBox 360, PS3 and PC.