Call of Juarez: The Cartel

Overview

Call of Juarez: the Cartel is a first person shooter centered around cooperative play. The game is developed by the Polish games developer Techland, and follows the story of several crooked cops. The game was released in North American territories on July 19th 2011, and in European territories on the 21st of July. The PC version of the game is released on September 13th, 2011.

Story

Call of Juarez: The Cartel centers around drug trade between Los Angeles and Juarez, in Mexico. A powerful cartel controls the lucrative drug trade and rules the street in both cities, inciting corruption and violence. Realizing that good cops won't get the job done, local government agencies have decided to put three bad cops on the streets to clean up the mess and rid it of the cartel once and for all.

Characters

Each of the characters in the game has their own back-story, as well as motives. They also have their own hidden agendas that unfold during the course of the story. In addition, each character is further differentiated by their areas of expertise; one is more effective than the other with pistols, for example.

Ben McCall

Ben McCall is the character most players readily identify as a key protagonist in the game, due to his usage in most, if not all, of the promotional content released in relation to it. Ben is a veteran officer in the LAPD, and also a descendant of Ray McCall. Ray was one of the two protagonists in both previous Call of Juarez games, alongside Billy Mendoza in the original, and Thomas McCall in Bound in Blood. Ben seems to be at least semi-religious, for his introductory cutscene shows several different symbols most readily associated with religion, such as the cross. The religious aspect of his nature may also be a reference to Ray McCall, for in the original game, he was a gunslinger-turned-preacher. His past was only ever explored in the prequel, Bound in Blood.

Ben's reasoning for working with Eddie Guerra and Kim Evans comes from the death of a war buddy he had during his service in Vietnam. His friend's daughter comes to him during his opening cutscene, and asks for his help, as her father said that Ben would help. Ben wants nothing more than simple vengeance, and to punish those responsible for the killing.

Ben McCall's field of expertise is close-range combat. Ben is the best character of the three when it comes to close-range engagements, due to his ability with pistols, revolvers, and shotguns. He is able to reload revolvers much more rapidly than his allies, and he is also able to dual-wield them, further increasing their effectiveness at providing firepower, even if it does increase reloading times.

Eddie Guerra

Eddie Guerra is a member of the Drug Enforcement Agency. While the DEA's ideals are to fight the trafficking of illegal drugs and drug paraphernalia into the United States, Eddie is not as concerned with upholding these goals as he is with survival. Due to a gambling problem, Eddie has found himself in debt to a multitude of different organizations. This has led him to start stealing drugs from crime scenes and using those to pay off his debts to the organizations responsible for keeping him bogged down in financial turmoil. Eddie's views are further distorted due to his childhood being in a Los Angeles ghetto, where drugs and other immoral activities were rife.

Eddie is excellent at medium range combat, meaning he is the go-to character for all-round statistics. Eddie's strengths lie in the usage of assault rifles and sub-machine guns, such as the MP5A2. Eddie is a jack of all trades due to his mid-range superiority over his allies.

Kim Evans

Kim is a member of the FBI, though her form of justice is less than orthodox. Kim loathes criminality of all natures due to her experiences growing up in the Compton slums of Los Angeles. Her dislike of criminality in all forms stems from the deaths of both her older brothers, who were both gang-affiliated. They were gunned down in a gang war, with two different groups vying for control of an area of the Compton ghettos.

Kim's area of effectiveness is long-range. She is undoubtedly the best marksman of the three characters, possessing extreme accuracy over both Eddie and Ben, who tend to rely more on firepower. As a result, Kim is ideal with a sniper rifle, or one of the assault / battle rifles intended for longer range engagements, such as the FN FAL.

Gameplay

Call of Juarez departs itself from its predecessors by focusing on co-op. Up to three players can play together during the campaign, which tells the story of three members of the authorities that have been grouped together into a makeshift 'task force', in order to counter the Mexican drug cartels. In particular, one new cartel has rapidly grown in power, and the police specifically want this cartel brought to its knees.

The game remains a first person shooter at heart, though introduces a cooperative play mechanic, whereupon players need to work as a team to complete the missions set out for them. Each character has their own secret agenda, that they can try to complete during the mission. In the case of Eddie Guerra, this is often to steal some of the drugs to pay back the organizations he owes due to his gambling addiction. Completing your own personal agenda will help unlock new weapons, though other players are encouraged to try and stop you from doing so. If you successfully complete your own second goal, then you earn money. If you are caught doing this, then the person who caught you earns the money you were earning instead. This is similar to the 'Fragile Alliance' system of the Kane and Lynch games, where you will want an ally, but will not want them following too closely. When playing single-player, the AI controlled characters will not try to complete their second objective but will attempt to stop you from completing your own.

In addition to the cooperative multiplayer mode, the game also includes a competitive mode containing the stereotypical Team Deathmatch, as well as objective-based game modes. Teams are divided into the 'Cops' and the 'Cartel'. In the objective-based modes, one team is told to defend a specific point while other team is either told to destroy it, or to capture it. There are four main environments for online combat, and each environment is further cut down to produce maps. It is through this system that the game comes with twenty maps as standard. This could be compared to the system used for both racing games, and real-life competitive racing. For example, Silverstone in the United Kingdom can be tackled in different guises, such as the International track, and the Grand Prix track. In addition, the game comes with some online character customization, allowing for players to make their own character unique with up to forty different individual looks, as well as class modification.

Levels

• Plantation
• Gang Bang
• Candystore
• Docks
• Grab Bag
• Convoy
• Panorama
• Disco
• Ghost Town
• Motel
• The Exchange
• Fort
• Cemetery
• Juan Chase
• Hacienda

Weapons

Weapons in the game can be broken down to pistols, sub-machine guns, shotguns, assault rifles, and sniper rifles. Light machine guns, grenades, and rocket launchers also appear, however, and are included for the sake of completion.

Pistols

Sub-Machine Guns

Shotguns

Assault Rifles

Light Machine Guns

Sniper Rifles

Explosives

Pre-Order Bonuses

The pre-order bonus for buying the game through Best Buy, GameStop, or Ubisoft's online store is an additional bundle of downloadable content entitled the 'Virtual Road Trip' pack. This pack includes the Steyr TMP, which is a suppressed machine pistol. In-game, it will reduce the reaction speeds of enemies when they are hit with it. Players also receive Body Armor as part of the pack (Ben McCall is seen on the box art to be wearing a Kevlar vest), as well as a poster of Ben McCall himself, measuring 22"x28".

The Pre-order bonus for buying the game at Wal-Mart is an exclusive revolver in the game. The revolver is a Dan Wesson PPC, though the special version received will include an optical sight to aid accuracy and target acquisition. The Walther P99 is also included had the player ordered the game at Best Buy. The P99 comes with a reflex sight mounted on top of the slide, and has somehow been converted to fire fully automatic, as opposed to the standard semi-automatic firing system of the weapon.

Reception

Call of Juarez: The Cartel's reception has been mixed, with low-to-average scores coming up most frequently. Metacritic aggregates the game's overall rating as 50/100, which makes it barely average. IGN rated the game 4.5/10, criticizing both the graphics and the repetitive nature of the campaign. Joystiq was even more harsh, giving it a rating of 1.5/5. Eurogamer described the game as being 'rushed', giving it a relatively generous 6/10. Elements of the game that receive the most criticism are the campaign and the graphics. Graphically, the game has been viewed as underwhelming, though possessing some relatively impressive moments.

Trivia

• The Mini-Uzi in-game is designated the 'U.Z.I'. In actuality the Uzi is a larger weapon, and the name is not an acronym, for the weapon was designed by Uziel Gal, and the weapon name is simply derived from his name.
• The Cartel is the third game ever to display the Jericho 941 (also known as the Baby Eagle for the derivative design). The first game to do so was Syphon Filter: The Omega Strain, and Mirror's Edge features it in an unusable role. It also features in the Battlefield 2 'Project Reality' mod, though as it is not a standalone game, it does not count.
• In the first mission of the game, Ben uses a Makarov PM. This is highly incorrect, for the Makarov was a Soviet design, using Soviet ammunition. Unless Ben himself owns this pistol and chooses to use it over his police issued sidearm, then it is unusual to suggest the Los Angeles Police Department would make use of a Soviet-made pistol. According to posts made on various internet forums, the majority of LAPD officers carry either a Glock 22, or a Glock 27, with some choosing to use a Beretta instead.
• The pre-order ' TMP' is actually an MP9; this can be ascertained from the top rail on the gun extending its entire length.

PC System Requirements

OS: Windows XP/ Vista / Windows 7

Processor: Intel Core 2 Duo E6600 2.4GHz / AMD Athlon 64 X2 Dual Core 5000+ (or better)

Memory: 2 GB of RAM

Hard Disk Space: 6.5 GB

Video Card: nVidia GeForce 8800 GT / ATI Radeon HD 3800 series (or better)

Sound Card: DirectX Compatible

DirectX: 9.0c