Wild West-themed games aren't new, but they're few and far between. First released in late 2006 on the PC, Call of Juarez now makes its way to the Xbox 360 hoping to provide the perfect pick-me-up for gamers jaded with the current batch of FPSs.

The story in Call of Juarez follows two central characters as they play a dangerous game of cat and mouse across the old west. The ever-present lure of the lost gold of Juarez adds a spot of treasure-hunting to the mix. In a novel storytelling trick, the game switches control of these characters between levels so half the time you'll be playing as Billy, a young man on the run after being accused of murdering his family, and the other half you'll be in the shoes of Billy's uncle, Reverend Ray, a renegade preacher who believes God has tasked him with avenging his brother's death.

By alternating the game's chapters between two distinctly different characters, Call of Juarez appears at times like two different games shoehorned together. The problem is not both of these halves are of equal quality. In the good corner there are the Reverend Ray sections where CoJ appears to be an enjoyable western-themed FPS complete with slow-motion shootouts, hellfire biblical quotes and duelling all delivered within a suitably grizzled Sam Elliot persona. Then, in the not so good corner, there's Billy's chapters where CoJ looks for all the world like a far less enjoyable old west-themed first-person stealth-em-up complete with badly implemented platforming sections and more hiding in bushes than should ever be expected of a grown man.

The game kicks off with Billy and, depressingly, even in the tutorial section it's plain to see just how frustrating his chapters will end up being. Right off it has you sneaking around a farmer's field, crawling from bush to bush as you try and steal his gun. There's nothing wrong with a bit of stealth, and it's easy to believe Billy can't just saunter up unarmed and nick what he wants. It just doesn't feel right and while the stealth sections do get better, they never feel on a par with true stealth games and often go on far too long. Not improving matters is the inclusion of various bits of platforming: Never a fantastic idea in any FPS, its not helped by jumps often requiring pixel-perfect accuracy. Fun it isn't, fiddly and frustrating being a far better description.

Things thankfully pick up when you don Ray's Stetson, with his duel pistols and outspoken bible-bashing attitude. With a weapon in each hand, Ray is beautifully simple to control — left trigger to fire the left weapon, right for the right and a quick press of the right stick zooms in on the action too. While you may be in the old west, that doesn't mean the influence of The Matrix is any less apparent and our old friend "bullet time" makes an appearance in the form of Ray's "concentration mode". Drawing your guns after they've been holstered for a short time puts the game into slow motion. It's effective, it's easy and most of all its damn good fun! It's not all action though; puzzles tend to appear more often in Ray's chapters, too. These are never really more than the stacking of boxes to help you reach new parts of levels or the moving of boulders that block your path, but they're a nice addition if a tad fiddly to execute at times. CoJ's Reverend Ray also carries his bible with him at all times and is able to provide a selection of damning quotes from scripture at the press of a button. Upon hearing these utterances some guilt-ridden enemies pause in moments of indecision allowing you take advantage of their ill-timed attacks of conscience to blow their poor confused brains out.

Considering the organic nature of Wild West environments and the amount of detail required to make them come alive, it's fair to say CoJ does the job fantastically with some particularly nice depth of field and lighting effects. We should all be getting used to the visuals in this next generation of games but there are still moments of jaw dropping beauty in CoJ that should bring a smile to even the most jaded gamer. The voiceover work is equally impressive, heavy on cliché perhaps, but perfectly in tone with the story and feel of the game. Only the cut-scenes sometime fail to live up to expectation, with some stilted animations looking out of place amidst the lavish detail.

Anyone who tires of the single player experience will be able to spend some time with the stand alone additional missions (of which there will be more to come via downloadable packs) and the unlockable duels. Multiplayer options are also to be found via the wonder that is Xbox Live. There's nothing revolutionary here, but modes like deathmatch and capture the flag are joined by appropriately themed ones like Wanted (kill the wanted man to become wanted yourself). It's a shame that multiplayer duelling doesn't feature but I guess you can't have everything.

It's easy to look at Call of Juarez and see a game split down the middle — one half great and the other horrible — but to give it the credit it deserves, such a bold use of divided narrative just about makes it worthwhile for the most part. The style of both sections is always perfectly in character and the ever-switching perspective from hunter to hunted drives the game along, even when the on-screen action becomes less enjoyable. Techland deserve to be applauded for trying something different and even though it's not entirely successful, there is still a lot of fun to be had. Call of Juarez flits from fantastic highs to gamepad-throwing lows, but the overall experience is enough fun that even when you're screaming at the TV with frustration as Billy falls to his death once again, you'll be pressing continue because you know there'll be something great around just the corner.

Rating: 8.2/10