Born to be Wild

Get back to where you once belonged.

When I heard that the next Call of Juarez would likely return to the wild, wild west, I was not surprised.  In fact, I was more surprised that the latest entry, The Cartel, was set in modern day LA.  In retrospect, this deviation from the series (along with a few others) was actually quite disastrous.  It wasn't long ago that Red Dead Redemption brought Westerns to the forefront of videogames.  A year later and another Western could have recaptured an audience itching to get back in the saddle again.  Instead, Ubisoft released another modern-day shooter into a world already weary of modern-day shooters.

The frustrating thing is that it really wouldn't have taken much to change Call of Juarez: Bound in Blood from a faint curiosity to a must-play title.  The critical consensus was that Call of Juarez seemed like it was designed to be a co-operative shooter, only to have that feature cruelly stripped away from it (presumably due to time constraints).  Now, I don't know how true or practical that even is, but the fact that they jumped from no co-op at all to three-player co-op in its sequel seems rather ludicrous.  The series has traditionally revolved around three characters, but prior to this has only ever featured two during gameplay (which I think makes perfect sense).

The other consensus view was that the game's authentic western feel was its greatest asset.

I suppose what I'm getting at is that Call of Juarez: The Cartel seems to have overcomplicated a rather simple equation for improving upon its predecessor:

Western + Shooter + Co-op = WINNER!

Will someone just come out and tell me

which version of Skyrim to buy?!

It's doing my head in.

The consensus view is that the PC version's better looking, while the console version has a smoother interface.

But which is more important?!

The Toejam and Earl Gallery

Anyone who knows me knows that I love Toejam and Earl, mostly because I never shut up about it. It just frustrates me that there's a game so eminently replayable; a game that still stands tall 20 years on from its release, and yet nobody's even heard of it. In many ways I feel as though I'm loving it enough (and playing it enough) for the rest of the world. And so it came as no surprise to my friends and family that my next article on IGN would address the game and its longevity for its 20th birthday (in 3,000 words no less).

What also frustrated me was the absolute dearth of material on the internet concerning this fantastic game, and so I wanted to write something comprehensive that did the game justice; an 'evergreen' article that people could continue to refer to in the future. The only Toejam and Earl images on the internet were lazily screencapped within the first 5 levels with only one player present on the screen.  For a game known for its cooperative two-player, this would not do. So I called my sister in for a playthrough and we tried to capture the essence of Toejam and Earl's trademark madness and humour in pictures. These are those pictures: