Zodi Plays: Call of Juarez Gunslinger (High Noon Joke Goes Here)

Let's Plays Completed Let's Plays
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#21

A wild wind blows. It’s Gunslinger time.

[B][URL=“https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8X5ya0FPtM4”]Zodi Plays: Call of Juarez Gunslinger [10] The Wilcox Train Robbery[/URL][/B]

[B]Video Length: 12:58[/B]

This is the episode where it really begins. It opens with Silas telling us about his origin. It was 1868, down in Mexico. A young Silas gambled against some cowboys…and won spectacularly. Unfortunately, the cowboys where Johnny Ringo, Roscoe Bob Bryant, and Jim. Silas and his two brothers were strung up to a tree, tied to their horses. With a single gunshot, the horses ran off, and they began to hang. The tree branch gave way, sparing Greaves’ life…in exchange for his two brothers. Thus began his quest for revenge. We already know how he went after Ringo and how that turned out, so now it’s time to talk to us about Bob. Finally, after so long a time, after getting enough money to fuel his search, he found him. He was with Butch Cassidy’s Wild Bunch.

This revelation that Silas tells us today explains a lot. His dramatic talk about family, brothers in particular, make a lot more sense. His hate of horses as well. It also starts putting a lot of his stories in a different light. Some of the stuff he’s done seems a lot more believable if it’s for a revenge of this caliber, right? It also reminds us of Grey Wolf, and his words. It’s a fascinating bit of backstory, and telling it to us here, near the very end, is a pretty interesting way to do it. We’ve got a lot of reason to disregard his stories as true, but…would he really be this angry if it wasn’t? The mystery deepens.

Anyway, it’s time for the actual chapter at hand. After explaining his backstory, Silas tells us how he began hunting Bob, and as a result the Wild Bunch in it’s entirety. The Wild Bunch are one of, if not the, greatest train robbers in history. So that sets the stage, as we pursue them in the midst of the Wilcox Train Heist, one of their most famous robberies. The set piece we have to travel and shoot through is really cool, parts of a derailed train scattered throughout the mountain side, as well as parts of the train that has remained on the track. The narrow corridors and sharp turns of a train cart makes combat all the more exciting and dangerous. We fight our way through the train cars, until finally we reach the end, in an area covered in the red of fall and fire, leaves and dollars flying through the air like snow. A gatling gun is all that’s between us and the Wild Bunch’s minions, and we mow them all down. It finally ends with a quick draw against George “Flat Nose” Curry. We dispatch Flat Nose, and begin the search again.

Hope you all enjoyed! Next time we’ll be going further after the Wild Bunch, in Silas’ unending quest for vengeance. See you guys then.

The Wild Bunch, specifically Butch Cassidy’s Wild Bunch since there was another Wild Bunch in history, was one of the last great cowboy gangs. Every member was at least fairly notable, even if it was because “they are close friends with Sundance Kid or Butch Cassidy”. They robbed many trains, and killed many people…much to the shock of it’s own gang members, who swore up and down they were the least violent gang in the west. The person who would always say that was Kid Curry, who we’ll be talking about tomorrow, but spoilers Kid Curry probably was the most violent of all of them. I’m glad that irony was still alive and well back in the wild west. But yes, Cassidy’s Wild Bunch was the most successful train robbers in history, getting the act of it down to a science, pretty much. So let’s talk about the member we faced today.

George “Flat-Nose” Curry was one of the lesser members of the gang, though not for lack of a trying. It’s just that when you’re surrounded by greats, average tends to slip into the shadows. He was from Canada, so don’t let his demeanor fool you…though given his other nickname was “big-nose” Curry, it’s probably likely that the only thing really notable about him was that his nose was very large and very flat. He was however a very close friend of Kid Curry, and in fact mentored him. It’s what made Kid take on the name Curry, and when George eventually was killed by a sheriff doing some hustling, Kid Curry went all the way from Utah to Mexico to kill those two sheriff personally.

Hm, it’s almost as if…revenge is a very large theme in the wild west, just in general. Funny that.

#22

The gatling sequences are great fun if you have the skill that refills your concentration with combos. You can easily get two or three levels.

And I never made the connection between Silas’s hatred of horses and their involvement in his brothers’ deaths.

#23

I’ll keep that in mind next time I run into one, cause I’ve got that skill now.

Yeah, it’s pretty subtle. He also gets a little surlier when things related to family, brothers especially, popped up. It’s most obvious in the Dalton’s, but you can see it in other places too.

#24

Onwards, to more shooty shoot shoot!

[B][URL=“https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e-D933ZpHqE”]Zodi Plays: Call of Juarez Gunslinger [11] The Last Stand of Kid Curry[/URL][/B]

[B]Video Length: 17:35[/B]

Today, we join Silas as he continues to hunt down the Wild Bunch, unaware of how Sundance and Cassidy went down to South America. He finds a mostly abandoned camp held by Kid Curry however, and using the map he finds there, discovers Curry’s devious plan to rob another train. So begins our hunt for Kid Curry, as we relentlessly try to find Roscoe Bob Bryant and that asshole Jim. The set piece for this level is, while less cinematic then the train and steamboat, still pretty dramatic. The opening to it zooming around showing all the dynamite bundles is hilarious, and sets up the kind of antics we’re going to be up to. Clambering around the scaffolding of a train bridge, trying to disarm dynamite and dispatch the people who put it there, carefully avoiding shooting the dynamite. The gameplay has kind of reached it’s zenith, and given some of my upgrades we’re at our most powerful here, so it’s actually pretty fun. And of course, near the end of it, we get to chase a lit fuse. No intense dynamite disarming scene would be right without that happening, after all.

Finally, we get to fight Kid Curry, and it’s…another gatling gun boss, but this time he’s shielded from bullets. I’ll be honest, this is my least favorite part of the game just by virtue of it being a sort of annoying turret boss made more annoying, and it doesn’t really “fit” with Kid Curry. Curry’s meant to be the so called “wildest” of the Wild Bunch, this feels like the prime time to have another gunfight boss like Curly Bill. I get it’s for variety, and to make Kid Curry more memorable, but I just don’t think it’s fun from a gameplay perspective. Especially since after we finish off his turret, it’s time for ye olde quick draw, which would of worked just as well if we just had that from the start. After shooting him down, we interrogate the dying Curry about the rest of the Wild Bunch, and he shoots on us, making us have to dodge and quickfire him to his final rest, which I think honestly makes him more memorable then a gatling gun ever would. This game is quite good, and the way it’s plot just works (and the level of quality with which it’s written) makes me forgive a lot of the minor small stuff that might bring the experience down, but this is a part of the game that I can clearly state as not being that good.

Given this game had a pretty shoestring budget, and was a developer trying to revive a series that was dead in the ground because it’s last game was a true and utter trash fire, I think their only real bad part of the game being “not that good” is totally okay, though. But yes, that’s the video. We’re closing in on end game. I hope you all enjoyed, I’ll see you guys next time.

As stated above, Harvey Logan, aka Kid Curry, was the wildest of the Wild Bunch. He is the one who killed the most people, and the one most prone to shooting first and just getting into fights. He met Flat Nose Curry and basically just decided he was a cool dude and decided to call himself Kid Curry to honour the man. He and a friend originally rode in Black Jack Ketchum’s gang, before that got shot out from under them, and while Curry made his own gang for awhile, it never really stuck. That was when they met the Sundance Kid. He participated in the Wilcox Train Robbery, the most infamous of jobs done by this most infamous of gangs. They palled around for a bit, and after another successful job Cassidy split the gang up to divide the loot.

Kid Curry’s death would come a few years later. He was arrested and jailed for hard labor for 20 years, but escaped after one. A posse lead by the pinkerton’s went after him, and interrupted an attempted robbery, wounding him, and in desperation Kid Curry ended his own life. Rumours say that Kid Curry actually survived, that they got the wrong man, and the lead pinkerton after Curry DID resign after this, believing they really did kill the wrong man, but I think it’s safe to say that Kid Curry did die. But he certainly left a legacy.

As I say in the video, and as Silas points out, there’s a…sort of “thing” in Eastland County with Kid Curry, known as the Curry Kids. Kid Curry slept with a lot of prostitutes, and a lot of people, even in this modern day, are willing to say that they’re descended from Kid Curry. I don’t think this is wrong or shameful, mind you, but it is VERY SILLY. He really is believed to have sired at least 85 children, though a most realistic estimate puts it at lower than 5, which is still a lot of kids actually when you think about it? The other legacy he left behind is that apparently the shotgun of the man who delivered the near fatal wound to Curry that convinced him to kill himself still has that gun just…around, in the house. It’s honestly kind of fascinating how American’s just kinda shove historical objects underneath the sofa because they can’t find a good place for it.

#25

Giddiyup, it’s time for more Gunslinger.

[B][URL=“https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0kGK0XRpAx0”]Zodi Plays: Call of Juarez Gunslinger [12] The Last Ride of Jesse James[/URL][/B]

[B]Video Length: 12:59[/B]

After rambling on and on about the Wild Bunch in his pursuit of Roscoe Bob Bryant, the listeners to Silas’ story decide to ask about that Jim fella. After all, we barely mentioned him. Silas relents, and goes back in time a bit to far earlier in his career, when he was hunting down Jim. Back when said Jim was riding with a little known outlaw known as Jesse James. This is of course stunning to everyone listening, as Jesse James is, spoilers, one of the most well known outlaws in the history of the Wild West, and maybe even beyond. Ignoring the fact that he was basically actually just really, really bad, of course. But none of that mattered to Silas, nor really their bounty I imagine. He was hunting them to look for Jim, as simple as that.

And so begins the train level, but this time the train is in motion and not stopped. Smashing our way into cars to get Concentration going, gunning down anyone in our path. The area’s are all tight and confined, meaning our shotgun is pretty useful too. And of course, they make great use of the setting when Silas gets up to, ahem, use the facilities, and has us move through identical versions of the same car over and over. It’s fantastic, and another of the many many ways this game plays with how games as a medium work. I think when I was first playing it, I only barely noticed that that was what was going on, and it blew my mind that a game could, and would, actually do that. Anyway, the final set piece for this level is another gatling gunner, plus using their gun to clear out the next car of people. It’s not the most exciting moment, but it does come with some funny lines. If it wasn’t clear already, Jack’s kind of an asshole himself and he’s getting real tired of listening to our story. He’s pretty confident by this point that we’re making it up, we’re just some old dodger that wants some free booze. Dwight’s still invested in it, and Steve still seems interested. Ben of course runs the place so he’s gotta pay attention. Molly, of the people who listen to us, is probably the least used, but that’s mostly because she’s just a nice prostitute lady. She’s just here to make sure everyone’s doin’ okay.

But yeah, after blowing our way from the near back of a train all the way to the front, we confront Jesse James in a quick draw. It’s tense, fire all around us, but we’re able to shoot the man square in the chest. Of course, as we all know, historically he didn’t die. But hey, he managed to get a pretty good shot in. Then the rest of the train drove off into the sunset, and Jim slips through our fingers. Better luck next time Silas.

So, it’s time for a history lesson. Let’s talk a bit about Jesse James. Like they said in game, before becoming an outlaw he road with William C. Quantrill and his Raiders. As part of this confederate aligned army, he slaughtered the people of Lawrence, Kansas, killing more than 200 people. Most of them civilians. This is basically the first thing Jesse James has to his name and it really sets the tone for the rest of his storied career as one of the West’s greatest (in terms of scope and scale) murderers. While there’s no concrete evidence, it isn’t wrong to suspect that Jesse James is one of the people responsible for the very first bank robbery after the civil war ended and America slipped back into peace times. Of course, it wasn’t until Jesse joined with Cole Younger and formed the Jesse-Younger gang and robbed some banks (and committed some falsely identified revenge killings) that he finally became well known.

And well known he certainly became. He shot his way across the West, robbing and stealing and inspiring a great many of stupid young boys to become great gunmen like he was (see the Daltons) and greater criminals. They eventually turned to train robberies, and…SOME how someone decided to write into the stories of his that he was some sort of Robin Hood esque figure, though this couldn’t be further from the truth.

The final moment of the James-Younger gang came when they decided to start some business in Missouria…at the start of hunting season. The increased abundance of guns, and just general knowledge of how the West worked by this point, made it so that after this failed robbery (foiled, like the Daltons, by the lied about existence of a time lock on the safe) only Frank and Jesse James were alive or unimprisoned. So yeah they kinda messed up on this one. The two decided to go their separate ways, Frank going back home to live out his life off the fame of his brother, and Jesse hiding out with some old friends. Friends who conspired to kill him for his bounty almost immediately. Based on the details we know, it seems Jesse likely suspected this, and intentionally left his back open to them to go fix a misaligned and dusty painting above his fireplace. Bob Ford took no time in executing Jesse James, killing the legendary outlaw.

Jesse James is, obviously, a controversial figure. Outlaws in general are kind of…mythically talked about when you delve into this period, and a lot of the writing on them sounds pretty positive. This gets awkward when you realize that a couple of these people where really nasty and killed a lot of people. It’s all good fun to talk about Billy the Kid, he only killed four people. Two in self defense, and the two sheriffs when he was escaping jail, but one of those two sheriff’s was Bob Ollinger who really had it coming. So like, one actually bad murder in his carreer of stealing horses and cows. Still bad, but not the worst. Jesse James is responsible for the deaths of hundreds, and was in constant communication with a lot of unsavory folk. Like I say in the video, nazi’s are just the fucking special surprise inside when you go reading into history. You never know when they’re gonna show up, and here is no exception. The confederate allies he had made it very clear that no matter your stance, Jesse James was a really bad person. Terms like “purity of race” were thrown around, and I mean look when you’re buddies with the side that wanted slavery and they say stuff like that you’re not very good or nice at all.

So yeah, it’s hard to talk about Jesse James. These outlaws in this time period represent the best and worst of humanity in the era, so it’s important to talk about. But damn if it isn’t a little dicey. But…I mean that’s to be expected. History is always filled with “beloved” outlaws and “hated” heroes, a weird twist to the human psyche about how we interpret the world. The history of the Wild West should be no different.

#26

Gunslinger, resumed.

[B][URL=“https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UFZzxAQs3t4”]Zodi Plays: Call of Juarez Gunslinger [13] The Hunt For Jim Reed[/URL][/B]

[B]Video Length: 15:30[/B]

With Jesse James put away, as far as Silas was aware, it was time to continue his pursuit of the asshole Jim, and as a result the rest of the James-Younger gang. This brought him up to the Ozark mountains, where Frank James and the rest of the gang was holding out. Frank Jame’s is interesting in that he’s like the eldest Will Smith child. You’ve probably never heard of him but he’s arguably just as important as his far more famous sibling(s). At any rate, we go mountain climbing to hunt him down, and it’s a different mountain from last time! This chapter’s also got probably the most varied enemy types, since we fight both regular ole cowboys AND Native Americans, and there are quite a few tomahawk runners that we need to be cautious of.

We shoot our way through the Native Americans, and finally stumble upon it. The camp from Grey Wolf’s vision. The time where he told us to beware the venom of the snake, and that we’d come here again and kill many more men. It’s around this point that Silas starts getting…weird. He’s been drinking quite a lot, and retelling your entire life story can do things to a person. I think it’s pretty clear that…some of the stuff Grey Wolf told him is only just now, in this bar in Abilene, is finally starting to GET to him. It’s a fascinating scene, and it leads into a moment that…I will discuss the full implications of later. Also, Silas’s voice actor is a very good singer, just as an aside. This is the moment where I fully and completely fell in love with this game. With our audience suitably freaked out or annoyed, Ben asks us if we ever did find Jim Reed. And with an almost bloodthirsty determination, we continue the story.

Frank James was a smart man and invested in what we call today as a “scope” for his rifle, so it’s a pretty cool sniper segment. He can drop you in like two shots, and while I THINK you can use Sense of Death to avoid dying, don’t even think about returning fire since he’s way too far away for that, on top of being a named character and thus immune to such things. This is probably the closet this game ever gets to the by now classic over the shoulder shooter with waist high walls style gameplay, dashing between cover to avoid sniper fire. It comes off well I think. We push through and eventually find our boss fight, the very shack Frank and his gang live in! Don’t…don’t bother approaching it you will just get shot to pieces, just huck TNT at it until it explodes, tumbling off the cliff! Of course…our audience assumes this to be the death of Frank James, which even Dwight finds unbelievable given Frank James is uh…he’s alive, in like a few towns over? Of course, but some miracle, Frank James didn’t die when his entire house fell down a cliff. We explain our reason for this insane pursuit to Frank, who calmly and rationally says “I don’t care go kill Reed just leave me alone good lord” and we continue our pursuit.

We cut down some more men, and Silas actually uses a degree of sense to rile up Jim Reed so he’ll try to kill us instead of running off. We get to this massive stone cliff shooting gallery area and it’s actually just a really cool, exciting bit of gameplay. Once they’re all dead, Jim Reed comes out and it’s time for our quick draw. The one flaw, I feel, of the quick draw system is that if you can beat the best of them, the others are just a matter of course. Sure, I might screw up and die due to just not having the reaction time, but it’s pretty much a case of “I beat the game’s hardest quick draw before so none of these are actually challenging, or even arguably climactic?”. I do feel it sells the feeling of being climactic myself in story terms, if not mechanics. But yeah, with that, Jim Reed is shot dead. All that remains is Roscoe Bob Bryant, in our quest for justice. At least…that’s what Dwight thinks it is. At this point it’s unsure how true Silas thinks that is. And that is fascinating. I’ll see you guys next time…for the finale. There’s still going to be two bonus videos to make, but the next video is going to be the end of Silas’ story. I hope you enjoy.

Story time! Let’s talk a bit about Jim Reed. In reality, he…may of been called James Reed, but given the existence of the James’ and their gang in relation to Mr Reed, and given some other stuff that I can’t quite get into, and really just the case that in this time period James and Jim where sort of interchangeable if they were a first name, they decided to go with the name Jim. For the duration of this little history segment I’ll call him James though.

So, here’s what we know about James Reed! He was married to Belle Starr, the infamous Bandit Queen and prostitute. This is literally all we know about James Reed, he died after giving her some children and there really just isn’t anything known or exceptional about him. SO! Let’s talk about Belle Starr, the far more interesting of the two who sadly does not appear in this game.

Belle Starr, full name Myra Maybelle Shirley Reed Starr, was as said before and implied via Silas’ rather brutal taunting to get Reed to fight him, was a member of the world’s oldest profession. But that wasn’t all she did! She rode with her Cherokee husband, Sam Starr, learning all sorts of horse banditry and tactical knowledge, and used said information to her advantage, becoming a sort of living legend. It’s not as elaborate as the name “The Bandit Queen” would suggest, remember the West is quite exaggerated, but it’s still worth mentioning. She’d always ride her horse in the style ladies would of the time, both legs slung over one side, and despite this she was a pretty good rider, and a rather successful bandit. Sadly, after a run in with the law, Sam Starr was killed and Belle decided to hang up the old horse robbing and get back to organizing a safe and technically legal sex trade.

Tragically, she was murdered in what was probably cold blood, someone shooting her with a shotgun off her horse, and then executed with another shot to the face, to ensure she died. There are theories and stories about who killed her and why, but as far as reality is concerned this is an unsolved case. So goes the old west. People fight, people kill, people die. And in the end nothing is solved, and life…and time, move on.

1 Like
#27

[I]Oooh Death, oooh Deeeath. Won’t you wait to call me another yeeear.[/I]

[B][URL=“https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1u84tbYgbOA”]Zodi Plays: Call of Juarez Gunslinger [14] [FINALE] Last Call For Bob Bryant[/URL][/B]

[B]Video Length: 26:22[/B]
[B]
Note: Definitely watch the video first on this one! There’s a specific part in this write up where I do get into the ending and the game’s themes so you can read up to there but definitely watch the video before reading any of this![/B]

Silas is just about done his story. Dwight expresses some sadness at us him never having found Bob, but Greaves reassures him that he had one more chance. One more shot at finding Roscoe Bob Bryant. You see, as the story goes (aka: in the real world) The Sundance Kid and Butch Cassidy found themselves surrounded by the Bolivian militia after palling around over there to escape the law. The two, faced with an insurmountable force, went down swinging. Rumours pursuit that one of the two actually survived, but that is highly unlikely. But according to Silas, the two actually both escaped, and ended up in an old ghost town on the look out for old treasure they buried. And there’s where Silas met them, an old man hunting after them. As we make our way to the ghost town we have a few encounters with the gang members that remained with Butch and the Kid, easily dispatching them…until a stick of dynamite goes off too close to us and takes us out, and they leave us for dead.

After waking up, Silas…has a bit of a time. He fights the literal ghosts of his past, in a beautiful (and very difficult to play!) set piece. The translucent bodies of those that he killed or wronged appearing from the aether, hard to see unless we use our precious concentration ability. Silas fights his way past the dead to the ghost town’s graveyard, where he’s surrounded on all sides by the people he killed in his unending quest for vengeance. He brings them all down, while the people listening to this story starting wondering [I]what the hell is wrong with this old man[/I]? The reactions from the crowd are fantastic, Jack taking this as a sign that he was right, Silas is just a damaged old man hungry for booze and drunk off his ass. Steve seems sympathetic, a member of his family has brain damage so he kinda gets it. Dwight and Molly are the only ones with any actual concern, which makes sense. And of course the bartender, Ben…he’s just listening.

Finally, out from the mists comes the Sundance Kid! This foe is a good deal fleshier than the spirits we filled with lead, and Silas finds himself back in reality, having a brutal gunfight. We manage to take him out, and from the mists comes the second target of ours, Butch Cassidy. But…it seems we’ve only given Sundance a flesh wound. He gets up, and the three of us lock eyes. Sundance and Butch argue about treasure, love, and how after all this time their perfect friendship has to break here, but it has to be done. I like to imagine that Silas just spent this entire segment shouting “Where is Bob Bryant!” and they just completely ignored him. And then, the three men…begin to draw.

This is, effectively, the final boss of the game. A quick draw, but not against one opponent. Against two others. A Mexican Stand Off. The mechanics for this are tricky. You can only gain focus while locking eyes with someone, and if the person who draws first isn’t in your line of sight you will just get your head blown clean off. You need to switch constantly, juggling the speed of your drawing, the focus of your aiming, AND who you’re aiming at. This is, understandably, VERY hard to master and may of took me like 12 attempts to get right? It’s really tough, and a suitable challenge to end this game on. Two gunshots ring out, Butch and the Kid fall. All that remains is Silas Greaves. [B]And it is here I’m going to spoil the ending, so watch the video first yo!
[/B]

[details=Summary]Jack explodes. Everyone knows Sundance and Butch died in Bolivia. This story is bullshit and we’ve been wasting their time since we got here. Ben asks if we ever found Bob, and Jack insists that there’s never been a Bob, and we aint Silas Greaves! Dwight asks us if we’ve been lying, and Silas just answers “well, not the whole time”. Jack says it’s high time Silas left, and Greaves agrees. But first…it’s time to pay. He puts a single spanish coin on the table and tells Ben…or should I say, Bob, that the past always has a way of catching up with you eventually. Bob drops his mug, and begins to beg. He was a different man back then, and if he could turn back time he would. But you can’t, Bob.

It is here we reach the crux of this game. The entire time, Silas has been telling us this story. This story of how he and his brothers were killed because of him simply being good at poker, by three assholes. Assholes that never really did much crime compared to the endless sea of bodies Silas just described to us. Assholes who reality was not very kind to. Johnny Ringo likely committed suicide, Jim Reed was the first husband of a famous prostitute and died without ever making more for himself than that fact, and the real Roscoe Bob Bryant has only two facts I can give you about him. He certainly existed, and he died long before Silas could ever find him. So here we are, at a choice. A choice Silas himself has been mulling over for this entire story. He came here suspecting Bob would be in the bar, but it wasn’t until our return to Gray Wolf’s mountain in his retelling that he “got it”. That is when he figured it out. That is why he started singing, because not only did he realize he found Bob…he also realized that Bob was a better man now. But does that take away what he did to him? And will killing him take away what he’s done to the world? Silas thought long and hard about this, and there’s really only one answer…

Silas throws Bob a gun and demands to fight. The other patrons scatter, getting out of the way. Bob is a retired gunslinger and pushing 70. Silas is about as old, but he’s still in practice. The two have a quickdraw, one that is nigh unlosable. Bob dies, as a traumatized Dwight Eisenhower looks on. No one stands in his way as Silas leaves, his soul spent. Thus is the tale of the Gunslinger.

At least…that’s how you might expect it to go. But as they say truth is always stranger than fiction.

For me at least, this choice is…pretty obvious. This entire game shows us just how broken Silas is as a man tormented endlessly by the need for revenge, and the pain that this revenge brings him. The suffering he’s caused is far greater than his targets have ever done. Throughout the game Silas has killed his way through lawmen, both corrupt and not. Native American’s that rebelled against the country, and those that just wanted to leave the reservation. Men who were stone cold killers and robbers, and men who just kind of stood next to those same people. He’s killed brothers, fathers, sons, all in a quest to get revenge for…exactly that. Gray Wolf, one of the only targets he couldn’t kill, warned him that this path would destroy his soul. In this final moment, Silas has a choice. Fully kill himself by killing Bob…or finally find redemption. There really is only one answer…

Bob begs for forgiveness. He wants to know why Silas did this, all of it. He explains that…he wasn’t entirely sure it was him, and this was all a test to see if Bob had turned over a new leaf. And in the end…he had. They both walked a path of murder, and while Silas came out unable to recognize himself, Bob found a true peace. Bob asks why, and the only answer Silas can give him is “do you think your life is worth sparing?”. Bob has no answer for that, and that’s Silas’ answer. He asks Dwight what he’s going to do with his life. The young boy says he’s going off to West Point soon, to join the military. Silas asks him to keep this story in mind. Don’t leave the world a darker place than when you entered it. Build up the world, don’t tear it down. Silas leaves the spanish coin on the table, repeating Bob’s words to him, and he leaves. Thus is the tale of the Gunslinger. A tale of redemption, in the starkest of odds.[/details]

So, final thoughts on the project, as the credits roll.

[details=Summary]It goes without saying, I feel, that Gunslinger is one of the best FPS experiences I’ve ever played. It’s not perfect by any means, but when it comes to this specific type of genre, this is probably one of the best I’ve ever played. The gameplay is exactly as good as it needs to be, and the story is FANTASTIC. Basically any flaws I can think of with this game have me go “ah but the story is REAL good” so I don’t even really care. This game really captures a feel for the wild west that I hadn’t seen before in a game, and the attention to detail is fantastic. Both in how it makes so many little things accurate, and how it makes so many other things clearly inaccurate on purpose as part of the narrative. The little gameplay things, like watching paths literally open for you in real time like some kind of Source filmmaker project, the way time slows so Silas can give some elaboration, and how the world changes as he narrates, how symbolic things get represented in reality through gameplay and what we’re shown. It’s breathtaking, and very few games had played so well with the idea of an unreliable narrator like this. It’s also rare to see a shooter shine because of it’s story.

And what a story. Even now, we can’t really be sure just how much of that was true. The most we know is that those three definitely did kill Silas’s brothers, and that Ben is Bob. Everything else is up in the air, even the idea that it was Sundance who told Silas Bob was in Abilene. This man described himself shooting the ghosts of his past, winning a mexican standoff, and himself being killed because he did a dumb idiot plan at a gold mine. There’s really no way to tell what is true or not, and that’s arguably the entire point because it’s not the truth, it’s the themes. Each leg of Silas’ journey, and even the order he tells it, continues to pile on the reinforcement of the themes of this game, that feeling of revenge that burns inside your heart, consuming you as it consumes the world around it. Is revenge really worth it when you become three times as bad as the person you’re hunting? What sacrifices are required to take revenge like this? And in the end it leaves us with a choice, asking the player if it’s okay to fully end your soul in pursuit of vengeance, or if you should forgive. I do, plainly, see the latter as the correct option, but it is by giving us the choice in the first place that it shows just how important forgiving him is. The reveal only here, at the end (or if like me you found his nugget, sigh) that Dwight is actually President Eisenhower is an important one to this as well, and the timing of it is perfect. In reality, President Eisenhower was well known for trying to improve the lives of others. He sent the army out to help desegregate schools that still kept that nonsense up. He was a highly skilled general, who fought his way to being one of the country’s greatest presidents. And you can see that could happen in either ending, but with a darker twist in the former vs the latter. Will he grow up to spite our murderous ways, becoming a good man to prove you can be one, or will he be inspired by Silas’s realization that revenge isn’t worth it. It’s dramatic, and it all feeds into the themes of the game. I absolutely love it.[/details]

So yeah, I really liked Gunslinger. And I’m really glad to have gotten to share it all with you. A couple people even bought this game because of me so that’s fun. This is the first thread I’ve done that is both here on GITP and also on the LP Zone, a new site that I think all of you should check out, and I think I did fairly well with it? I don’t know I’m bad at self judging like that. Anyway, I’d like to give thanks to my backers on Patreon, who I’ve gained more of since putting the finishing touches on this episode so oops on that one. That’s just an inevitible thing given how I record and edit these in advance. I’d like to give thanks to my friends for support through this, though unlike with Fire Emblem this was more a “oh man we’re having fun” type thing and not a “please help me continue through this enjoyable but unbelievably painful slog”. Of course I’d also like to thank my good friend who goes by the ‘pen name’ Grand Dad for the voice over at the start of each episode, that was clutch. And of course Shneekey the Lost for his unbelievably cool info facts about the guns used in this time period. That really helped improve this thread a lot, I think.

But with that, we put the story of Call of Juarez Gunslinger to a close. In the coming week I’m going to be uploading the bonus videos showing the last of the nuggets (plus some new voice clips I found while getting them) plus a read through of all the Nuggets, which I highly encourage watching if only for the educational value. Then we’re gonna have a bonus video showing off Arcade mode and the Quickdraw arcade challenge, and that’ll be it for ye Gunslinger. I’m hesitant to say this is my best since I think Sunshine beats it in term of comedy value and Ocarina of Time beats it in terms of technical acumen, but damn if this wasn’t a good project to go through. With that in mind, let’s have a vote on what to do next. This is a vote for the A Series, so it’ll be from the big and huge full game series playthrough options. Choose wisely folks.

[B][URL=“http://www.strawpoll.me/12597474”]Straw Poll: What Shall Zodi LP Next?[/URL][/B]

The options are as follows.

The Legend of Zelda: The next game in our big timeline list is actually indeterminate, so we’ll need another vote after this one. Suffice to say, it’s Zelda. You know what you’re in for.

Kirby: Next up on Kirby would be the second ever Kirby game, Kirby’s Adventure. Though, at request of the Patrons who want this, we’ll be playing the updated rerelease for the GBA, Nightmare in Dreamland. I will be showing off the original NES version for kicks though, don’t worry.

Kingdom Hearts: A new series added to the line up thanks to Reddish, one of my patrons, who I am singling out specifically because oh my god Kingdom Hearts. For those who don’t know, it’s a very simple and easy to understand action RPG that mixes the two most obviously gellable sources, Final Fantasy and Disney properties. This LP will also feature mini reviews of each Disney Movie we come across because I’m a nerd and need an excuse to watch some good ass movies.

So, vote away! Vote ends next Friday, which is also when the final bonus video comes out imagine, that. Hope you all enjoyed, I’ll see you guys next time.

#28

Something I found out while playing New Game + was that all of the loading screens have text about what Bob was up to while Silas was tracking him and his friends down.

#29

Yup! It’s something I think I mentioned in video, and is pretty cool. An extra incentive to play then game again.

#30

It’s time for bonus time.

[B][URL=“https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JNgScF7FkQY”]Zodi Plays: Call of Juarez Gunslinger [B1] Nuggets[/URL][/B]

[B]Video Length: 46:53[/B]

So this video is REAL long, aint it? Well that’s beacuse, after then rather quick collection process of the nuggets, we then have to read through 52 cards worth of information. It’s actually some really cool stuff, mentioning some things and some people I didn’t bring up, so I do encourage watching it. That said, aside from…oh my god fucking I just realized I forgot to put in a new line I found during Old Man Clanton’s level and it’s far too late to add it in. The line in question was Silas teasing about the sniper fight against Frank James so it’s not that important but still it would of been pretty cool to show off. Oops! I do show off a new line, triggered when Silas goes trigger happy on some chickens. I hope you’re happy Cuth.

So, let’s talk about some historical facts that I missed or forgot! Is what I would say, if I hadn’t actually just forgotten everything I was going to write here except that the song “Oh Death” wouldn’t come out until many years after Silas actually sings it in universe. The actual writer of the song is unknown, and it’s been used in multiple things throughout the years due to just being a really soulful song.

Only other thing I have to say is, I like how Jesse James’ killer is the very last card before the card on Bob, which is basically not real at all, and the card for the protagonist of the first COJ game. You know you’re not a well liked person when you’re sent to the back of the line like that.

Also, just a reminder but the vote is still going. It ends this Friday so get your vote on! http://www.strawpoll.me/12597474/r

#31

It’s time…for the final update.

[B][URL=“https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RSaclr5mnCU”]Zodi Plays: Call of Juarez Gunslinger [B2] Arcade[/URL][/B]

[B]Video Length: 18:47[/B]

In this one, we take a look at the two arcade like modes for this game. The first is Arcade (fittingly enough), where we’re given a preset load out of weapons and skills out of a choice of three, and are expected to shoot our way through one of the game’s many areas in a score attack type mode. Keep that combo going and shoot to kill. It’s pretty fun, though it IS focused on the least compelling part of the game. Then we have Duel mode, which is a series of quick draws that you’re encouraged to beat honourably. This mode is actually REALLY challenging, and I’ve never gotten very far into it. It feels way less lenient than the actual story mode gun fights, and I’m scared of what the Mexican Standoff will be like at the end of it. Jeez.

But yeah that’s it, no more bonus videos, no more Gunslinger. It was a fun game and a great project, I’m glad you all enjoyed. The poll is over and the winner is Kirby, but boy if the voting wasn’t fierce! So join us next time…for a very fun game that I quite enjoy.

#32

@moderators Ooops realized I didn’t ask to archive this one to Completed yet. It wasn’t the most active but I still think it’s worth archiving as my first LP Zone LP. Everything’s up to date and stuff, and I don’t mind keeping it open for comments cause I’m always up to come back to old things I did that new people found and read through.