I really enjoyed Call of Juarez: Bound in Blood, the second in the Juarez series and set in the old Wild West, it was a game that made the era cool long before Red Dead Redemption turned everyone and their sister into a gunslinger. The Cartel brings the action right up to date and the grizzled Detective Ben McCall (a man with a face like an old leather football, presumably a descendant of the McCalls from BiB) is the only connection to the previous games. The first thing I noticed about The Cartel was how weird the sound was – in the intro section of the game it sounds a bit like the entire soundtrack was recorded off the TV, it has a hollow, resonant sound, that may have been added for atmosphere, but doesn’t work, it just sounds cheap. The other thing is some awful frame rate jitters, horizontal tearing, pop-up and non-existent lip synch in the introductory cut-scenes-none of which are fatal, but they don’t exactly fill you with confidence for the game to come. First impressions and all that-it’s not a good start. The sound does improve, but sadly the graphical glitches and tearing remain throughout.

The Cartel has a few extra gimmicks to add to the mix in “Concentration” Mode which builds up as you kill enemies so when the gauge in the top left of the screen is full you get a short period of slo-mo Max Payne-style bullet time to deal out extra damage, this is mapped to ‘left’ on the D-pad for some reason. The second, “Akimbo,” is just the ability to dual-wield certain weapons. The third, “Team Cover” is simply the chance to move to cover when your AI partners lay down covering fire. The fourth is “Team Entry” which simulates the three Agents bursting into a room at which point they all have a few seconds of bullet time to surprise the enemy and get the jump on them, but this is used so often that it becomes a rather tired game mechanic, much like the flanking does in the Brothers in Arms games...

Some examples of the things that I would call ‘problems’: There is a cut-scene where you are chasing a bad guy onto the central reservation of a freeway, the cars zoom by but disappear just too soon and then the bad guy you’re chasing vanishes right in front of you as the cut scene starts. In a tunnel maze you walk by your two AI partners only to see them appear 20 yards further down the tunnel! Another thing that sometimes happens is that there are white dot markers you follow that keep you on track in levels, and some trigger cut-scenes as you reach them, so your two partners will just vanish before your eyes and appear at the next marker on the map! On one mission I missed searching a bedroom in a crackhouse den, had no idea what to do next so went right back to the SUV hundreds of yards away to see if I’d missed something on the way to the house, and I was impressed that the game had given me so much freedom for a change (doors frequently slam behind you so you can’t retrace your steps). I hadn’t missed anything at the start so returned to the house, which respawned all the bad guys like I’d never been there!

TC has a lot of explosions that look suitably violent and spectacular, and also has a lot of destructible scenery, (walls, crates, pillars, cars, glass etc) which is a good thing, but when enemies frequently glitch through objects before they’ve been blown away then that’s bad thing. Enemies also occasionally glitch into other scenery which obviously makes them even harder to spot and hit. The game feels, frankly like it’s at its Beta test stage, and that’s no exaggeration, we’ve played plenty of Beta code that had less technical problems.

Further on the subject of speech, the main character, Ben, has a few different sayings when he enters concentration mode but one of them actually becomes painful to hear: “I will make mine arrows drunk with blood, and my sword shall devour flesh, and I will bathe in the blood of my motherf*cking enemies”... I presume this and the couple of other pseudo-religious rants that Ben comes out with were supposed to sound cool, a bit like Samuel L. Jackson’s “And I will strike down upon thee with great vengeance and furious anger” speech from Pulp Fiction, but they aren’t, they just make him sound like an asshole religious nut, and depending on how often you use “Concentration” it soon gets overused and frankly, embarrassing. Whichever character you use there’s far more profanity than necessary and much of the other dialogue is silly or madly OTT too, and some seems multipurpose as the character you’re playing as will sometimes say something they just shouldn’t have said (they’ll sometimes give themselves driving directions when they’re driving!) The soundtrack is rather good and very hummable Western-type music, but the repetitious, OTT dialogue kinda spoils even that.

Here's another thing, during play I unlocked a Uplay award or four, so logging into Uplay (it's Ubisoft’s very own, seemingly pointless Achievement/Trophy reward server that could just as easily be part of Xbox Live or PSN), I was greeted with this message: “An internal error occurred. Please try again in a few moments”... Not being sure how long a Ubisoft ‘moment’ lasts, I tried again the next day, only to get the same message. Eventually I Googled (there are other search engines available) the problem only to find that, despite the fact that I’ve been signed up to Uplay since Assassin’s Creed 2 it wouldn’t let me log in because I hadn’t updated my details. Now correct me if I’m wrong but this isn’t “an internal error”, an internal error suggest their server is experiencing problems and it’s their fault. Why couldn’t Uplay simply ask me to update my details? Anyway, logging in to Ubi.com and updating my profile solved the problem, but you have to do this on a PC and can't do it from the 360 which could be a pain for some.

After a dodgy start sound-wise I also found that some sound effects are missing altogether and sometimes when Ben takes damage (if he walks near fire for instance) he makes a pained yowling noise clearly done by a different voice actor. The most annoying thing is probably the fact that a decent damage indicator “red-out” effect (certainly better than CoD’s) is spoiled by the fact that taking damage increasingly muffles the sound, so because you’re injured you may miss plot dialogue. This could explain why the story made little or no sense to me the first time through, the only thing I got was that each character seems to be trying to screw the others over and Eddie has a gambling problem. When you play the campaign through for a second and/or third time (should you be so inclined) you learn the others’ sides of the story and it all starts to make sense.

As you’ll have gathered from the screenshots the game actually isn’t bad looking, but Techland’s own Chrome Engine, even with its latest 5th version just can’t handle all of the scenery, and as soon as you move or rotate your view at any pace things start to glitch. The very first level, set in the Sequoia National Park, highlights this as what should have been beautiful vistas are fogged worse than Victorian London, and while it still manages to be pleasing to the eye the pop-up and tearing spoils the overall look terribly.

But you know, everyone who plays or watches the game likes parts of it, and recognises that it has some exciting moments and had huge potential. The most confusing thing about TC is that the gameworld looks suitably large and begs to be explored, but it never lets you for some reason. It is a pity they present you with this seemingly open play area, which is much better than having false-looking barriers or invisible walls everywhere, but then penalise you if you wander too far from your objective. You get a short warning that “You are about to leave mission area! Go back!” - Which is a real problem if you’re running or driving fast, as it’s probably Boom! - loading screen and you’re back to the last checkpoint.. This is, of course, very bad, and the QA testers should have made the designers change this very early on.

There are two multiplayer modes; a straightforward Cops vs. Crooks team deathmatch game, and a missions mode that sets objectives within the game like the cops having to defend a bank, a jewellery store or a Judge’s residence from the robbers team, or maybe try and defuse a bomb in a witness’s car. There are 3 default classes and ranking up (your campaign rank doesn’t carry over) earns you new weapons and perks like body armour. Sticking close to your partner boosts your abilities and you can also raise your partner when they’re downed. Most objectives seem very hard to accomplish, as everyone just runs around shooting each other-like most objective-based games it’s a nice idea, but requires some communication and co-ordination to succeed in, and when I was playing there was precious little of either. The multiplayer game plays well with few signs of lag, but I don’t believe that yet another multiplayer mode is why most people buy a Call of Juarez game.

A highlight of The Cartel is the shootout in the Eldorado nightclub, which is probably the most impressive part of the entire game visually, if only for the vast number of clubbers all dancing their butts off while you chase down yet more bad guys in the strobe lights. Presumably the strobing helps hide the glitching and tearing. There are a few other spectacular set pieces too, but there are far too many glitches in between them.

I’m absolutely amazed that Techland allowed the latest episode of their best-known franchise go on sale in this state. Call of Juarez: The Cartel is another one of those games “that’ll be good when it’s finished” – sadly it never will be. Techland must have shifted their focus to a certain other project (Dead Island), a highly anticipated title that a lot of us had on our pre-order lists but will feel ambivalent about now. If The Cartel had emotions it must feel like the older sibling when the new baby arrives; unloved, usurped and neglected. To end on a bright note; the co-op mode gives you a rare opportunity to play the entire game through with a couple of mates, and a lengthy campaign of 15 chapters means the game has a decent lifespan, and if you can tolerate the glitches you’ll probably play it through three times to see the whole story.