The two brothers McCall, devil's disciples and die-hard rebels, live through the Civil War and celebrate by causing lasso-related ruckus, with some gold and women thrown in for good measure. You don't want your ladies bedding down with Yankee dogs, do you? Then saddle up, cowboy!

Call of Juarez: Bound in Blood is a prequel to Call of Juarez, released in 2007. This time around, you’ll choose between playing as Reverend Ray in the days before he dons the collar and his brother Thomas, Billy Candle’s step-father from the first game. Like Call of Juarez the first, there's another preacher in this one. Your third brother William, a mini-reverend a la There Will be Blood, whines about redemption and the Lord throughout many cut-scenes. And yet, he allows his brothers to cause all sorts of mayhem and foolishness while he cowers, unwisely, behind wooden barrels. You didn’t think you were going to play through another Call of Juarez without being quoted to from the Bible, did you? On top of Bible School, you’ll be learning the valuable lesson of bros before hoes as Ray and Thomas fight over a gorgeous Mexican woman named Marisa. Then there’s the hunt for lost Aztec gold, fighting with Indians, and a Krazy Kolonel who just can’t accept that the South lost the war.

With all that potential for great story, it’s a shame that the writing leaves so much to be desired. It’s filled with lame one-liners like "You can't hit shit!" "Shit ain't what I'm tryin' to hit!" I hope you liked that joke, because you'll hear it at least seven more times. BiB makes Army of Two look like it was written by Shakespeare, Jesus, and pre-Soon-Yi Woody Allen.

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Call of Juarez: Bound in Blood is a very solid shooter. You'll enjoy yourself even if you didn’t like the first Call of Juarez: it has improved a lot the second time around. There are some truly unique moments, like blowing up distant rafts with a cannon before they can cross the river and entering each of the brother’s concentration modes to take out heaps of enemies at once, but BiB is mostly a standard Western shooter.

The cover system leaves a lot to be desired. You sort of automatically go into it when you sidle up to the side of a wall or a box, and you don't always have it when you want to--or should. Moving the right stick allows you to look around or above what you're hiding behind, but your field of vision is very limited. When you do finally find a suitable place for cover, your brother will often take it for himself and push you off to the side, leaving you to find a new place to hide. You can't hide behind just anything, either. It comes down to a combination of trial and error as well as memorizing which variety of brown box littering the landscape (and there are many) allows you to enter the cover system.

You’ll find yourself automatically memorizing these brown boxes, because the landscape is almost as boring as the landscape in Red Faction: Guerrilla. Everything is so plain and brown that it’s often hard to pick out enemies (who are, naturally, mostly clothed in brown), and since you can’t see much in cover, you’re often forced to leave cover to trace bullets’ origins and find your target.

When facing a character that is more central to the story, you’ll enter draw mode instead of just killing him off. You pace around in a circle with the left stick, keeping him in view the whole time, while you tweak the right stick to hover your hand right next to your pistol. At the sound of the bell, you must quickly snap the right stick to the left to grab your gun, and fire when you have him in your sights. It’s more difficult than it sounds to get it just right, and these moments are among the most nerve-wracking in games. After the fifth or so draw, however, you’ll get your rhythm down perfectly and the draw loses most of its appeal. This feature would have been much more appreciated as a rare treat rather than a semi-regular occurrence.

The version I played, which was a final review build, did have some glitches; some were so serious that they ended my game more than once. Others were just annoying. Shooting an enemy five hundred times in the head before they are scheduled to die (for example, if you must meet him in a draw to progress the story) and not being able to kill them is frustrating. Not being able to mount certain horses for no reason other than they are other peoples’ property distracts from the free-wheeling, Wild West spirit of the game. When politeness dictates I can blow up a chicken with dynamite but must leave a goat unharmed, BiB starts feeling a lot more like the Tame, Tame East.

There is plenty of replayability and value here, unlike the first game. You can play the entire game over as a different brother and get an experience that’s mostly new. Ray is the strong brother and can wield two pistols at the same time, throw dynamite, and carry a gatling gun. Thomas is the agile brother who can scale buildings using a lasso (which you, unfortunately, cannot use against enemies), throw knives, and shoot a rifle with nearly-perfect aim. The difference in play between the brothers combined with their often taking separate paths in levels means that a second playthrough is something I’m anticipating.

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