We haven’t been able to bring ourselves to this point. Call of Juarez Appreciation Week was a magical time when we were all able to come together in our common hatred of one horrible game. For one golden week I didn’t bait Mike about his love of Shenmue and he didn’t point out I was a fussy bitch. Our other Mike, Mike Gallagher, accepted his new moniker of Diet Mike without incident. Of course, he wasn’t around when our resident Mike came up with it.

In all fairness, I shouldn’t tease about Shenmue. After all, it gives the wrong impression that Mike is some animu piece of shit who wishes he was Japanese. Fact is, he’s not. I have this theory that Mike just doesn’t like videogames.

Just try to follow for a moment. I think what Mike enjoys is interactive experiences. Not in a shitty buzzword way, but in a way where you can look through two hundred sock drawers when the action of looking through them is never, ever useful. It’s not that the sight of a single texture derived from a photograph of real socks pleases him; they just need to be there.

Most of us would be happy with the fact that Shenmue includes Space Harrier and never ever play the rest of the game. Mike enjoys this too, but I’m guessing that it’s more about the fact that you actually have to go to your character’s living room, take out the virtual Saturn from beneath the television, and use the semi-crappy Dreamcast controller as if it were a full-on shitty Saturn controller as you play the game.

I am reasonably certain that if there was a game that simulated putting on your pants with a bonus round involving mittens, Mike would be up in that shit like a leper at an artificial limb factory.

Then again, I play mahjong for entertainment, so this is in no way an insult against Mike. We’re pretty much equally unreasonable and bitter.

So Call of Juarez Appreciation Week had to end, and in its place was the usual arguing with Diet Mike that UFC is so damn gay that just being near people who like it more than boxing makes me feel like my reasonably large phallus is missing. In its place, we returned to the usual office pranks, such as Mike logging into my Facebook account and sending a glob profile ad claiming that this was me:

We were upset. The Christmas morning magic was gone. Call of Juarez: Bound in Blood failed to be as epically shitty as the first game and just kind of stunk. Sure, the press will tell you it’s a decent shooter. Mike pointed as much out to me when I was bitching about it. But since when has adequacy pushed the gaming experience ™ forward? It’s a decent shooter the same way Duke Nukem is. You point your gun at people, you shoot them, and when you do this enough you get the special attack mode, here called “concentration”. Each brother you play is said to have a distinctive play style, but it’s mostly just a variation on the same concentration mode and weapon restrictions.

It’s plain. If you’re okay spending sixty bucks on that, cool. The end.

Well, there is one thing we can drag through the mud. Showdowns! Okay, so there was a pretty cool addition in that you had to stalk left or right to keep your opponent in view, waiting for that moment when the bell sounded and you went for your irons. That’s the ONLY good thing here.

Your hand is about a foot and a half away from your gun. The right stick will bring it closer. If you don’t keep it there, delicately balanced over your gun, it’ll drift back to the default position. Kind of stupid, okay. What’s really pissing itself and screaming “I LIKE BACONS!” is the fact that if you press too far in toward the gun, your hand will give you a scolding waggling finger as it returns to the default position in a fixed animation you can’t interrupt.

Even when it’s time to draw. “Sorry, have to let him shoot me, I’m busy scolding myself.”

At the later levels, this can lead to some frustration as your opponents draw their guns VERY quickly. And you’ll get challenged to a duel by every fucking two-bit retard in a duster and ten gallon hat who has a single unique line of dialog in the game. But it comes to a head in the final confrontation. The dude draws so fast, you have to have your hand as close to your gun as the game logic allows, you have to draw it the moment the bell sounds, and you have to hit with the first shot. This all has to be done flawlessly or you will die.

And then you hit the loading screen. And then you wait. And then you start the duel again. And then you wait again because each and every time you just have to hear the epic fucking build-up music that lets you know this is so goddamn epic that you should be impressed, presumably the dozenth time you hear it.

Also, those cutscenes? It really helps the suspension of disbelief when each and every scene lets you know that you can skip it by pressing the start button. I think we can figure that out. You don’t need it there the whole time.

Guys? Stop fucking each other and listen to me!