A few years back, a great game hit
PCs that blended first-person action with some truly chilling horror elements.
Clive Barker’s Undying was a smash with the critics, but unfortunately didn’t
sell too terribly well. Regardless of that game’s success (or lack thereof),
master of horror Clive Barker is getting back into video games with his latest
game. Clive Barker’s Jericho doesn’t do things the same way as Undying,
foregoing the Half-Life styled storytelling for a more accessible,
console-oriented action-driven experience. However, that’s not to say that
Jericho doesn’t have some truly frightening moments, since it most definitely
does. The end result is a noticeably more of a mainstream experience, but a very
solid shooter nonetheless.
Jericho puts you in control of the
leader of an elite group of supernatural commandos known as Jericho squad. Each
member of the covert group has their own unique abilities within the realm of
the supernatural, including a pyromancer, a Blood mage, and a telekinetic sniper
capable of guiding his rounds in mid-air. They are investigating a hidden city
and searching for a man who went searching for the Firstborn, a particularly
nasty being created by God before humanity. Once in the city, they take on a ton
of nasties from all time periods in order to defeat the lingering evil once and
for all.
In Jericho, you begin as the leader
of the squad, but events transpire, and you end up controlling all of the squad
members at roughly the same time. You’ll be switching control between all of the
members of Jericho on the fly, taking advantage of their unique weapons and
special abilities. Using your team members, you’ll be able to summon health and
ammo or use the aforementioned pyromancer or telekinetic sniping skills.
Aside from special abilities, you’ll
need to switch between your squadmates in order to change your weapons. They
have the standard arsenal that you’d expect, from miniguns and SMGs to sniper
rifles. The teammate switching mechanic requires you to change on the fly for
different weapon/ability combos, and is an interesting and unique approach to
the shooter genre.
Whichever characters you’re not
controlling will be picked up by the game’s AI. Instead of placidly standing
around while you do all the work, the AI will actually doing a fine job of
helping out, proactively killing enemies an healing teammates as well as taking
rudimentary squad commands.
However, Jericho isn’t without some
problems. While there are some legitimately frightening moments and situations,
the game lacks the overall visceral sense of dread as the game’s predecessor, or
even other games in the horror genre like Resident Evil 4 or Silent Hill for
that matter. Whereas those games would offer more of a psychological terror,
Jericho is much more of a dark and overtly creepy action game, and loses a bit
in that.
Graphically, the game looks pretty
good, benefiting from Clive Barker’s twisted influence. The enemies are some of
the creepiest you’ll find in a game this year. The game makes liberal use of
bloom lighting, as all of the character models seem to have sheen about them.
The whole experience is also extremely dark, and it can be extremely hard to see
where you’re going throughout most of the game. The levels seem to rely
extremely heavily on the flashlight, but still stay very dark and hard to see.
The sound is great, with a chilling
score that fits well within the game’s overall mood and fantastic ambient noise
that, depending on whether or not you have the right kind of 5.1 surround sound
system, will come from every direction to scare the crap out of you.
Clive Barker’s Jericho is a good
shooter with some truly frightening situations and enemies, as you’d expect from
the mind of Clive Barker. However, the game’s mechanics are somewhat mainstream
when compared to its more frightening and well-designed predecessor, Undying.
Still, Jericho offers up some very unique mechanics to the FPS genre, and should
be a worthy purchase for gamers looking for some true chills this Halloween.
Review Scoring Details for Clive Barker’s Jericho |
Gameplay: 8.0
With creepy enemies and a variety of weapons and abilities at your disposal,
Jericho can be a frightening game at times. The character-switching mechanics
are a great touch and keep things flowing nicely in a firefight. The boss
battles can be pretty intense, and the game’s sense of atmosphere is great.
There are a few sore spots, however, as the overall experience can feel a little
repetitive and shallow at times, and the context-sensitive events feel a bit
juxtaposed.
Graphics: 8.5
The game looks pretty good, benefiting from the Mercury’s own engine and Clive
Barker’s frightening art style. There are some great character models and
chilling environments throughout, even though they can be way too dark at times.
Sound: 8.5
The game’s score does a great job of setting the disturbing mood, and the
ambient noise can be very harrowing.
Difficulty: Medium
Concept: 8.0
While the storyline isn’t quite as polished as other franchises from the mind of
Clive Barker (like Undying for example) and seems to have been geared towards a
more mainstream audience, the game itself has a great sense of atmosphere and
some terrifying moments.
Overall: 8.0
Clive Barker’s Jericho doesn’t provide the same degree of deep and engaging
gameplay as Undying, opting instead for a more accessible, mainstream adventure
that can be frightening at best, and repetitive at worst. Still, the game has no
shortage of action and intensity.
