Clive Barker’s Jericho
- All-action FPS combined with darkest horror, modern weapons & paranormal powers
- Squad gameplay that adds tension and action and switch between & play all seven squad members
- Control over a dozen supernatural weapons and abilities at a time through squad mechanics
- Each character has unique paranormal abilities
- Horror and action like nothing you've seen before
Description
A spectacular, creative, and unflinching realisation of a Clive Barker nightmare for next-gen console platforms and PC, Clive Barker's Jericho is a new supernatural horror concept with story by the master mythmaker, novelist and filmmaker Clive Barker. Jericho deals with the mysterious reappearance of a lost city in a remote desert. When a form of evil that goes right back to the dawn of days resurfaces from there, a Special Forces squad, trained in both conventional warfare and the arcane arts, is sent in. Their mission: Hunt down and destroy the evil that lurks at the heart of the city before it destroys humanity. Clive Barker's Jericho is designed as an action horror title that will up the stakes in visuals and phantasmagorical special effects. Mingling the darkest elements of Barker's horror fiction and films with an ambitious, age-spanning story, aimed at mature gamers, fans of Clive Barker and horror fiction enthusiasts.... Click Here For More Info >>
I don’t understand why this game received negative reviews from IGN and a few other so-called Game critics, but Clive Barker’s Jericho manages to live up to it’s expectations. I find the plot and concept more interesting than that other FPS game FEAR as you command a supernatural squad to prevent the antagonist; The Firstborn from ressurection and taking over the world while using various powers to solve puzzles, take down enemies, that cannot be beaten with regular firepower.
Each charater has his/her own supernatural abilities: Father Rawlings can drain the health of enimes and channel it to his teammates, Delgado emits a homing fireblast for close encounters,The telekinetic Black’s sninper rifle fires rounds that you can control in first person perspective, etc..
After playing for 40 minutes, it’s hard to put this game down.With intense firefighting an intriging story aimed directly at horror fans and awesome graphics bump Jericho up a notch or two. It would have gotten a 5 star rating if there were a multiplayer option or even a much better ending.
The critcs got it WRONG, period!(especially EGM in particular.) Jericho was well worth the purchase, unlike The nausea inducing Darkness shooter game. However with more innovate FPS shooters like Bioshock and now Jericho, It’s gonna be awhile before this genre goes away.
PS the game is even better while playing the song “Break the walls down” (via Xbox 360′s custom soundtrack)courtesy of Nu Metal band Sevendust.
crank the speakers and annoy the neighbors.
Rating: 4 / 5
I can see what happened with this game. The hype was so big before it came out that it destroyed it. While Jericho is far from perfect, it’s received far too much bashing for a game that’s pretty decent. The atmosphere is creepy and unsettling. The storyline is unique and intriguing and also ties in well with the gameplay aspects which was a pleasant surprise. Probably the best aspect I can say about this game is the intuitive gameplay. You have 6 squad members and you can switch back and forth between them (which ties into the storyline I might add, which I thought was really neat). Each member is very unique, sporting different weapons and different special powers. Usually in games like this, I find the 1 or 2 guys I’m best with and go through the entire game but Jericho greatly encourages you to use everyone and I found everyone (and their powers) to be useful throughout the game. Jericho further encourages this behavior by starting you out with different characters after every cut scene and instead of immediately switching over to my favorites, I felt more inclined to stick with who they’d give me for a while. Jericho gives every squad member their chance to be uniquely better to handle certain enemies and situations. It also helped to freshen up the sometimes monotonous gameplay. The squad itself was well developed. They act and talk to each other like a squad and the character development was surprisingly solid which is a rarity for an FPS. I also want to point out that the boss battles were all pretty awesome! I enjoyed them all and there are quite a few and man do they look messed up!
Jericho does have its flaws though. For one, the gameplay pretty much consists of killing wave after wave of enemies, move along, then repeat. This can get old if you don’t change it up and switch between squad members. Second, there weren’t a lot of different enemies to fight. Probably 10-15 different types of enemies throughout the entire game. I WILL say though, the method of killing these enemies can differ greatly and many times, shooting isn’t your best option. Another thing I didn’t like, there’s not a good cover mechanic. You can duck but it doesn’t do a whole lot of good. It’s hard to get good cover from the enemies shooting at you. This becomes less of an issue later in the game but it’s a killer for the first part. I can’t help but wonder if this game would’ve been better using a third-person system like “Gears of War” instead of first-person. Not only could you use cover, but since you have characters who depend a lot on melee attacks, and button pressing sequences (God of War style), third-person probably would have played and looked a lot better.
PROS:
Intuitive gameplay
Captivating storyline
Good character development
Creepy Atmosphere
Good voice acting
Fun and grotesque bosses
CONS:
Sometimes monotonous gameplay
No good cover mechanic
Not a lot of variety of enemies
Bottom Line: This game got unfairly skewered when it came out. While it’s not a classic by any means, I’m glad I ignored a lot of the negative backlash it got and enjoyed playing it. I DO think it has the potential to become a revolutionary game with its innovative gameplay but I’m afraid with all the negative reviews surrounding it, it’ll never get its chance to work out the kinks in a sequel.
SIDENOTE: I see a lot of reviews complaining about their squad dying a lot and them having to constantly heal everyone. When I first started playing, I can honestly say it was happening to me as well but as I continued to play I realized it started happening less and less. By the third mission it wasn’t happening at all. The key was learning how to play it and play with the different characters and learning how to kill different enemies efficiently. I can see how learning by trial and error might annoy some but the point is, the game doesn’t have to play this way. The AI is not dumb. They DO find cover, they run from explosives, they use their powers, they shoot at immediate threats and Rawlings goes out of his way to help heal everyone. You just have to learn how to play. It just doesn’t hold your hand through some lame tutorial and tell you the best way to kill everything. Change it up. Use different characters, different powers, and different weapons. Even if something seems to work fairly well, there’s usually something that works even better.
Rating: 3 / 5
Full of suspense. The score ( meaning music) in the game is perfect. It adds so much to the environment. The stages are beautifully designed. The story is mysterious, just like silent hill 1 and 2. what also adds to the game is, you get too play with 6 characters. And believe me you need them. All the characters have their own special powers, which you need to use to get through the stages. I just love the whole midevil period with old orchestra music so dam, whoo gives me the creeps. Bottom line is forget about all the negative feedback and reviews from ign and all those other jackie’s. This game is a good experience like bioshock. If you don’t try it, your missing out on a great game.
Rating: 5 / 5
Jericho sports wonderful graphics, a decent storyline and some sick, sick thinking, all of which I like. This is offset by the horrible linearity of the game, which destroys suspension of disbelief and the ability to lose myself in the story.
If I want linearity, I can read a novel. Video games are supposed to offer choices – that is why people play them. A video game should not herd you from location to location, but Jericho does. I found the feature where you switch between characters fun for about two minutes, and then it became irritating as I was herded into doing so multiple times. Again – the game was making the choices instead of me. That’s bad design, in my opinion.
Finally, I was extremely disgusted to see the reemergence of a horrible programming technique from the SuperNintendo days – being forced to play little games where you tap a series of buttons and die over and over in a loop until you get them right. For instance, a corpse suddenly rises out of the ground and grabs you. Tap A to punch it in the face. Now Tap B to push it away. Tap Y to kick it in the crotch. Quick! Tap B again to smash its head with your hammer. You get the idea. Boring.
Bottom line – I cannot stomach being herded from point to point despite the interesting storyline. I’ll never finish this game. Four hours into it, I’ve grown bored of tapping various button combinations in response to prompts on the screen and running down pathways that don’t branch at all.
Rating: 2 / 5
This game is excellent, one of my all-time favorites so far on the 360. (I mean to give it five stars all around, but me buttons ain’t workin’ correctly, argh.) Ok, there are flaws–what game doesn’t have major flaws? All the games I would give 5 stars to have some serious limitations and flaws. But this game is still a ton of fun–it’s like a comic-book paranormal super team a-la Hellboy/B.P.R.D. fell into the world of Quake/Doom.
The 6-person squad you play with is great–not only is each character completely unique, but they interact with each other and have a nice repartee. Using the various members of the squad, you can really have a diverse experience. For example, I was well into the game before I realized how effective the female character with the sword and “blood magic” power, named Church, could be. After I played with her and found out, I ended up using her heavily– and I had already logged numerous hours of gameplay having never used her at all! That’s just one example of how this game sets itself apart and provides a unique experience.
The action is just ridiculously intense–wave after wave of very tough monsters and crossfire from your crew run by the A.I. create a huge ruckus that you really need to stay sharp through to survive. Switching from character to character is a must. I died FREQUENTLY–this game is challenging, not a cakewalk.
The graphics, and more specifically, the art direction, “sets”, “costumes” and character designs, monsters, textures, etc., are all right up there with the best I’ve ever seen: creepy, gory, huge in scale, and just pure fun to look at. Soaking up the atmosphere (sometimes illuminated solely by your flashlight!) is definitely part of the enjoyment of this game. The music is wonderful, with a lot of variety, from creepy drones to ethnic sounds to symphonic to choral, etc.
Ok, the gameplay isn’t as tight as Gears–there’s no cover system, and the large-scale combat gets more muddy and chaotic than in Gears. The squad commands aren’t anywhere near the level of Rainbow Six–basically you can just say “go there” or “stay here”–and your squad will die, a lot. The actual powers and the way they work aren’t as sophisticated (and can’t be deployed as effectively) as in Mass Effect–you can’t direct the squad to use their powers, only the character you are presently controlling. And there are some really stupid button-sequence moments (mercifully not too many, and spaced far apart)…and yes, the very end does actually suck.
BUT!-BUT!-BUT!! the fact that this game rolls so many different characters, abilities, weapons, and whatnot into one experience, plus the buck wild combat, plus the unique setting and amazing art direction, makes it a very strong all-around experience. Did I mention amazing boss battles?
I see a reviewer complain of linearity. Ok, but non-linear games are out there, they are a specific category of game, you can stick to those if you want! Just because this doesn’t play like Oblivion, doesn’t mean it doesn’t have a place. I actually like the sturcture of the game–it keeps it intense and fast-paced.
I also feel Jericho has nice re-play value based on the fact that you can use the characters differently each time through. And hey, the price is a complete joke, as well. Superb!
Rating: 5 / 5