Reviewed: November 8, 2007
Reviewed by: Mark Smith
Publisher
Codemasters
Developer
MercurySteam Entertainment
Released: October 23, 2007
Genre: FPS
Players: 1
6
7
6
6
6.4
Supported Features:
Screenshots (Click Image for Gallery)
I’m a pretty big Clive Barker fan. Despite the lengthy list of mediocre sequels, his original masterpiece, “Hellraiser” is one of very few movies to ever actually scare me. He’s even made some creative ventures into the world of videogames as far back as 2001 with one of my favorites, “Undying”, and he was at it again a few years ago with “Demonik”, a title slated for the original Xbox, canceled, given significant coverage in the hilarious movie, “Grandma’s Boy”, and recently re-announced for next-gen.
Somewhere, between cranking out multiple movie projects and the occasional video game, Clive managed to join forces with Codemasters and MercurySteam to release Clive Barker’s Jericho just in time for Halloween. There is no doubt that Clive can spin a horrific tale from just about any subject matter, but sadly, not all great stories make great games and Jericho suffers from numerous gameplay issues that prevent this experience from reaching its fullest potential.
The setup is immaculate. A lost city appears in the desert, home of a terrible evil just waiting for somebody to release it. Naturally, the Department of Occult Warfare sends in a team that does just that. It’s quite the bloody spectacle that plays out in the opening movie and is just as scary as anything Clive has done on film. Sadly, by the time the second Jericho team is sent in; a team consisting of yourself and several other specialists, each with their own paranormal abilities, the magic, suspense and fun is lost.
Team Jericho consists of seven members to start with, each with their own special weapons and abilities…well weapons mostly, as you will have to unlock the magical attacks as you progress through the game. While it is fun to experiment with these characters at first, you will quickly realize that there is a disturbing lack of balance between the team members and it becomes all too easy to favor the two or three characters with the best abilities. Then you have the scripted moments where the game forces you to play a less-than-desirable character.
You’ll have to play the game for a bit before you even gain the ability to switch characters. Once granted, you can play around with the various powers and weapons of your team and figure out what works best for each encounter, but other issues quickly rear their ugly head and ruin any chance of tactical gameplay.
AI is horrid, and you can expect characters not under your control to offer little help to you or each other. They will die frequently and in the most annoying ways despite your limited ability to issue squad commands. You can order your team to advance, hold position, or give them destinations on the map, but almost all of these commands are unnecessary given the linear nature of the level design. I was only forced to position my team for a few pressure plate puzzles.
For the most part, the game is a linear dungeon crawl. Even outdoors, you are confined to narrow corridors and confined encounter areas (arenas). Demonic monsters charge at you in blind linear patterns negating any need for strategy or team positioning. You may as well be playing alone, perhaps choosing a playable character before each mission. Instead, you are forced to baby-sit a group of idiots that don’t know when to retreat or when to use their powers, or even aim at the target. My favorite AI blunder has to be watching my team rush toward the numerous exploding enemies and their certain death.
With all of this dying going on you might expect to be reloading your game often, but thankfully you have a couple team members who can resurrect your fallen comrades. Of course this means that you’ll often have to be playing as one of the people who has this power, and then you’ll spend most of the game running around playing medic. You certainly can’t count on the AI control to bring you back to life with any certainty.
So the game fails as a tactics/strategy title so what about as a simple shooter? Assuming you can come to grips with the defective AI of your team, you have equally moronic AI controlling the demons. The majority of the enemies will simply rush directly at you, so with a little backpedaling and some semi-accurate firepower and the occasional magical enhancement, you can take down anything in the game with relative ease. It’s almost more challenging playing the role of healer.
There are a few interesting (and fun) moments, usually when the team splits up and you get to focus on special levels or puzzles designed around your character’s abilities. Often, it seemed these parts of the game were added to force you to play weak characters you would otherwise ignore.
There are also numerous QTE moments where you must match the button prompts on the screen. I’m pretty sure every game released in 2007 is required to have these sequences and I think we are all tired of them by now so STOP IT. At least the game saves before each of these so if you fail (and you will) it just starts over until you get it right. The timing is pretty unforgiving and you almost have to memorize the sequence of buttons in advance (through failure).
Jericho is full of an overabundance of gore, but what else would you expect from anything that has Clive’s name attached to it. Some of the gore is shocking, but like most over-the-top movies, you quickly become sated and then the splashing blood and exploding heads just become humorous.
The character models are interesting, especially the numerous and creatively disgusting demons you’ll encounter. The members of Jericho look interesting despite some odd outfits. The game desperately tries to capture the tone of F.E.A.R. and fails with each attempt, visually and in gameplay.
Animation is stiff and awkward, especially for the humans. The levels are creative with detailed textures but their linear design prevents any exploration or sense of suspense at what lies around corners you can never reach. The game is also exceeding dark, which I’m guessing is supposed to make the game scary, but it serves to annoy more than frighten. The red-out effect when you die and are awaiting resurrection should have been cooler considering how often you’ll see it.
There are some interesting special effects. The opening dust tornado that is swirling around the city ruins is stunning, and there are excellent effects for many of the special paranormal abilities of your team, but how many times can you slow down time before it all starts to look the same.
Jericho offers up an interesting story but is tainted by a below-average performance by nearly the entire cast of voice actors. It just seemed that most of the dialogue was phoned in with no real emotion or attachment to the story or events that were supposed to be happening while you listen to it.
For as many weapons as there are in this game you would expect at least one or two of them to sound cool, but weapons’ fire was weak, uninspired and repetitive. At least there was some nice 3D surround and environmental effects to recreate reverb, but the overall sound experience was far below what we have been seeing with other major next-gen titles.
The soundtrack was suitable creepy with a bit of score but mostly environmental noises to enhance to mood. It reminded me a bit of DOOM and QUAKE music; that subconscious stuff that you feel more than you hear. It probably did more to create a sense of discomfort than the visuals or gameplay.
The story mode is on the short side, clocking in at less than 8 hours for most gamers. There is no multiplayer and no real reason to replay the game after you finish it the first time. It might make for a decent weekend rental if you have nothing better to play and are looking for a mild fright, but I can think of a dozen movies that would serve the same purpose and prove far less frustrating.
There are 42 Achievements, most all dealing with killing a certain number of enemies in a specific way or with specific weapons. There are also the standard points for completing chapters on various difficulty settings. Just play it on the hardest setting to get them all and you won’t be tempted to replay.
Clive Barker’s Jericho will likely appeal to a certain group of gamers just from the implied pedigree, but the truth is that the uninspired gameplay, linear levels, horrid AI, and merely average presentation values keep this game from ever gripping you like any of Clive’s movies.
Sure, you get sucked in by the opening cinematic and even the opening level, but the experience quickly deflates and so will your desire to even finish the story, which is a shame because there is a pretty interesting story lurking beneath this lackluster game. Stick with games like F.E.A.R. and The Darkness if you want a truly fun and frightening experience.