Reviewed: December 2, 2007
Reviewed by: Jown Bowlin
Publisher
Codemasters
Developer
MercurySteam Entertainment
Released: October 23, 2007
Genre: FPS
Players: 1
5
7
7
6
6.3
Supported Features:
Screenshots (Click Image for Gallery)
When I read that there was going to be a new Clive Barker first person shooter, I got really excited. After all, the last game we got from that lunatic mind (the movie horror master responsible for Hellraiser, for those who have been living in a cave) was the deliciously scary Clive Barker's Undying, a PC first person shooter back in 2001.
The new game, Clive Barker's Jericho, is developed by a little-known developer from Spain called Mercury Steam Entertainment, who's only other claim to fame is the often overlooked American McGee's Scrapland. This perhaps explains away some of the design mistakes that have been made in Clive Barker's Jericho, which I will discuss later.
The back-story for Jericho is a very compelling one. Before God created mankind, he created the Firstborn, a terrible, beautiful, powerful creature, which he looked upon with loathing and considered a mistake. So he banished the Firstborn to the Abyss. Unfortunately, the Firstborn was a bit too powerful for that, and managed to make a repeat appearance to do a lot of nasty things to the little pathetic humans. But it was eventually re-defeated and re-banished. This happened five more times, throughout the course of human history. It is prophesized that on the seventh attempt, the Firstborn will either succeed in escaping its bonds from the Abyss permanently, or be finally defeated, once and for all.
This is where your team comes in, a team called Jericho, which is an elite fighting force part of an organization called the Department of Occult Warfare. This department was created during World War II to counter the occult specialists working for Nazi Germany. All the members of team Jericho are gifted with special powers to help them fight occult threats. There are, not so coincidentally if you know your Bible numbers, seven members of team Jericho, each with their own unique gifts and abilities. This is really the whole point of Clive Barker's Jericho, being able to switch to the different team members to apply the right kind of power to whichever problem you may be facing.
Team Jericho has been sent to the lost city of Al Khali, the site upon which the Firstborn was brought into the earth for the first time, and the site from which it has made six previous attempts to return to earth. This is an accursed place, the most unholy of places on the planet. Each time the Firstborn has attempted to return it adds a little bit of that era's culture to the lost city, a city lost in time.
Controls for Clive Barker's Jericho work very similar to other first person shooters on the PS3, such as Resistance: Fall of Man. The controls are pretty solid; there are no real problems with it. The game brings a few new innovations to the fps genre, which perhaps have been done similarly before but not quite the same. The biggest innovation is the seven-member team and being able to take control of any of them and use their powers directly. The team consists of the following super soldiers:
Captain Devin Ross - the leader of the team, Ross uses an assault rifle and has a healing ability that allows him to revive fallen comrades.
Sergeant Frank Delgado - the team's "heavy", Delgado carries Hell's Keeper, a 7.62 caliber mini-gun, and a backup pistol. He is also a pyromancer, with the ability to release a flame spirit that can incinerate nearby enemies. He can also generate a fire barrier around him to protect himself from damage.
Corporal Simone Cole - her gun is an assault rifle with scanning feature to identify hidden enemies and vulnerable points. She also has a grenade launcher with four different types of explosives. Her real ability however is reality hacking; she can loop time and slow down the world around the team leaving them able to continue to react normally. She can also intensify the team's firepower for a short time.
Captain Xavier Jones - second in command, Jones is a seer with the ability to astral project. He can also possess enemies and take control of them. His weapon of choice is a combo assault-rifle with under-barrel mounted semi-automatic shotgun.
Lieutenant Abigail Black - a telekinetic with excelling marksmanship, Black is the team's sniper. She carries a special sniper rifle with grenade attachment and can guide bullets with her mind, guiding a single shot through multiple enemies. She can also move objects or stun enemies with her telekinesis.
Sergeant Wilhelmina Billie Church - this sword mistress and blood magician is great at melee range. She carries a machine pistol for ranged attacks but specializes with her katana. She can use her blood magic to immobilize nearby enemies for a short time or to engulf them in a fire ward.
Father Paul Rawlings - holy man turned exorcist, Rawlings wields twin pistols with some special ammunition types selectable. He can also heal fallen comrades or curse enemies so that as they are damaged it actually regenerates the health of the entire team.
With that many different powers at your disposal, one could not help but enjoy themselves with Clive Barker's Jericho, am I right? Well, yes and no. Yes, the character switching and lots of team mates is a cool addition to the genre, but there are a lot of flaws in other areas of the game that really weigh this game down and can make playing it somewhat of a chore at times. First of all, when you are not directly controlling your teammates, they are off merrily trying to kill themselves by being some of the most brain dead friendly AI this side of Daikatana. We're talking dumber than dirt. So your "help" is constantly getting itself killed, again and again. And raising them is a considerably annoying and time consuming process, which greatly slows down the exciting parts.
Secondly, it takes forever to kill some of these monsters. We're talking about guns that take hundreds of shots just to bring them down. You're going to get really bored of the weak firepower in this game. Fortunately using some of your teams powers can help here but you still have to use a lot of bullets to get through.
Third, the level design is mind numbingly monotonous with precious little variety. We're taking long corridor after long corridor, with almost no branching or decisions to be made whatsoever. In today's world of free roaming games this is a little bit of a throw back. But worse than this is the complete breaking of immersion that constantly happens because things in the game world do not work like you expect.
Some of your team has powers to move things or break through barriers and what not, but you will only be able to use those powers in special plot-driven points of the game, and most of the time you just can't use them. Your characters will constantly get stuck on the terrain, unable to jump over even a tiny little bit of debris. And all of these invisible walls barring your progress serve to only take you out of the story and make you realize you're playing a game.
There's more gore than you can shake a shotgun at here, basically. We're talking beyond gross and gruesome, the blood runs so freely and the bodies pile so high here that it completely numbs you to the sight of them. Well before the end none of this is even remotely scary any more because it's all just complete overkill.
All of the walls are a nasty rusty brown, all of the levels look essentially the same, up until the last few levels or so, which is a bit different but a matter of too little too late. Most of he animations are okay but some do not really convey a feeling of true "next gen." And like a lot of games this one tries to cover it all up by making things far too dark all the time.
Clive Barker's Jericho supports 720p, 1080i, and 1080p on the PS3, and it runs smooth. However, while the game has a good resolution and technical specs, the art design is so repetitive it becomes tiring quickly. Some of the special effects are great, however, and a few of the enemies were fairly creepy. But it really wasn't as scary as I had hoped it all to be.
Some of the voice acting was terrible while other parts of it were fairly competent. The sound effects are average and uninspiring, except for a few of the sounds from the monsters, which were downright creepy. The music added a sense of dread at times and intensity for combat at others. Probably the best thing about the sound effects was the ambient and environmental noises, which helped with, set the game's mood. Overall sound wasn't really bad apart from a few truly laughable voice segments, but neither was it good enough to rise above mediocrity.
At full price for a game with 8-10 hours of single player game play and no multi-player involved, it is hard to give Clive Barker's Jericho much praise for being a good value. On the bright side it makes for a good rental candidate for that reason also. If the game was a bit more compelling, the variety of powers and such might allow for some replay value, but most likely you'll be more than ready for the next game once you reach the ending.
Clive Barker's last outing in gaming, Undying, was an underestimated gem with true horror appeal. Unfortunately Jericho does not really stand in the same light as that game. There are a lot of amazing first person shooters out these days, and a game really has to excel to rise above the pack. Unfortunately, thanks primarily to uninspiring level design and some really idiotic AI; Clive Barker's Jericho fails to be compelling enough to escape the bonds of mediocrity. While the character swapping idea is a unique and interesting concept, it's too frustrating to coddle your teammates and you end up not caring about them at all. Which is a real shame because this is a game with a great back-story and a lot of unrealized potential.
Overall, if you're a die-hard FPS fan and must play ever title out there, you may get some fun out of this to be worth renting. But for people new to the genre this will most likely frustrate you too much to be worthwhile thanks to the constant need to revive your suicidal squad mates. There are plenty of other FPS titles out there that do not have this frustration, and a few of them offer either the use of powers or having squad mates not that stupid. A few of them even have a horror them as well.
If you have a high tolerance for frustration you may enjoy this game, especially if you are a fan of a lot of gore and buckets of blood. People who have weak stomachs should avoid this game at all costs, but you probably knew that if you've ever heard of Clive Barker. Lets hope Mr. Barker's next foray into gaming is handled with a bit more polish.