Clive Barker’s Jericho review (X360)

Reviewing games is most gamers’ dream job. Get sent all these free titles, play and play to your hearts content and then get paid (if you’re lucky) to voice your opinion on said game and have it published. Sounds good doesn’t it? Well like most things in life there are upsides and downsides. Clive Barker’s Jericho is unfortunately one of the downsides. The short version (and don’t worry, you’re getting both!) is that it is quite simply a mind-numbingly dull affair that adds nothing to an already over-crowded, dull and uninspired genre. Don’t get me wrong, I love a decent FPS as much as the next man but they are fast becoming as distinguishable from each other as a head banging skinhead at a punk rock gig and Jericho can’t even be bothered to grow its hair long.

The game reminds me very much of Quake 4. Although I actually enjoyed Quake 4 quite a bit. Maybe that was because it came so early on in the Xbox 360’s life cycle and the graphics were rather good so it gave me that new console wow factor? Jericho on the other hand just takes you from point ‘a’ to point ‘b’ and you must destroy everything that comes at you. Wave after wave of the same spawning enemies whose AI is absolutely non-existent: no attack pattern, no flanking, no learning of your favoured moves. They’re about as interesting to fight as they are intelligent which doesn’t really add to the experience. You just hold down the trigger button until they are vanquished, move around the next corner and do the same again. Throughout the whole game.

Special Gifts?

Jericho does try to mix things up a little by giving you a squad of elite beings all with supernatural powers that can be used in various ways to ease your progression throughout the game. One team member for example can slow time, thus making it easier to get in close, throw a sneaky frag and get the hell out of there and sit back and watch as zombified limbs fly all over the place. Another power from a member of the Jericho squad gives you the ability to astral project and thus inhabit the enemy in some cases to help you progress past a locked door or a fortified base. In theory it all sounds pretty good.

In practice however, you’ll find that after you get acquainted with each characters strengths and weaknesses, you’ll simply pick the character who you think has the best overall balance of firearms and special abilities and stick with him or her. What’s more I found I never really used the special abilities that much, only when I was prompted to by the game in order to progress past a barred entrance or something similar.

What are we supposed to use?

The team themselves also have absolutely no AI to speak of either, so at least its a level playing field I suppose! The narrow, linear pathways you traverse have their share of cover points, but your teammates simply stand out in the open and get ripped to shreds. Luckily you can heal them by running up to them and pressing ‘A’ on the joypad. However, when the enemies are numerous, and that is very often, you find yourself doing nothing else but running around healing and healing and never really engaging any of Satan’s death-hounds yourself. I’m an open minded kind of guy but this just isn’t conducive to good gameplay in my ever so humble opinion.

As for the team themselves I cared very little for them. In fact, I loathed them. Witty quip after witty quip, swearing profusely whilst fighting, loads of generic US military attempts at pseudo macho irony, “Is that all you’ve got?!” you’ll hear them say over and over again. The voice acting is Gears of War without any of the self-effacing dry wit. They really started to grate after about say, thirty minutes and considering this is one huge game, with long, drawn out, same-corridor after same-corridor levels you can imagine just how tiresome they become.

Spooked

Its saving grace is the sound: a fantastic, eerie mood setter than really gets under your skin after a while. It does its level best to keep you interested and adds some much needed tension to an overall drab and lifeless experience. In fact if it wasn’t for the soundtrack this probably would’ve been one of the worst games I’ve played all year.

Clive Barker’s Jericho on paper sounded excellent. The author himself provided the premise for the game but if he read the dialogue I’m sure he’d wished he hadn’t. You have a crack team, all with special abilities that you can morph into to utilise their unique traits in order to dispense of your foes in fun and interesting ways. However, this was not case. A story that took you into twisted, deranged, decrepit worlds that just yearned for some fantastic art direction and varied, interesting level design - you didn’t get any. A reviewer who was more than happy to sit and play and be sucked into this horror fantasy world you’ve created and wryly smile as he blasted the Devil’s children to Kingdom Come. Unfortunately, and for me this is the saddest part, you didn’t get that either. Tragic.