[JemyM]

Clive Barker's Jericho
Or... how to f up an excellent premise.

What do you get when you team up a great selection of artists, such as a famous writer, some great and twisted graphical artists, a gamedesigner filled with great ideas on how to build a squadbased shooter with far more special functions than the majority of the games on the market, and then ruin it all that with a terrible level design and AI? You get Clive Barker's Jericho.

A take on Judeo-Christian mythology
Clive Barker's Jericho ties deeply into Judeo-Christian mythology, kinda like a prequel to Genesis. Before Adam and Eve was created, there was the firstborn. A creature that even God couldn't stand. So he made another try and thus us humans came to be. Since the beginning, there have been special warriors who sacrificed themselves to keep the firstborn trapped so "it" couldn't take revenge on mankind. The latest of these are ofcourse you, a team of witches and mages called "Jericho". The story is one of Jericho's strong points, far more advanced than most games on the market. There are seven characters in your team, each one with a long and well-written background (that can be read if you unlock them in the EXTRAS), but they will also reveal some of their unique personalities during the storyline. You can really tell you have a real writer at work here. Not only are the story told by cutscenes and dialogue, you also get small bits of texts between every level (while waiting for the next one to load), that helps the buildup.

"The gardens are lavishly decorated with fountains and statues. The surroundings look impeccably beautiful but with Vicus' touch of sadism."

Despite all of that, I cannot say that Jericho's storyline is as cool as Clive Barker's Undying.

Artistic Graphics and Sound
The artwork in Jericho is great. The game uses the latest technologies (2006) and the levels beautiful (or terrible) to behold, with some really disturbing content. The monsters look great and the characters themselves are uniquely designed. The sound is pretty good as well, the soundtrack is good enough to get on the side. The voice acting is ok, but I have to say that some of the dialogue was laughably bad and sometimes out of place. For example, you can hear one of your companions say stuff like "You got your ass kicked by a girl", which doesn't sound too serious and would fit a B-movie rather than a game with a professional writer's name in it's title.

Ambitious gameplay mechanics ...
You begin as Ross, the leader of the Jericho team, and for reasons I wont reveal, you will eventually be able to take control of your entire team of misfits, each one with special magic abilities. You may say that Jericho is a squad-based shooter. If you are quick to grasp how the game works you will also be able to use it at it's fullest potential, although the characters are not all that useful.

Most of the time I used Frank, a big guy with a minigun, a heavy sideshooter and the ability to send forth a flaming demon from his right hand. A second favorite was Black, a girl with a sniper weapon and telekinesis, with the ability to possess and control her bullets. Cole is the teams "brain" and she have the ability to slow down time around her, which was also useful at times, such as when you must quickly revive your team. Then we have Church, a ninjagirl with a sword and the ability to root opponents to the ground, but I found her generally useless due to lack of firepower. Despite having the strongest melee attack, it still ended up pretty useless. Then there's Jones who have both an assault rifle and a shotgun but is mostly useless, except that his possess ability is required to solve some puzzles. Finally there's the priest of the group, who were best kept controlling himself, since he runs around healing people so you do not have to.

... to be ruined by horrible level design and AI
So what's so bad about Jericho. Well, I believe that the key problem with the game is the level design, that really ruins the entire game. Jericho is so linear that the term "rail shooter" might fit. You progress a bit, then monsters run in in hordes, and when you killed them all you can continue a bit more. This gets really repetitive and do not allow you to really use those gameplay mechanics I just spoke about. The game always let you know right away what you should do, so you never really get much chance of experimenting and trying to use the tools you have been given "your way".

Another nuisance is that your team have terrible AI, and they usually end up knocked out, forcing you to run and heal them. This is almost bareable on EASY, but get's extremely frustrating even on MEDIUM. Being forced to spend most of your time "healing the AI" doesn't make a fun game. Especially bad is that they do not understand explosive opponents, which they gladly kill at close range, knocking out half or most of the squad like all the time.

As a final slap in the face, the ending is absolutely horrible. With all that excellent writing otherwise, you are really expecting a great ending to the game, only to be met with ... well. I wont spoil it, but if you manage to get that far, prepare to be disappointed. Even fans agree that it's nothing to make popcorn for.