steve kwan user experience designer

Review: Clive Barker's Jericho

(November 11th, 2007 - 1:50AM)

(3 / 5 stars)

Summary

In 2002, I picked Clive Barker's Undying out of the bargain bin and was pleasantly surprised with what could be the scariest game I've ever played. So when I heard that Clive Barker was collaborating on a new game, Jericho, I was excited.

I have a theory that most first-person shooters are either based on WWII, or a story about a Portal to Hell opening up where the world is flooded by monsters. Jericho is a Portal to Hell game. It's best described as an FPS version of Diablo.

Jericho is neither original nor compelling, but the gameplay is almost on par with Gears of War. Before you get excited, bear in mind that I'm not a huge Gears of War fan.

Things I liked about Clive Barker's Jericho:

• The premise.

  You play as a soldier belonging to an elite paranormal squad called Jericho. The idea is that every once in a while, a monster called the Firstborn tries to get out of a dimensional prison, and Jericho has to push it back in. However, every time the Firstborn is banished, it takes back a portion of reality with it. What this means in gameplay terms is that you have to progress through time in order to fight the Firstborn, starting with modern day, and progressing back to early civilizations.

  I'm a huge fan of games that give an excuse to visit lots of different locales, and Jericho uses this time travel as an excuse. Throughout the game, you'll visit World War II (whoa, a Portal to Hell game AND a World War II game?), medieval Europe, ancient Rome, and more. Unfortunately, all of these locales are visually similar, so there's not as much diversity as I would have liked.

• The Jericho squad.

  Jericho consists of six soldiers with different personalities and abilities. You've got a soldier, heavy artillery, medic, ninja, sniper, and tech. Each of the characters is a unique individual whose talents are essential to the Jericho team.

  I much prefer this approach over the Rainbow Six: Vegas or Gears of War approach, where your teammates are interchangeable.

• The graphics.

  Other reviewers have complained about Jericho's graphics, but I think it looks pretty sharp. In particular, the blood effects and body part explosions are fantastic.

• The boss fights.

  Although not quite as epic as Lost Planet: Extreme Condition, Jericho offers some excellent and memorable boss fights.

Things I disliked about Clive Barker's Jericho:

• Shallow gameplay.

  Despite being a squad-based game, Jericho's gameplay is generally run and gun. There's little strategy involved in combat scenarios - it's just a matter of staying alive.

• Stupid AI.

  Both your team AI and enemy AI are stupid. This is particularly annoying because your teammates have a habit of getting themselves killed.

• The lack of enemy variety.

  The most common enemy in the game is the grunt demon. There's also the exploding demon. You'll face those two enemies 90% of the time. There are other enemies, such as the flying demon, but that just looks like a grunt demon with wings. Then there's the shield demon, which is just a grunt demon with a shield. There is really little variation in the enemies in Jericho, and when you do face a new enemy, it's usually just a variation of the grunt demon.

• The unbalanced characters.

  There are six characters in Jericho, but only about four of them are worth using in a combat scenario. Although this isn't a huge gameplay problem, it would have been nice if some of your characters weren't useless.

• The lack of co-op multiplayer.

  I don't think it's fair to expect all FPSes to have both a solid single player and multiplayer component. I'm perfectly happy with developers focusing on one of the two gameplay styles, rather than expecting them to achieve excellence in both categories. However, Jericho is a squad-based game, so it really screams out for a co-op mode.

• The incomplete ending.

  There's a growing trend in FPSes to just abruptly end the game without a conclusion. I don't know why this is, but it could be because developers are setting their games up for sequels. Here's a suggestion to developers: don't worry about the game you might make next year. Worry about the game you're making now.

• The length.

  Jericho is only about eight hours long. Although that's no longer considered excessively short, Jericho's length is comparable to Half-Life 2: Episode Two. Since this game is exclusively single player, I would have appreciated more content.

• Ultimately, it's a letdown follow-up to Undying.

  My expectations from Clive Barker were high, and he didn't deliver with Jericho. Although it's not a bad game, it's nowhere in the league of Undying.

Conclusion

Jericho is a fun romp, but it's also repetitive and brainless. If you're looking for an FPS, there are many new ones on the market that are far better than this.