clive barker's jericho

Rating:
Date: 2008-06-22
an amusing concept unfortunately whored
I liked the apocalyptic atmosphere of this game despite its monochrome visuals. the AI is weak, the action is repetitive and the game is incredibly linier but somehow I found it appealing to play despite these elements. The most unfortunate aspect of "Jericho" has to do with the console oriented minigames involving button pushing reaction tests, which may be enjoyable to some, but are so out of place with the "I am in an action horror film" feel that they all but ruin the experience. One of these sequences has effectively ended my game prematurely and as I am not a sheep to corporate greed I refuse to call this company and spend more money to bypass the scene (the game allows this feature at an additional credit card price). I bought a product and I should not have to demean myself and play into sleazy corporate tactics set up to financially abuse young people who technically should not be playing the game in the first place. A shame Barker has aligned him self with such an ugly anti-social gimmick but then maybe I should have seen this coming. What could have been a solid dark fantasy game ends up a masochistic joke for mental slaves. Oh well.

Rating:
Date: 2008-06-18
Fun and polished FPS plus a little squad action
The reviews here for this game are awful. i'm not a fan of Clive Barker or horror but i had a gift cerificate, had some left over money after picking up Bioshock and this game was just cheap enough to use up the certificate. Still, based on the reviews here, my expectations were pretty low

Turns out, this was a great game. i'm not sure if i've been this happy with any game i've played in the last few years. It's the only game i've played in a year that never once crashed my computer. The game is gorgeous (not that that's a big deal, but it is really pretty). The AI is better than i've seen in any game ever (of course, i do game AI for a living so maybe i look for different things than other people do). The story is great, the characters are good, the special powers are neat, etc. i kept waiting to get to the bad part people didn't like but i never found it. i really, really liked this game

Here's what other people have said:

1. The game is linear.
Yeah, they're right, it is. And i normally hate linear games. But i thought it worked here. i suspect part of it has to do with the story and the AI. You often have multiple paths (but many quickly lead to a dead end) and your AI allies are always pointing at the correct one to take and giving you hints as to where to go. You finish a room and then your squad takes positions, the tanks hiding by the sides of the door, the sniper hanging back and aiming at the door, the healer playing midfield but out of the line of fire of incoming enemies, etc. This works because the AI knows where the next entrance is so maybe that only worked by making the levels fairly linear. And the linearity made sense in these levels - these weren't warehouses you wander through, you had a definite goal so why not move straight towards it?

2. You can't save when you want
i hate check points and expected to hate them here. But it saves the game after every single battle so when else would you save it? The only think you can't do is save in the middle of a battle, and since each skirmish was fairly short, why would you want to? The game doesn't make you sit through cut scenes after reloading with one exception, and you just hit escape to skip it

3. No replayability
This game is just as replayable as any FPS, which is to say, not very. If you want, you can try different strategies (you have multiple people to use after all, each with very distinct game play) and there are a bunch of unlockables but in my mind, when Bioshock/Half-Life/FEAR/any FPS is over, it's over. That said, i think this might be one of the few FPSes i play again because i learned how to use Jones' astral projection power late in the game and didn't use ghost bullet much and i want to go back and try those

4. Repetitive
You shoot a lot of things here (or burn, capture, etc.). That's pretty much what you do in an FPS. This game wasn't any more repetitive than Bioshock, Half-Life or the other famous FPSes. There were some puzzles here (mostly involving hopping bodies with astral projection). There were several rhythm mini-games (which i didn't exactly love, but they weren't long or frequent, you always got to restart when you screwed up and it matched the on-screen action). And the really different powers made for lots of different ways to handle a level (stealth, capture, snipe, suck health, indirect fire with summons, etc.). Plus the bosses all had little tricks to figure out (and if you didn't, the AI characters eventually gave you hints)

i think that covers it. The only thing i didn't see mentioned here is the squad action. It's not really a strategic squad game. You can give subteams orders but i never did (maybe that was my fault). This isn't an RTS or Rainbow 6. The squad exists to give you choices of who to play the FPS as. They also kill bad guys and resurrect people (unless the healer gets killed) but they never do the one thing that wins the game for you (e.g., they'll tell you how to hurt the boss but won't take the boss out for you while you hide; they let the player get the killing blows in, which is what they should do). i expected more squad action but that's not what kind of game this is

All in all, i kept wanting to hate it since so many people here seemed disappointed but this game was simply awesome

Rating:
Date: 2008-06-03
A waste of money. Please Clive stick to making the movies!
I am sorry that I wasted my money on this game. I was hoping it would be a good horror type game like F.E.A.R because when I saw the name "Clive Barker" I thought hey why not, good God was I wrong!
I am trying to think of one positive thing about the game...It unintalls fast.
Please Clive, Stick to the movies.

Rating:
Date: 2008-04-13
Quite decent game, but could have been great
I greatly anticipated this game, since I had enjoyed Clive Barker's Undying a few years ago. Similar to many others, the mediocre reviews scared me away when Jericho was initially released. Still, after waiting for the price to drop to less than $20, I picked it up. For that cost, I am not disappointed at all. This is a fun, team-based shooter with a great story, beautiful graphics, and some interesting gameplay dynamics. The game does have its annoyances, but overall I found it to be 15+ hours of solid entertainment.

Gameplay: The story is pretty good. In a nutshell, you and your team (Jericho) are out to defeat the Firstborn, God's initial, botched attempt at creating a being in his own image. You'll be traveling with your team through caves, coliseums, battlefields, underground dungeons, and so forth fighting off various abominations. The real interesting thing here is the team-based fighting that allows you to jump between team members and use their weapons and special abilities. It works pretty well, and you will probably have 1 or 2 favorites after a while (the sniper girl was my favorite). Team mate AI is decent, but not stellar. You will often find yourself running between fallen squad members to revive them during the tougher fights. However, pathfinding is quite good, and Jericho members know how to use cover, scout, etc.

The gist of the game is simply blasting monsters, which is both the game's major strength and weakness. On the positive side, the weapons are very satisfying to use, as are the special abilities. On the negative side, the fact that you have so much firepower at your disposal makes the game anything but scary. Only on occasions when you have to do part of a mission with only 1 or 2 squad members does the game produce a good amount of tension. Like Resident Evil 4, there are a few quick button-pressing sequences that I found rather fun after a while, but some people may not like. There are not many of them, and the average player should be able to get beyond them after 1-2 tries. The game is pretty linear and you can't get lost, so there is no need for a minimap. Again, if you are looking for a good scare here, you won't find many. However, the game does excel as a team-based shooter, and Barker's subject matter is fresh enough.

Graphics: Gorgeous game. A lot of attention was paid to detail, especially on monster and character models. The environments look great as well. Sky textures are still not that good, but not nearly as awful as those in Undying. The physics system adds a touch of realism to explosions and the like. Please note: This game is not for the squeamish. Although it is not really a scary game, there are A LOT of disturbing images, as one would expect in a Clive Barker product.

Sound: Hit and miss. The music is generally appropriate and related to the action on the screen. The Jericho members actually have well-rendered personalities and a lot of good (though often profane) dialogue. However, you'll eventually get tired of repetitive acknowledgments like "Praise the Lord and pass the ammunition!" The use of sound in the game does not quite live up to its full potential, since there were many lost opportunities to really scare the pants off of players by using the right sounds at the right time. However, there is really no big problem here.

Documentation/Technical issues: The game comes with a decent manual. Jericho was released on multiple platforms, but the PC version does not feel like a port. That is, the mouse and keyboard work well as controls. I was pleased to find the game in such a well-polished state technically. I did not experience a single crash, freeze, or hiccup. The game does have the checkpoint save system, which I detest though the checkpoints were usually not far apart.

Replayability/value: Although you can unlock certain minor things as you play, there is really no reason to go through this game twice. When the story ends--and it ends very abruptly, it really is over. Given the team-based nature of the game, an online co-op mode would seem appropriate, but this is strictly a single-player affair. If you are a fan of shooters or Clive Barker's work, this is worth the current price of admission ($15-$20).

Pros:
+Interesting and flexible team-based action
+Great weapons and special abilities
+Excellent graphics
+Decent sound and dialogue
+Intriguing Clive Barker story
+Polished and stable

Cons:
-Strictly linear with little replay value
-Not really scary, though some disturbing content
-Some people will not like the quick-button mini-games
-Checkpoint save system
-Abrupt ending

Rating:
Date: 2008-03-31
Excellent story
Whole game is in FPS style, even the cinematics and cut scenes. Excellent story. Sad ending though... overall was worth it in the end. although the game is only playable in storyline mode and has checkpoint saves only just like GRAW. still fun though, very unique.

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