14th March 2008.
Clive Barker’s Jericho
Codemasters
XBOX 360 Platform
 I get a shudder down my spine every time I read the cover of a new game and it has an 18 Certificate badge on it. This dates back to a time when I first got hold of the old Evil Dead and Dracula games some twenty years ago. There’s something special about a game that promises strong bloody violence and horror that just grabs my attention and my gaming sensibilities. Anyway, Jericho is an original story from horror guru Clive Barker who (the box helpfully told us) created Hellraiser. So then with that sort of credential the game has to be good, doesn’t it?
When a city mysteriously re-appears in a remote desert of the Middle East, the Department of Occult Warfare sends in the Jericho Team – a Special Forces Unit trained in both conventional warfare and the arcane arts. Their mission: To hunt down and destroy the evil at the heart of the city. You see, before Adam and Eve, God tried to create a creature in his own image but failed, this entity was named The Firstborn. It is written that The Firstborn will try and break into our world seven times, and it’s had six goes already, each time taking it takes part of our world with it to its own realm. You, as the leader of the team, must travel back to the point of origin.
 Clive Barker’s Jericho has a rather deep and truly disturbing sense of dread to it, much in the same way F.E.A.R. did a few years back. You know this is trying very hard to be really original, not many horror games have much of a back story to them and this one is original and scary. But that’s about it really, it has a great story but the gaming experience is pretty hollow.
But let’s start with the positives as Jericho is a lavishly designed game filled with the sort of disturbed imagery one would expect from the mind of Clive Barker. Graphics are sharp, detailed and oozing with realistic skin tones, unless of course it’s for a monster and then it’s as realistic as I would imagine them to be. As the box suggests the game does contain some finely realised and very bloody violence that hammers home the oppressive dread the characters are facing. There’s quite a lot of bloodshed in the game, in fact there’s bucket loads and each splash is accompanied with very squishy and satisfying sound effects. The team of seven soldiers split into two groups, Alpha and Omega and can be ordered into independent positions. Each owns a primary and secondary weapon as well as a special power. The cast of characters is well thought out with some real beauties including a guy called Father Paul Rawlings, the team Exorcist and all round bad-ass man of the cloth. Oh, and his pistols are called Faith and Destiny, very cool.
 I have to point out that Cris Velasco's music for the game is quite simply the most beautiful and haunting piece of work I’ve ever heard for a game. It’s a haunting choral and cinematic orchestral score that really does punctuate the piece with some wonderfully atmospheric moments. The guy was hand picked by Clive Barker himself, good choice Clive.
What lets the game down is that it’s really repetitious to the point that nothing really does surprise you when it happens. Each stage is similar to the last without any real change. You get used to travelling where the game guides you (you don’t actually have to seek out anything, you’re stuck on a pre planned route) this really does ruin the gameplay and any tension the wonderful game design would build up. Also an odd idea for this style of first person shooter is that sometime to save a character you have to press a selection of buttons in sequence. Again this stops the dramatic build up and has you bashing on your pad as if this was some 21st century version of SIMON (showing my age there I know but come on guys you know what I mean!)
So in the end what started as a dark and very disturbing piece turns out to be lacking any real soul. What a shame Clive’s name is on it as that will lead many just to buy it on that strength alone.
Clive Barker’s Jericho is also out on the PS3 and PC formats.
James.
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