I initially started playing
this game, got to episode 2 (out of 5) and hit
a game-ending bug. Up until that point it had
been a confusing, challenging mess. After a
short break trying a couple of other games,
both of which I quit even sooner than Jericho,
I decided to return and give it another shot
(having found a fix for the bug) because too
many games lately i'm having to not finish due
to major glitches. And i'm glad I did resume
- it actually turned out to be a very refreshing
and memorable game.
Now I remember Clive Barker's
first game; Undying, fondly. Sure it's really
only his name and story attached, he isn't actually
directing any of the gameplay since he doesn't
even play games. But it had a great, spooky
setting and was a really chilling game. Not
to mention under-rated by the critics. So Jericho
comes along six years later, again with average
reviews with a 61% aggregate. Great looking
screenshots so perhaps this one is under-rated
as well? No. What it does well, it does very
well, but it falls flat in too many other areas,
which i'll cover below.
Firstly what makes Jericho
very unique is that you can play with any of
six characters throughout the game whenever
you want - all of which have their own weapons
and abilities (powers). And it's even part of
the story that you're playing through the soul
of a dead soldier that is able to possess the
other characters. So it's not just an explained
part of the game. The problem here is that swapping
between characters is very messy.
On top of that you have five
attack keys (two for weapons, one melee and
two for your supernatural abilities). Only the
supernatural abilities are added as the game
goes on. So every time you switch to a character
you're having to remember what their attacks
are. You'll get halfway through the game before
you start to figure out who your preferred characters
are. For me it was Delgado with the chaingun,
Black with her sniper rifle and Church with
her sword. Once you do, things start to get
a bit easier. Nevertheless the characters are
all worthy of some use throughout the game and
are quite well-balanced. If I were to play through
again I'd probably try to use some of the other
characters more as well, as they all have interesting
attacks.
And then there's the storyline,
a very unique plot in which you travel through
time to stop The FirstBorn, a creature God created
prior to Adam and Eve that wants to escape from
it's hell and destroy mankind. Fairly epic and
well told throughout the game, only to abruptly
end in one of the weakest game endings ever.
Very odd considering Clive Barker is the writer.
I can only assume it was left this way to leave
room for a sequel, which will probably never
happen now.
The atmosphere in Jericho is
very unique because you get to play through
some very unique settings such a Sumeria and
the Tower of Babel, Rome 38AD, The Crusaders
1213AD. The other two episodes that start the
game are Al-Khali, which appears to be some
old middle eastern setting and WWII. And it's
these first two episodes that let the game down
slightly as they' look nowhere near as good
as the last three episodes. The engine itself
is standard 2007 with all the bells and whistles
you'd expect. Playing on a 2011 spec gaming
PC, everything was happy to be on full without
any framerate drop. Now the problem with the
level design is that it's very, very linear.
You're on a tight path throughout the entire
game, with no deviation, and this path itself
just feels like one open outdoor corridor scattered
with rocks and barricades after another. The
outdoor areas get repetitive very quickly. The
game also suffers a similar fate as Gears Of
War; there's just not enough colour. Everything
is very desaturated and drab. However there
are some good set pieces every now and again,
and despite the extreme linearity and drab colour
palette, their is always plenty of detail on
screen. You won't find bland cube rooms here
like F.E.A.R. had. With the engines lighting
abilities, the game does look quite good.
The difficulty level is the
main issue. Too often you're madly running to
each team-mate reviving them after they died
for whatever stupid reason. Their AI is abysmal.
In some situations you need to shoot enemies,
usually mini-bosses, in certain places to kill
them. Your team-mates just don't understand
this concept, nor do they try to retreat to
avoid explosions. I eventually threw on the
'fast health regeneration' cheat, which made
the game much easier (too easy in fact as I
only died 4-5 times after that), but replaying
from checkpoints over and over again because
of useless team-mates is not my idea of fun.
Furthermore, there's no easy
way to reconfigure the mouse buttons without
hacking the config file. Which in turn, for
me, broke my movement keys in relation to these
little mini-games, where you have to press one
of the movement keys in a certain order to proceed.
Without any keys responding, I had to skip past
each and everyone of those mini-games. And most
of them were terrible anyway.
So overall we have a memorable
storyline and setting, great set of different
characters you can play with and a decent looking
game. The linearity is extreme, but the difficulty
level and having to replay from checkpoints
ruins the game. It's only saving grace is putting
a cheat on, pumping up the difficulty slightly
and we've got a much better game.
