Clive Barker's Jericho Member Review for the PS3

GR seems a bit strict on Jericho.  There have been lots of first person shooter's that try to branch into horror, and only a few manage to actually scare a little (Doom, AvP, etc), and while Jericho's enemies are graphically amazing, as since you're a superpowered, heavily armed combat team, it's hard to feel scared. Ever notice the scariest games use small weapons and normal, probably (but not always) female characters? The closest to scary in Jericho is when you take one member into a short tunnel by herself, armed only with... a fully automatic pistol, a rune encrusted katana and blood ward magic.

The graphics are good, but maybe not reaching the potential previous titles have managed.

Replay value is next to none, except to collect information sheets by completing small objectives, like difficult variation on levels and minor skill tests, like number of melee kills or headshots. Not a great incentive.

The characters seem kinda bland, but only by tediously gathering the factsheets do you see any kinda depth to them, and even then it's just a little generic. The big guy with the gatling gun has a short temper, (suprise surprise), the small women with the sword is fast to take on people twice her own side, the "reality hacker" is an autistic genius... you get the idea.

The character variation offered by possessing your teammates is good at first, but you'll find yourself sticking to only one or two characters once all the abilities have been unlocked. The sniper, Black, has the ability to telekinetically steer bullets through upto 3 enemies; once you achieve this, other characters become redundant. Giving her a grenade launcher as well makes her practically invincible. Delgado, the aforementioned hispanic pyrokinetic with a gatling gun, seems like a good choice till you realise that the gatling gun doesn't offer much over a machine gun held by any other character, and has that 2 second warm up time.

The katana wielding Billie Church seems a good choice till you find out that most enemies in the game have a habit of instantly killing you if you get close enough. Whenever she swings her blade, the camera moves to follow where her sword is being swung, which, while realistic, can leave you vaguely disorientated, especially when the enemy in question darts around you and starts flaying chunks from your back.

The story line is interesting, but a little confusing; you immediately suspect "the child" to be the firstborn, yet it seems to be intended as a clever revelation. Biblical storylines hit in the same area as ancient mythology, great for story lines and in unrivalled successes (God of War?), but it seems there's so much in this area already that the need to make up the Firstborn idea seems odd.

Overall, Jericho is an ok game, some creative ideas and intricately designed (if repetitive) enemy types; whether in World War 2 or in Ancient Rome, you are always attacked by a mummy with armblades.

A sequel could be interesting, hopefully to redeem rather than milk the cash cow.