To put things simply, Clive barkers Jericho try’s to hard to a squad based shooter when really it wants to be a survival horror. Rather than me waste to much of peoples time, this game relies quite heavily on the most infuriating game mechanic ever invented, quick time events. You begin the game in control of some bloke that I don’t care to remember the name of, because it isn’t important. He gets shot at the end of the first chapter, and becomes nothing more than a way to flit between your squad mate’s in a very clunky and infuriating manner.
The weapons available in the game are actually a high point; each character has their own individual set of spiritual powers and gun load out combined with different fie options, its nice to be asked if you would like to use explosive rounds in pistols but insufferably annoying that anytime you jump to a new character, they will switch back to their original rounds. The spiritual powers on the other hand are rather hit and miss, the guided bullets are fantastic but for every guided bullet there is a flame shield. Seeing as there is only one section in the entire game in which the flame shield is needed, it seems as if the game’s developers ran out of ideas for their character set.
I suppose at least each character looks significantly different and have been well scripted and do have some reasonably amusing dialogue throughout the game, but even this isn’t really enough to keep the game interesting, back stories have been written for each character which in quite an innovative way are tied to achievements but again these are quite boring as a lot of the information repeats itself from line to line.
To say that this game has its problems is all too easy, but when they are completely blunt and apparent it becomes unavoidable. I believe that their may have been a timescale issue as the last mission feels extremely cobbled together and the level design, which is rather well lit is let down by the overuse of shades of red and brown to colour them.
Overall I would say that this game could have been something special, it spanned across different time periods and represented them well, but the over-use of enemy types and the under-use of narrative and plot made it feel like a slow demoralizing slog through a badly coloured yet interesting environment for a extremely disappointing final encounter.
Graphics: 6
Game play: 6
Conrols: 5
Multiplayer: n/a
Overall: 6
Review by Jim Scott
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