Sanctuary’s Review of Clive Barker’s Jericho for Playstation 3:

“Clive Barker has made some good horrors, but Jericho is not one of them. Clive Barker has written some amazing horror movies as well as produced and directed them, his most famous being Candyman and Hellraiser. Considering his past work, we expected Jericho to be scarier than the first play through of Silent Hill 1 when we were 10. Sadly, it wasn’t. The game starts out quite well by throwing you into the middle of a desert with ancient ruins and a strange tornado. You walk around for a while in your team leader Ross who is equipped with a nicely chosen G36c rifle until monsters run out in front of you and start attacking you. Considering this was written by an experienced horror writer, we were expecting a dark and creepy introduction and the first enemy encounter to be pretty horrifying. This was the first let down of many.”

Graphics

The graphics weren’t really anything special but they weren’t bad either. The guns, textures and lighting all looked quite nice, but the massive let down was the lack of anti aliasing on the other characters, some inanimate objects and your guns. If you sit across the room the graphics look considerably nicer but if you sit within a nice distance the jagged edges ruin it. The lighting is some of the best seen yet, with some very dynamic shadows and partly darkened caves, the surroundings make up to be fairly creepy unlike the game play. The graphics on the enemies when close up are quite nice, seeing the fleshy wounds from previous fights and noiseless monsters is at the most, fairly gross, but not really scary or disturbing which is why the main reason we played a game from Clive Barker. Since the graphics weren’t at all amazing, the frame rate was even worse. At times you had to predict where the enemy was going to be so you could put a round through his face or take a nicely aimed shotgun shell and blow the monsters a new asshole. This took away the chances of a lot of enemies on the screen and also made the game play a lot less enjoyable.

Gameplay

Judging by the trailer, I was expecting to be hunted down by 30 enemies who took only a few shots to kill; instead I was chased by about 3 blade wielding monsters who took forever to kill. When stuck in horror games like this, you want to know that if you aren’t quick enough, make one mistake and let whatever trying to kill you come close, you will die. That is what gives horror games suspense and fear. Jericho however thought it would be a good idea to let you see the enemies coming at you a mile away and have the time to take a poorly aimed grenade launcher and blow them away. If you choose to character swap by possessing someone other than the sniper which in my opinion is a pointless thing to do, you will find that the enemies do get close, but that’s ok, because they take forever to kill all your teammates but when they do, you get to play a fun game of doctor only to watch them die over and over and over. The combat to say the least doesn’t have any variance and gets more than repetitive as you go on through the game. The only characters worth using apart from black are Delgado because of his pistol which is better than his chain gun and Jones for his Shotgun attachment which doesn’t seem to make the enemies even flinch when you hit them with it. At some cut scenes, certain events happen where you have to input commands that come up on the screen. Sadly they don’t get any harder than the square, circle, triangle or X but they still add some interactivity. This is one of the only redeeming things in the game. With few challenges and dull combat, the gameplay dies within the first hour.

Sound

Delgado is a cliché chain gun wielding juggernaught who looks as if he’s been inspired from Vulcan Raven from Metal Gear Solid, however the voice actor sounded more like a teenager suited more for Tidus from Final Fantasy X. Most of the other voices were ok but they weren’t at all different to most other games. The guns sounded just like any other guns, same goes for the explosions. You find yourself using Delgado less as he repeats his corny lines every time he kills an enemy, some not even making sense. Some of the music was actually worth listening to when not playing the game, but not much. Apart from a few creepy screams here and there, not much else caught our attention.

AI

By far the worst part of the game. Teams barely followed orders and when they did they ran to what seemed like programmed positions. If your team is in combat and you want them to fall back to a position, they will instead stand there fighting until either they or the enemy are dead and then move. The enemies have one noticeable talent in their AI, and that is sometimes when you go to shoot them, they will duck out of the way, but this only helps them when you are using semi auto weapons. Other than that it’s a matter of holding down the fire button and running backwards to beat this games AI.

Longetivity

If you play this game through once, like we did, you will not want to play it through again. Completing this game was more of a household chore than an enjoyable game. I will say that the last fifth of the game got slightly better but other than that, it was to say the least boring. With a terrible ending and pointless unlocks, there is no need to finish this game if you’re looking for rewards.

Graphics: 5/10

Gameplay: 4/10

Sound : 5/10

AI : 4/10

Maybe rent this game if you’re REALLY bored. DO NOT BUY IT.

[This game has been reviewed and rated by Sanctuary. The setup on which this review was played is a 32″ Sony Bravia TV running at 720p, connected to a Playstation 3 via Component Cable.]