Clive Barker's Jericho (360)

[DroopyA]

After beating Lost: Via Domus, I moved on to a game my friend let me borrow... Clive Barker's Jericho.

I don't have much to say about this one. It's a first person shooter about a unique top secret squad of government officials that deal with the occult and paranormal. I can't believe I'm about to say this... but I think I've seen, read, and played this story about a million times already.

The idea is that a mysterious ancient city has appeared in the middle of a remote desert for no real apparent reason. Instead, there is a giant storm hovering nearby so the government sends in it's occult team "Jericho" to go check it out.

Without handing out any spoilers, the game plays out as you might expect. The city is just the start of some crazy ancient occult wichcraft that will eventually lead to the end of the world if it's not stoped... and as usual, you're the only people that can stop it. The story is slightly more in-depth then that with tales of God and the creation of life but it's all just talk... you don't actually play through those parts and there are no cut scenes to present the story to you. So far, everything has just be told to me from other team members when the time comes for me to 'need to know'.

It's not bad, it's just not good either. There seem to be a lot of FPS's out there these days so it's gotten to the point where a FPS needs to really be something special to get my attention. Unfortunitly, this is just average. The graphics are good, but not great. The AI is ok, but nothing special. The weapons are average and not that fun to play with and the enemies are all very similar... rotten burnt corpses... not to say that's not cool, there's just not a lot of variety.

The catch is that each member of Jericho has a special power. Where as one member comes loaded with heavy weapondry, another comes with the ability to slow time. One member features swords and sniper riffles, while some members are able to stop enemies in their tracks or use the power of fire demons to ignite their enemies in flames. You play a member of the team who is killed early on in the mission. But strangly, you don't actually die... instead, you're able to attach your soul to the body of your team mates thus taking control of that character and gaining their special abilities.

The idea is that each team member has their own strong and weak points... to survive the mission you'll have to jump from body to body in order to use the right powers at the right time to give you the advantage over whatever evil it is I'm suppose to be fighting.

The problem is that the game is kind of boring and pretty predictable... you walk down a hallway and into a room. A bunch of enemies appear and you fight them off. When one enemy dies another takes it place. Eventually this stops and the room is clear... you walk down a path, into a new section of the map where more enemies appear. Fight, kill, move on. This repeates for pretty much the entire game. Worse yet, if a member dies... they can be revived just by walking up to their corpse and tapping the A button... you only lose if all member dies at the same time.

That happens more then you might think though. That game likes to split the team into squads so you don't always have access to everybody... sometimes the 6 man group is a 3 peice cutting your special options and lives in half. To make matters worse, enemies are really strong. They all take a lot of hits to kill and a good chunk of them come packing some serious firepower. No worries though... the game isn't that hard. I'm usually able to defend them off in my first try. Some parts are more difficult but none so hard that I've wanted to throw my controller. 3 or 4 tries at the most.

That's really all there is... in one good sitting I was able to get about half-way through the game... I've yet to finish it but I'm guessing 15 hours, maybe. A decent rental if you like FPS and have nothing else to play, but I wouldn't suggest buying it.

6 out of 10.

[LTmatt]

Dude, if you're going to do this pretentious review ish, just put it in your blog.

[DroopyA]

At 2/24/09 04:16 PM, LTmatt wrote: Dude, if you're going to do this pretentious review ish, just put it in your blog.

Why? Discussing video games is what the video game forum is for.

[Blaze-Heatnix]

At 2/24/09 04:40 PM, DroopyA wrote:

At 2/24/09 04:16 PM, LTmatt wrote: Dude, if you're going to do this pretentious review ish, just put it in your blog.

Why? Discussing video games is what the video game forum is for.

What are we discussing? Your review?

[DroopyA]

At 2/24/09 05:58 PM, Blaze-Heatnix wrote: What are we discussing? Your review?

The video game... have you played it? Did you like it? Do you want to play it? Did you even know it existed?

What, would you guys rather I make yet another topic discussing how awesome Link is or another Mario vs Sonic? Oh I know, maybe I should stop talking about games I'm playing and ask you what your favorite monster in L4D is.

The front page of this forum is always the same shit and I don't think me dropping in once every few weeks with some info on the game I'm currently playing is hurting anyone. If you don't want to read what people think about video games maybe you shouldn't visit a video game forum.

It's not like this is all I do here... I read almost every topic that comes through here and I reply to a fair amount of them. I don't think me dropping in my two cents about a video game at the end of the day is doing anyone any harm.

Besides that, it's not like I'm reviewing games that already have topics... it's not my fault nobody has made a Jericho post until now. If there was already a topic on Jericho I might have put this there... but there wasn't, so I made my own. I don't see anything wrong with that.

I don't care if you read it, I don't care if you reply... some of these get more responses then others, some go to page 2 without a single response. I don't really care... but the option is here if you want to take part in it.

If you've played the game, or where thinking about playing the game, this is the place to discuss it. It's not my fault I'm educated and realize that a review expressing my personal opinions of the game is better then just typing "lol, I played Jericho. It was cool. Wat do u think?".

Topics like that get locked because they're pointless and give the reader no value. If you don't want to read about video games, leave the video game forum, it's that simple really. Obviously the mods don't mind as none of these have yet to be locked... and I'm going to continue doing them until I either get bored of doing so, or am informed by an official of the site not to.

Hell, my topic on Saints Row 2 actually went on to inspire decent conversation, sparked a few other spin-off topics, and a user even droped in to tell me that they bought the game based souly off what I wrote about it here. Not my fault you have your head so far up your ass you can't realize that maybe you could learn something. Regardless, I don't really care what you think and I'd appreciate it if you'd either stay on topic about the game, or just simply not reply. You're shitty remarks aren't going to change anything I do.

Expect a new review on "Viking: Battle for Asgard" in a few weeks. It should be arriving in the mail today... but I gotta finish Jericho first.

[Xavierthewarlord]

Are you another AVGN / Irate Gamer? Do you enjoy making yourself suffer by playing these shit-tastic games?

[DroopyA]

At 2/25/09 10:47 AM, Xavierthewarlord wrote: Are you another AVGN / Irate Gamer? Do you enjoy making yourself suffer by playing these shit-tastic games?

I like the stories in video games... online play is fun, but it's not something I strive for. I'd much rather play and beat 10 diffrent games, then get really good at one titles deathmatch feature.

To me, games are like books. I like to experiance the story, meet the characters, and see the new worlds... because of this, I often choose games that aren't that great gameplay wise, but sound like they have a unique experiance or story to offer.

This is one even I wasn't planning on playing... but my friend got it as a gift and let me borrow it when he was finished. I figured that was pretty nice of him and it wouldn't hurt to see what the game has to offer.

Like I said, it's not bad... I think I was a little harsh on it in my final score... it's more like a 7 or maybe a really low 8 if you like this type of occult stuff.

My biggest problem is mainly the level design. There's nothing to find and no extra places to explore. The maps are all very linnear and the in game fights are very predictible. It's not scary like Doom... you can always tell you're about to get in a fight because all fights take place in big area with lots of debris lying around for cover.

A typical stage plays out like so:
Walk about 15 feet into an obvious battle zone
Fight a bunch of enemies, usually 3 or 4 at a time
Walk about 15 feet into another obvious battle zone
Fight a bunch of enemies, usually 3 or 4 at a time
Walk about 15 feet into another obvious battle zone
Fight a bunch of enemies, usually 3 or 4 at a time
Walk about 15 feet into another obvious battle zone
Fight a bunch of enemies, usually 3 or 4 at a time
End Stage

The characters themself are pretty generic and so far there has been zero back story on any of them. Because of this, I find it hard to keep track of who is who, who has what power, and why they have that power. Instead of using the power system and body switching ability to it's fullest, I find I usually just play with one character and only switch when I have no choice or I die.

The more you use them the more familure you become but even then I often realize too late that there was probably a better way to handle that fight.

I find it's a fun game when I finally turn it on to play it, but I don't really look forward to going home and giving it a good run. I think about it and go "ehh, [something else] would be more fun"... but when I do put it in and start playing it, I find I don't want to turn it off.

The stages are short and although the levels are predictable the game does a pretty good job of keeping you moving forward. Think of COD4... it's got that "one more level" type feel to it. Levels don't seem to take that long so you always get the feeling that five more minutes is all you need... and everybody always has 5 more minutes right? :)

[Jackho]

to be honest i thought that game really sucked

[Jerich0]

Never played it but hey it has my name in it woot!