Clive Barker's Jericho is a hugely underrated shooter, that deser
The days since I was a big fan of shooters have long since gone by, none of the recent gen of shooters particularly impressed me, Perfect Dark Zero wasn't bad but not a patch on the original, Gears Of War was all right but certainly didn't leave an impression on me and Call Of Duty has outstayed it's welcome. Now along comes Jericho a game I decided to try based souley on watching a "let's play" on youtube that really intrigued me. The game itself received mediocre reviews at best, yet in my opinion this is actually one of the best shooter titles in recent years.
Jericho sees you take the role of Ross leader of "Jericho" a squad of soldiers who tackle supernatural enemies on behalf of the government by using supernatural powers themselves. Upon investigating a supernatural event in a vast desert Ross in the early hours of the title become separated from his bottle and must share a body with one of the remaining six other squad members. Each squad member has their own unique personality, background and abilities, you must utilise all their combined skills to succeed. The characters are all part of what makes Jericho so great, they all have their own unique feel and dialogue and the interactions between them as the game progresses are really involving. The squad that you as Ross must "control" compromises of Black:- A goth, lesbian sniper with the ability to push objects and posses and steer her own sniper bullets into peoples heads, Church:- A blood witch who shoots fire and tentacles out of her own slit wrists that paralyse enemies, Delgado:- A huge macho idiot with a chaingun who shares his body with a fire demon who attacks enemies, Jones:- A psychic who can posses and control enemies, Cole:- A Japanese girl with the ability to "hack" reality, reverse time etc.. and finally Rawlings a priest with twin pistols and healing abilities. When your not sharing a body with one of these guys the rest of the team all act independently of their own accord. Basic orders can be given but if you want complex tasks to be performed you need to possess the right person.
Combat in Jericho takes place against a motley crew of monstrous enemies all straight out of something like the asylum scene in Jacob's Ladder, you use a variety of conventional weapons combined with the characters special abilities to defeat them. As the game takes place across history you battle undead romans, undead crusaders, world war II soldiers, some horrificly huge and vile bosses all in environments strewn with rivers of blood, dismembered limbs and scenes of torture. The combat in the environments works on the premise of "waves" of monsters attacking you and utilising your teams skills to survive and making it to the next save point. This makes each fight all the more exciting as you have to fight to survive if you want to progress to the next chunk of combat and if you die, you have to start the wave all over again. When there loads of enemies on screen your trying to slow them down using Church's tentacles, hopping to Delgado to set them on fire then to Black to pop their heads it's a real adrenalin rush.
The game isn't without it's flaws mind the AI while in principle is reasonable occasionally seems to swap to idiot mode and has your team running head long into enemy gunfire or attempting to fight exploding enemies in melee range. They can occasionally glitch too refusing to move and standing around like muppets until you take control of them. Other than that though, I genuinely can't find much else to complain about in the game. The presence of quick time events usually when your playing as Church can be frustrating at times and as missing a button press can result in instant death more often than not they really shouldn't be included.
In summary Jericho is an unfairly treated title with a lot more imagination and creativity than most other current gen shooters. It has a great cast, interesting enemies and scenarios and some epic boss battles. It's pretty good to look at too and is backed up with a pretty good score and voice acting. If you want something different and fancy a horrific first person shooter, it's well worth it.
