Jericho
Out of all the ‘masters of horror’ I’ve always had a real soft spot for the creative work of Clive Barker. First of all his concept of horror is always nightmarish and vibrantly unique. But even better… he loves working all the different mediums. For one I’m a huge fan his comic books published under marvels defunct “Razorline” imprint and his prestige adaptations of short stories such as Rawhead Rex. Also while he has participated on video games in the past he now brings his dark imagination the PC in the form of
The game starts in the deserts of Al Khali (pun intended?) where you and an elite supernatural strike force have been tasked with stopping a madman and his evil cult from awakening an ancient evil that predates mankind. While the setup is quite familiar the game gets very weird, very quick. Its weirdness is its main strength of course, it is great to see all these horror, science fiction and fantasy elements gel into one plot. For example early on your main character is mauled to death, manifesting his ability to possess other people. Throughout the rest of the game you will find yourself jumping between the bodies of your six surviving team mates whenever you need their unique skills, something made even more fun by the fact that they all hate being possessed by you. Your teammates are individually cooler than most action heroes in shooters. For example Abigail Black is a telekinetic sniper capable of guiding bullets around obstacles and through multiple targets. Cole is a reality hacker who manipulates time and space, slowing the action and restocking the team’s ammo by rewinding time. Delgado is one of my favorites of course, a big guy with a chain gun and a mystical fire demon trapped in his obsidian encased arm. With friends like these you would expect to be invincible, but unfortunately Teamwork is not in their vocabulary and they often get mowed down while charging at your foes. At times I honestly thought that my opponents had better A.I. coding than my allies but honestly they both might be equally inept. Thank god you can reinvigorate a fallen comrade just by tapping the space bar in front of them, a chore that sometimes takes over all your other duties.
Now what really got me hooked to this game were the visuals. The creatures look warped and tortured and entire rooms are adorned with flesh and blood sculptures. The art department really captured Clive Barkers mercilessly twisted idea of Hell, and then applied it to multiple historical eras. You see this creature you are up against surfaces every few centuries and every time it is defeated it takes a big chunk of reality back with it. Its dimension is like an onion, each layer a different moment in history where it did battle against the forces of good. The first time period you invade is an absolutely nightmarish interpretation of the trenches of World War 2 (with some WW1 thrown in for good measure). This era is a mess of demolished buildings, mortar explosions, demonic soldiers, and culminates with the exorcism of a Nazi psychic. Unfortunately this period also introduces the player to the games ill-conceived interactive cinemas. Basically the game goes into a cinematic sequence and the player must hit certain buttons at certain moments… or die and start the sequence again. When you are groggy and your concentration is not all there you will find yourself getting your face ripped off by monsters a dozen times before you get it right. Fortunately these mini-games are few and far in between, and can be exhilarating when are actually able to complete them in one go.
Players who haven’t given up yet are in for a treat, as the next few levels are lots of fun. First you descend into the moats and crypts of a castle during a warped re-telling of the crusades. Then you do battle with monstrous gladiators in a perverse and cannibalistic interpretation of