Conclusion, Pros and Cons and Awards
So what have we got with Clive Barker’s Jericho? Well it’s a bit of an odd one where some bits are good and some bits are bad and they kind of even themselves out. The worst one for me is that while Clive Barker’s Jericho is in the main gory and slightly disturbing, it never actually gets scary with no creepy moments at all. In fact, I became somewhat desensitized to the gore after a short while and that left me wondering where Undying ‘s eerie spookiness had gone. Clive Barker hadn’t stuck any of that into here…But I think the biggest hurdle of the PC gamer will be the game’s style betraying it’s console origins. This appears in a number of ways, from the menu screens through the comparatively simple controls compared to other FPS titles. But get beyond that and what you get is a great story full of dark and slightly disturbing imagery that’s competently told.
Click for larger imageYou’ve got the originality of being able to possess characters as you choose and use their weapons and abilities however and whenever you please.. but that’s let down by the fact that once you’ve seen all they’ve got, there’s nothing new coming to you for the rest of the game. It wouldn’t have been so bad if you could at least augment or enhance powers by mixing them up a bit, perhaps even using Ross as a channel to link powers together… but that’s not the case.
And then there’s the environments. The Firstborn has made six previous attempts to break through into our world but there’s only 4 different time zones to pay here. And they all look much like each other. Ok, I understand that this is Al-Khali through the ages and so the underlying backdrop will be pretty much the same, but the generic bad guys and lack of different, time-specific monsties only highlights how cool it could have been…
Click for larger imageWhat about the gameplay itself. Using different powers to defeat enemies or solve puzzles is a tried and tested foundation of video games. The attraction is in allowing players to experiment and find their own way around a level or a problem and Clive Barker’s Jericho does this just fine. But it falls down in hitting that dangerous middle ground of not quite giving enough of a clue a t the same time as being just slightly too oblique in how you achieve the solution.
That’s not to say that Clive Barker’s Jericho on the PC is a bad game, because it isn’t. It’s good to look at (in places), has taxing puzzles (in places), different gameplay (in places) and can be quite enjoyable (in places). And that’s the thing… as a whole, Clive Barker’s Jericho never quite lifts itself above being a competent if repetitive shooter and that’s a shame as what’s here is just screaming of being a bunch of missed opportunities.
Pros
Looks good for the most part
Puzzles more taxing than average
Cons
Little variety between time zones
Little variety in enemies
Little variety in gameplay
Clive Barker’s Jericho… coulda been great, ended up average.
HEXUS Awards
Clive Barker’s Jericho - PC
