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Clive Barker's Jericho

ZombiemamboZombiemambo Registered User regular
edited July 2010 in Games and Technology
Jericho is a horror-themed FPS released on the XBOX 360, PS3 and PC in October of 2007. It was met with scathing reviews and pretty much bombed. However, upon seeing it was available on Gametap, I wanted to give it a try, even after playing the really mediocre demo.

I really like it.

The plot is excellent, in my opinion. Wikipedia is a lot more clear and concise than I am, so:
Wikipedia wrote:
Certain Apocryphal and Gnostic texts speak of a being created by God, in His own image, before the creation of Adam and Eve; according to legend, this being was abandoned by its own Creator. Called the Firstborn, the creature was a singular being neither male nor female, dark nor light, both beautiful and terrible to behold. God was so disturbed by what He created that He banished it into the Abyss to be forever forsaken, forgotten and unloved. God then started anew and went on to create mankind, giving the species two sexes, intellect, feelings, and love (not to mention a soul).

The Firstborn, too powerful for even God to keep from breaking into the mortal world, would make seven attempts to escape, each time taking back a piece of the earth to add to its domain and each time sent back to the Abyss. Fragments of time and space would form layers around this domain, linked to this world in the city Al Khali. These layers would entrap pieces of history within its walls, from the time of the ancient Sumerians to World War II. Over time, other great conquerors and civilizations would arrive to claim the city as their own. Eventually, the city was forgotten and buried by the sands of time.

The Department of Occult Warfare was created in the 1930s to combat the supernatural and unexplained. Another purpose was to meet Nazi Germany's own research into the paranormal. One of their most brilliant members, Arnold Leach, was recruited in 1962. However, his unscrupulous behavior and nature would eventually have him expelled. He was marked for assassination, and although the operation appeared to be successful, it seems that he may have survived.

The Jericho Squad is sent to Al-Khali to prevent Leach from opening the breach and unleashing the Firstborn upon mankind once again.

While Jericho was praised for its plot and creepy atmosphere, it was lambasted for terrible AI and linearity. While I agree, I haven't found it to detract too much from the game. The plot is strong and pretty much the reason I've been playing the game, but it's a fun - if not mindless - shooter.

So what did you guys think? Overall it averaged in the 60% range for review scores, but I think it deserves more than that. I know there are a number of people here who are a fan of his previous game, Undying, and I was very surprised to see his second game get dumped all over.

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Posts

  • darklite_xdarklite_x I'm not an r-tard... Registered User regular
    edited August 2008
    I wanted to like this game, but I'm glad I played the demo before I bought it. Personally I didn't buy into the switching characters gimmick and I loathed the button-time(not sure what the correct term for this is, the one where you push buttons in certain order) events as they seemed incredibly unforgiving. Granted, the gameplay seemed to be standard FPS fare, which isn't a bad thing, and the plot/atmosphere looked pretty good. If they ever have a weekend sale for it on Steam I might bother to pick it up.

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  • ZombiemamboZombiemambo Registered User regular
    edited August 2008
    darklite_x wrote: »
    I wanted to like this game, but I'm glad I played the demo before I bought it. Personally I didn't buy into the switching characters gimmick and I loathed the button-time(not sure what the correct term for this is, the one where you push buttons in certain order) events as they seemed incredibly unforgiving. Granted, the gameplay seemed to be standard FPS fare, which isn't a bad thing, and the plot/atmosphere looked pretty good. If they ever have a weekend sale for it on Steam I might bother to pick it up.

    I agreed with both points. The demo is pretty bad, the QTEs are rare and mostly happen if an enemy gets right in your face and tries to bite you or whatever. They are a bit annoying, especially because at times you die before you even realize it's a QTE, but I have nothing against them, so...

    Character-switching is really annoying at first but is more of a strategic choice than anything else. It's possible to play a majority of the game as one character, only using the others when necessary, but while I hated it at the start I like having so many different weapons and powers to use. Switching is easy and once you understand everyone's powers it's really fun to have so much control.

    I honestly wouldn't pass it up if you saw it for $20 or even $30 dollars. The plot is really solid, it's scary but not stupid and has some depth to it.

    Zombiemambo on
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  • The_SpaniardThe_Spaniard It's never lupines Irvine, CaliforniaRegistered User regular
    edited August 2008
    I was looking forward to the game so hard, then the reviews came out for it, after that I tried the demo which I wasn't really feeling at all. The demo wasn't terrible, it just didn't grove with me and the QTE section in the demo was ridiculous, I've never had a problem with any QTE but that one took me forever. So I completely wrote the game off as teh suck even though I really liked the story from what I'd heard, am a big fan of Clive Barker, and Undying is one of my favorite games of all time. I basically thought well Clive Barker delivered with an awesome story that the developers fucked up with bad game design. But then I got turned around by a really good friend who's opinion on games I trust to the utmost. He told me that the full game was much better than the demo, the game gets better after the beginning, and that while the final product was shaky it was actually well worth a play through for the story. So if I ever see it under 20 bucks I'll give it a second chance.

    The_Spaniard on
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  • ZombiemamboZombiemambo Registered User regular
    edited August 2008
    I was looking forward to the game so hard, then the reviews came out for it, after that I tried the demo which I wasn't really feeling at all. The demo wasn't terrible, it just didn't grove with me and the QTE section in the demo was ridiculous, I've never had a problem with any QTE but that one took me forever. So I completely wrote the game off as teh suck even though I really liked the story from what I'd heard, am a big fan of Clive Barker, and Undying is one of my favorite games of all time. I basically thought well Clive Barker delivered with an awesome story that the developers fucked up with bad game design. But then I got turned around by a really good friend who's opinion on games I trust to the utmost. He told me that the full game was much better than the demo, the game gets better after the beginning, and that while the final product was shaky it was actually well worth a play through for the story. So if I ever see it under 20 bucks I'll give it a second chance.

    He's right. Honestly, you really need to play the whole thing. It has its fair share of problems, and it's probably overall a mediocre game, but the demo was a poor representation of the final product.

    But the chances of you seeing it under $20 are slim. It's definitely worth that much just for the plot.

    Zombiemambo on
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  • GyralGyral Registered User regular
    edited August 2008
    I've been waiting for this to hit the $20-30 level. I want to get it but most of the reviews made it sound like not something to throw big cash on. I may dig around this weekend to see if I can nab a used copy.

    Gyral on
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  • The_SpaniardThe_Spaniard It's never lupines Irvine, CaliforniaRegistered User regular
    edited August 2008
    I was looking forward to the game so hard, then the reviews came out for it, after that I tried the demo which I wasn't really feeling at all. The demo wasn't terrible, it just didn't grove with me and the QTE section in the demo was ridiculous, I've never had a problem with any QTE but that one took me forever. So I completely wrote the game off as teh suck even though I really liked the story from what I'd heard, am a big fan of Clive Barker, and Undying is one of my favorite games of all time. I basically thought well Clive Barker delivered with an awesome story that the developers fucked up with bad game design. But then I got turned around by a really good friend who's opinion on games I trust to the utmost. He told me that the full game was much better than the demo, the game gets better after the beginning, and that while the final product was shaky it was actually well worth a play through for the story. So if I ever see it under 20 bucks I'll give it a second chance.

    He's right. Honestly, you really need to play the whole thing. It has its fair share of problems, and it's probably overall a mediocre game, but the demo was a poor representation of the final product.

    But the chances of you seeing it under $20 are slim. It's definitely worth that much just for the plot.
    No, I'm waiting for it to hit 20 bucks, it should be that cheep used soon enough even with the combination of offers that EBstop regularly does.

    The_Spaniard on
    Playstation/Origin/GoG: Span_Wolf Xbox/uPlay/Bnet: SpanWolf Nintendo: Span_Wolf SW-7097-4917-9392 Steam: http://steamcommunity.com/id/Span_Wolf/
  • RoshinRoshin My backlog can be seen from space SwedenRegistered User regular
    edited August 2008
    I heard it was rather short as well. Any truth in that?

    Roshin on
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  • ZombiemamboZombiemambo Registered User regular
    edited August 2008
    Roshin wrote: »
    I heard it was rather short as well. Any truth in that?

    Very. I didn't keep track of my time, but I'd say...7 or 8 hours?

    Zombiemambo on
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  • BacklashBacklash Registered User regular
    edited August 2008
    It had some cool bosses, but the entire game felt like it was one big, bland level. And it had probably the worst ending of any game ever.

    Not the worst game I've ever played, but not too great either.

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  • FireWeaselFireWeasel Registered User regular
    edited August 2008
    I found it for $10 bucks, new.

    Short game, and yes, AWFUL ending.

    I still really enjoyed the hell out of it. Dark, great mix of characters, and it's fun.

    Not worth the bad reviews it got, if you ask me.

    It reminds me of...some other game that I can't think of where you could switch to various other shootery-type characters at will.

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  • ZombiemamboZombiemambo Registered User regular
    edited August 2008
    Supposedly a sequel is being planned and thus the ending. But if we don't see one...yeah, really poor ending.

    Zombiemambo on
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  • TubeTube Registered User admin
    edited August 2008
    I have to say, I thought the plot was pretty godawful, the ending in particular. Fun game though, all shooting out fire demons and using katanas and such.

    Tube on
  • TubeTube Registered User admin
    edited August 2008
    Backlash wrote: »
    It had some cool bosses, but the entire game felt like it was one big, bland level.

    This was another problem. The idea of having various eras was nice, but they gothed them up so much they all looked the same. There was just so much cool stuff to do though. Ghost bullet!

    Tube on
  • TurkeyTurkey So, Usoop. TampaRegistered User regular
    edited July 2010
    I just picked up the game, and even though I hated the demo I'm really digging the gameplay.

    Turkey on
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