Hands-On: Clive Barker's Jericho
- July 26, 2007 13:43 PM PST
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Jericho: Every Horror Fan's Wet Dream.
And when we say "wet," we mean it--most everything you see in Clive Barker's Jericho appears greasy, damp, or just where something or someone was recently slaughtered, and when the game's nightmarish environments aren't dripping with blood, there's sure to be a festering corpse nearby or a demonic creature or eight ready kill you around the next corner. If this first-person shooter's chilling atmosphere doesn't scare you, its uniquely terrifying enemies and inspired locales will surely leave you on the edge of your seat.
Squad-Based Terror
Evil itself has surfaced on the desert city of Al-Khali, a place that has been built on top of the remnants of ancient civilizations long dead. It is your mission to get into Al-Khali, find out what has sprouted out of the bowels of hell, and destroy it at all costs. Luckily, you and your elite strike team are no ordinary soldiers, but are all blessed (or cursed) with your own unique paranormal powers. Jericho's story is also written by legendary horror maestro Clive Barker. For those who don't know his name, he's the same person who wrote the horror fiction novel The Hellbound Heart that was adapted to the film Hellraiser, which Barker directed himself.
One of the biggest differences between Jericho and other FPS games is the fact that you will not be picking up weapons and switching back and forth between them. Instead, you will be switching back and forth between any of the characters in your squad. Each member in your squad is a weapons specialist with a specific weapon and each member has their own magical ability. Some of the characters you can play as are a dual-pistol-wielding priest who can resurrect people who die in your team, a sexy female sniper who can control her bullets in midair and thread them through multiple enemies (the game's camera actually stays with the bullet), a blood mage that carries a kitana in one hand and a sub machine gun in the other, and an alchemist/pyromancer who can either set enemies ablaze or shred them with his chaingun.
Gears of Gore
This game is nasty with a capital "N," but Jericho's grisly design is what makes it such a promising title. The textures on the monstrous enemies will remind you of beasties such as the Berserkers from Gears of War. But the monsters themselves and Jericho's overall imagery are much more grotesque than anything seen in Gears of War, Resident Evil, Doom, or any other horror-inspired video game for that matter. Even the game's main menu is gruesome--flies hover around a wall of moist stretched muscle tissue. The official ESRB rating is still pending, but you can bet your life's savings that a Mature will be slapped onto Jericho.
Although many of the enemies in Jericho are beyond description (just check out the screens below), there are some highlights from our hands-on time with the game that we have to mention, such as a boss battle with a morbidly obese naked man hanging from hooks on the ceiling. During the fight, he literally rips his bulbous gut open and sprays you and your squadmates with his putrid stomach acid that happens to dissolve human flesh. From what we've experienced of Jericho, this game is what Doom 3 should have been.
Clive Barker's Jericho will be unleashed upon the Xbox 360, PS3, and PC in late September of this year.
