Clive Barker's Jericho

Clive Barker’s Jericho
File:Clbrkjerichocov11.jpg
Developer(s)	Mercury Steam
Publisher(s)	Codemasters
Designer(s)	Clive Barker
Engine	Mercury Engine
Platform(s)	PlayStation 3, Xbox 360, PC, and GameTap
Release	NA: October 23, 2007 UK: November 2, 2007
Genre(s)	Action, Horror, FPS
Mode(s)	Single player

Clive Barker’s Jericho is a supernatural horror-themed FPS computer game with horror author Clive Barker providing the premise for the game. The game was released for PC, PlayStation 3, and Xbox 360 as well as GameTap on October 23rd. It can also be downloaded via Steam.

A demo for the game was released for the PC on September 26, 2007. The Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 demos were made available on the Xbox Live Marketplace and the PlayStation Store on September 27, 2007.

Premise

Before Adam and Eve were created, God attempted to create a being in His image, and so became the Firstborn. Neither light nor dark, both terrible and beautiful to behold, it disturbed the Almighty, who banished this flawed creation into the Abyss forsaken and unloved. Then God created man and gave us flaws to keep the balance right and to stop us from over powering, God also gave us the gift of love which the firstborn was deprived of. There the firstborn waited and watched until it was able to reach out with its power into our world. Seven Sumerian priests met its arrival and fought to contain it, successfully entombing the place of its escape within a great ziggurat. Ever since that time, there would always be a secret order that would train seven warriors to await the Firstborn's attempts to escape. They would always disappear into the ruined city of Al Khali that had been built atop this bedrock of strife and somehow succeed in banishing the Firstborn back to the Abyss. However, none of these teams have ever returned from their Mission.

The Firstborn would make seven attempts to escape, each time taking back a piece of the earth to add to its domain. Fragments of time and space would form layers around Al Khalid, entrapping pieces of history within its walls from the time of the ancient Sumerians to World War II. Over time, other conquerors would arrive to claim the city as their own but eventually, the city was forgotten and buried by the sands around it.

The Department of Occult Warfare was created in the 1930s to combat the unexplained and 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 he may have survived.

Gameplay

Jericho's core gameplay consists of leading the game's eponymous seven-man team, allowing control of all team members by jumping to each character, through various environments that have been warped by the Firstborn while fighting off a variety of twisted creatures. The controls, regardless of which system the game is being played on are fairly standard.

Plot

The game begins in the present day city of Al-Khali, where the team is ostensibly searching for a missing squad of Swiss Guardsmen. However, the squad soon finds the Guardsmen dead, their bodies horribly mutilated.

Main Characters

Jericho Squad

Captain Devin Ross

Formerly extremely skeptical towards all paranormal and psychic phenomenon, Jericho Squad Leader and accomplished war veteran Devin Ross was transferred to the Department of Occult Warfare after his own psychic abilities manifested during a botched raid on a Taliban safe house several years previously. As a psychic healer, Ross is able to revive fallen teammates, provided he is able to maintain visual contact.

Sergeant Frank Delgado

Sgt. Frank Delgado is of Mestizo and Chickasaw descent, his powers owing to a life-long pursuit of alchemy and shamanic wisdom. Delgado has only one useful arm on a mission- his right is encased within a protective shell containing Ababinili, a parasitic flame spirit of which Delgado was able to summon and earn the cooperation of after offering his arm as a sacrifice. Accordingly, Delgado favors high-caliber firearms to compensate for his reduced dexterity.

Corporal Simone Cole

Cpl. Simone Cole is a super genius and reality hacker. Her vast intellect allows her to manipulate space & time using advanced mathematical principles, using this to maintain communications, scan areas for temporal distortions, and generally keep the team in touch and aware of their general surroundings, though her techno-babble often confuses them. Her time manipulation powers are used to explain the in game checkpoint system, as well as explain how the team keeps their ammunition supplies high (she "rewinds" time in their ammo belts back to the point when they were full).

Lt. Abigail Black

A telekinetic sniper, Black tends to keep to herself. Her teammates pick on her somewhat due to her being a lesbian, with Delgado in particular making many jokes regarding her sexuality.

Wilhelmina 'Billie' Church

Church is a blood mage who serves as a point man for Jericho Squad. Raised by religious fundamentalists, Church became somewhat introverted, taking up training in stealthy arts. Now skilled in ninjutsu, she serves Jericho as a scout and assassin. She is dating Delgado at the time of the game.

Father Rawlings

A preacher with a troubled past and twin handguns. Serving as a chaplain in the military, he knows a great deal of history of the Jericho Squad and the hidden nature of their mission. He has a strong personality and sometimes assumes command briefly when it is clear he has more knowledge of the situation than Ross. His personality sometimes leads to him clashing with other members of the squad, particularly the hot-tempered Delgado.

Xavier Jones

Little is known about Jones, and he seems to like it that way. He is skilled in astral projection and empathy, and Jericho Squad look to him as some kind of enforcer, seen at one point after some team infighting, when he is ordered to "arrest that man."

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Other Characters

Hanne Lichthammer

Lichthammer (German for "light hammer") was a sadistic German officer influencing the Nazi regime. She took up post in Al-Khali during the Second World War, and since then has become an abomination along with her armies. Lichthammer is a zombie-like figure of rotten flesh in a black SS uniform with powers of teleportation, and the ability to delve into the minds of her foes to uncover their deepest fears and nightmares, such as Billie's abusive, incestual relationship with her father. Once captured, Lichthammer is exorcised by Father Rawlings, but it takes a bloodmage to truly destroy her. Billie fulfills that role, and gladly slits her throat with a with a quick slit of her sword, whereupon Licthammer falls into a sea of corpses, choking on her own blood.

Bishop Maltheus Sinclaire

Maltheus is as cruel as he is insane. Maltheus assembled an army of children with the Pope's consent, claiming their innocence would protect them from harm. He moved to Al-Khali, which, through visions, he saw as the Garden of Eden, and had his newly formed army erect a great fortress. The children were in turn slaughtered by Saladin's armies, and Maltheus fled to the safety of his chapel. The souls of the children haunted the fortress still, their hatred turning them into abominations by the Firstborn, craving revenge against the foul Maltheus. Weakened in combat with Jericho, Maltheus prays for the children's aid, they show him none. The vengeful children tear their former master apart, Maltheus' last pleas echo through the halls of the chapel. Upon his death, the children's suffering ends, and they go in peace to the Heavens.

Governor Cassus Vicus

An obscene pervert that has gorged himself in violent orgies and cannibalism. Exiled for his heinous crimes the lost city of Al-Khali, Vicus erected a palace, temples and a vast Colosseum to house his sick ritual games. The temples were not to praise the lost pagan gods of old, but rather to Vicus himself. Vicus turned even more monstrous than before, his very stomach became an orifice, unleashing a violent spray of dark blood upon his foes. Jericho seek him out, overcoming his champions in the Colosseum, and facing the abomination himself. Vicus, too obese to move himself, is strapped to a metallic contraption of chains that pierce his shoulders and suspend him in the air. The machine is manned by an enormous disfigured gladiator of old. After a long battle, Vicus is finally overcome by his wounds, and his corpse is left to dangle by the chains, his bowels and innards falling from his chest in a waterfall of gore.

Arnold Leach

Leach was once a dedicated member of society, but dark visions sent to him by the Firstborn led him to the ruins of Al-Khali. His humanity gone, Leach became a monstrous abomination, a winged demon, and out of madness he carved satanic symbols upon his forehead. Leach and Ross show a true hatred for each other, Leach being his arch-nemesis. It is indeed Leach himself who kills Ross, leaving him nothing more than a soul. Leach serves the Firstborn, and has gathered a vast number of disciples to aid him in his quest to free his master. Leach is destroyed two ways; first, in the average ending, he realizes he was merely a pawn of the Firstborn and redeems himself by sacrificing himself and obliterating the Firstborn. Second, Ross himself confronts his old nemesis, a scenario which can only be achieved by playing the whole game through on the hardest mode, whereupon Ross and Leach battle upon the plains of purgatory. Ross manages to gouge his enemy's eyes up into his brain, and he is consumed by the sands of Al-Khali.

The Firstborn

An abomination of God, His first attempt to create man was a failure. He gave it power beyond belief but entombed it at the beginning of time in Al-Khali. The Firstborn deceives the Jericho team into believing it was but an innocent child, tainting Ross' visions and dreams. The Firstborn appears as a child, but his true form is never revealed. When confronted, the Firstborn uses Jericho's own powers against them, killing both Cole and Jones in the process. After being slashed vigorously to near death by Billie, Leach turns on his old master, and destroys himself and the evil of the Firstborn.

Time Slices

In the game, the squad moves through various 'layers' of time:

Modern Al-Khali - a seemingly regular Middle Eastern modern city.

World War II – a city already destroyed because of the war itself and Nazi occupation. Here Jericho come face to face with Lichthammer, the leader of the freakish German forces.

The Crusades - Classic Arabia when crusaders have influenced architecture with massive, aggressive structures built directly on old walls and buildings.

The Romans - During Roman times, Al Khali was the domain of Cassus Vicus. Vicus, a famously obese pervert and cannibal, was effectively exiled from Rome by Caligula and given Al-Khali as a distant outpost.

The Tower of Babel - In pursuit of Arnold Leach ,Jericho must reach the top of the tower of Babel. Between Jericho and its objective lie an army of stone statues of Sumerian Demons, which come to life with the intention of destroying the squad.

The 4th Millennium BC - The climax. The original domain of the Firstborn - a massive chasm lined with the imposing faces of demons - and a place where Jericho find their very powers turned against them.[4]

Reception

Upon release the game received mixed reviews with an average critic rating of 63% for the Xbox 360 version, 61% for the PS3 and 63% for the PC at MetaCritic and 67%, 61% and 64% respectively at Game Rankings. While some reviewers praised the squad based system, story and Clive Barker's dark style of the game others criticised character AI, linear gameplay and difficulty with certain game mechanics, including the need to spend large amounts of playing time reviving squad members.

On the game's style, Eurogamer stated that "Clive Barker's contribution to the concept and narrative direction of the game will certainly help get the attention of horror fans" while Gamespot noted it's "Gorgeously creepy visuals and sound".

However on certain mechanics IGN complained about the poor AI getting in the way of the play, stating "If the Jericho members' intelligence level wasn't enough of a nuisance for you, there's the actual shooting itself" with Game Informer concluding "If broken gameplay mechanics and community college acting didn’t weigh down the game, it might actually be worthwhile".

External links

• Revelations – The Official Clive Barker Resource Constantly updated news and archive of comments by Barker and others.
• Eurogamer news article announcing Clive Barker’s Jericho
• IGN announcement article and screenshots
• Official Clive Barker's Jericho Fansite