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Rail Game minus the Game Part

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 1 / 4
Date: December 13, 2007
Author: Amazon User

Ugh, I have been trying to pump out some video reviews for my gaming site. This is one of the games that is one my growing list. Life has been keeping me busy and I haven't bang it out.

So here is a quickie textual review.

This is a Rail game. (for those of you that don't know what that means) you are stuck running down a predetermined path. Like you are a little dog being dragged along for a walk. I HATE these types of games. Some times the designers can hide this feeling and I'll let the game slide, but Jericho is so bad in game play, that I can't even say anything positive.

It is like play a game with your VCR, oh look I can pause and rewind but the action still happens the same way, over and over and over again.

ONE GOOD THING that I did learn from this is that I like Amazon. NO BS either. I had ordered this next day delivery. It didn't ship for a few days. I didn't even realize it because my plate was so full with other games. When I did, it was still sitting with (wait for pickup) message. I emailed amazon and they shipped me the game next day at no charge. A day later the first showed up. (which I returned) - the fact that they responded so promptly and with a pro customer solution without a whole bunch of BS, increase my love for Amazon.

Jericho...Disappointing

2 Rating: 2, Useful: 26 / 34
Date: October 24, 2007
Author: Amazon User

A horror themed FPS!

After viewing the trailer, I decided to purchase this game; it (the trailer) had an interesting, spooky 'Doom 3' look to it. Being a longtime FPS fan I was cautiously optimistic; however, the game did not live up to my expectations...let me comment on some of the good and the bad.

The Pros:

1.)Smooth flowing graphics if you have the hardware and video card to run this game as it was meant to been played. Also, the ambient sound effects were well done, adding to the creepy atmosphere.

2.)Short levels with fairly frequent checkpoint saves.

3.)Your team is composed of 7 different members, each with their own unique 'special' abilities (but these abilities are locked in and are not the RPG type, where you can pick and choose between upgrades).

4.)The game has the interesting concept of allowing you to switch between characters to become any one of the other team members; thus giving you the use of their special talents (to help get through different situations). Initially, this looked intriguing, but...[see Cons: 6.) below]

The Cons: (from minor to more important)

1.)You can't save the game except at game generated 'checkpoints'.

2.)Very linear game play. You must follow a tight, specific path; there is no other place to go because walls, rubble, ditches etc. hem you in.

3.)There are times (in what appeared to be a short separate mini-game) when you must press the 'arrow' keys on your keyboard in a specific sequence to escape a situation (and you keep repeating this 'exercise' until you get it correct or you can't progress any further). This seemed senseless to me and had no real bearing on the game.

4.Because the colors textures were so uniformly muted and dark, it was sometimes hard to tell in the heat of battle, if you were shooting the enemy or your own teammate.

5.)Although the game play (from the trailer) looked promising, it was disappointing to say the least; Fighting techniques, that initially seemed cool, quickly became extremely repetitious; kill the enemy, move on, kill the enemy etc...minimal thinking required.

6.)This game features a 'team', so you'd naturally think a 'team' concept for play would be used, but yet in battle (although you can 'switch' to become one of your teammates to use his particular skills), you have no real control over the rest your team players; which leads into...7.)

7.)My biggest concern with this game was the AI of your teammates...there was none! In battles, (which tended to be intense and chaotic, almost arcade-like in quality), your fighters just stand there, out in the open, and fire away (with the end result...they get killed)! Standing behind cover for protection would never occur to this group of heroes; dumb, unrealistic AI.

Conclusion:
A game that really looked promising, but missed the mark. It had great graphics and good audio but just didn't deliver where it really counted...in game play. I gave up on this game after about a dozen levels; boring, very repetitive and a frustrating teammate AI.

Don't even bother.

2 Rating: 2, Useful: 9 / 13
Date: October 30, 2007
Author: Amazon User

Clive Barker's Jericho
So I just finished the game (PC). Yeeeeeaaaaawwwnn!!! Here's a quick rundown of game-play: run, stop, shoot shoot shoot, heal teammates, heal some more, heal more, shoot shoot shoot, run to next area that looks EXACTLY like the last area, rinse and repeat. You can heal as much (or often) as you like, and you never run out of ammo. FPS have just become so repetitive repetitive repetitive that I'm just bored. Is this a scary game? No. Not in the least. It's just a fraction this side of (sort of) creepy. Since we've seen Clive Barker's "hooks-in-flesh", "rivers-of-blood-and-feces-and-vomit", "folks-without-skin" (or some skin) since the mid-1980s, it's hardly fresh. Come to think of it, Doom does Hell better than Clive Barker's Jericho. Now that's just sad. If any good is to be said it's for the team-switching system; pretty cool and I can't wait until a truly talented group of game designers cribs it and uses it in a good game. Now, I can sit here in armchair-judgment and complain or I could recommend something...so here they are: 1) to the gamers looking to buy a fun game with varied powers, a great story-line and amazing artwork, go for BioShock (one of the best games I've played in a decade). 2) if any game designers are looking at this, Jericho would have been a lot more fun if it had included strategy and actual orders for the team (otherwise, why the team in the first place?). Take a page from Rainbow Six, maybe, and let me order my team to concentrate their weapons or "craft-powers" on a certain area, allowing me (or another character I order) to sneak around back or accomplish some other objective.

-P.S. That cool opening movie (nice job, Blur Studios), does not have a companion at the end. In fact (no real spoiler here), there's nothing at the end. It just...well...ends. What a let down.

October, 2007.

Stick to movies Mr.Barker

2 Rating: 2, Useful: 1 / 2
Date: February 08, 2008
Author: Amazon User

I bought this game expecting something like doom 3. I was excited because I thought this was going to freak me out while being entertained. I was wrong.

The graphics were great, the story had potential, but it was pretty cheesy. I enjoy looking down the sites of the weapon but in this game you are forced to use cross-hairs, pretty weak. No offense to Clive Barker but he needs to stick to movies because it is painfully obvious he knows little about video games. If it were not for the language and the gore I would have sworn this was intended for children, I base this on the cheesiness of what the characters say and the oh so predicable comments. If you are 13 you might like this game.

bottom line? flat. lacks depth of any kind

2 Rating: 2, Useful: 0 / 1
Date: November 21, 2007
Author: Amazon User

Flat. it's very much a game for twitch oriented shooter for a console, targeted for a younger crowd.

Just about every thing from Doom to Half-Life to Crysis do both the game, game genre, and overall theme better. The story is ... lacking, for an author of barkers abilities.

The idea of a squad is a bit of a joke, there are no real squad elements in the game. Plus there are enough console game elements, and forced action to make someone without a Ritalin IV and ADD feel old and slow. Only until you realize it was forced action and designed to pump life into a dead spot in plot and game play. This is not a PC FPS, it is a console shooter. A poor port of a console shooter.

If you are here, reading this review for the PC version. You can do better by a large margin with a number of releases that have come out the past 2 years.

ran this on a 3.8 running vista ultimate with twin 8800's for graphics. So YMMV.

Undying was much better but this has its moments.

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 3 / 4
Date: November 17, 2007
Author: Amazon User

I've always loved clive barkers work with hellraiser lord of the illusion etc. When i heard he was making video games i was pretty pysched, i picked up Undying and still have the original copy today and wow it still gives me the creeps. I was very pysched when i saw this in game informer mag last year, Clive has always kept a low key about his work including games. Well this fails to deliver in many ways, basically here in the run down of pros and cons.

Pros
* Being able to choose from the 3 Jericho members at any given time is really cool.
* The usual clive barker atmosphere is there but in a more subtle less morbid way. More futuristic perhaps.
* The enemies are the usual twisted heeps of muscle tissue growling around waiting to kill you, but are much faster it seems.
* Very excellent sound, ricocheting bullets on metal, very ambient undground sound effects, water, creeking etc.
* Its actually pretty easy NOT to die.
* Very interesting psychic ablilities from each J member.
* Nerve racking which some people like some don't
* Lastly Great Visuals.

Cons
* EXTREME repetative gameplay, more than some games, less than others.
* No real outside environments, most of the game takes place in caves and old ruins.
* The overall feel just isnt Clive Barker.
* Awkward control issues, i would recommend a PC controller especially for when you have to hit certain buttons during cut scenes in order to survive.
* Some of the A.I although brilliant move a bit TO fast leaving you wildly spinning the mouse in every direction.
* Just an overall feel that the game was done pretty quickly and had more potential than what it gives.

So while Clive Barkers Jericho won't leave a "bad" taste in your mouth is does make you wish the game were a little more Clive Barker and a little less Gears Of War and Unreal Tournament. So fair but not much replay value.

Promising, dissapointing

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 0 / 0
Date: November 06, 2007
Author: Amazon User

What really worked here is the sense of being trapped in a Clive Barker world with sick S&M characters that cause nothing but bloody chaos, and they're the good guys.

Unfortunately the game has about 10hrs of play the first time through, mostly because it takes that long to A: figure out the controls are not only simpler than they seem but that only two characters are worth playing and B: the damned press "up up down up left left right down up up" sequences will cause you to turn the game off and play something else and then re-do the level later.

The second play-through will be two hours on the hardest difficulty setting.

The "cheats" that cost you $6.00 on-line are a cheap way to steal from gamers. Only the "unlimited ammo" cheat is worth it, you won't notice the others, and only because one character has a grenade launcher and the game is sooooooo much fun if you just walk through and blow everything up with her!

The game looks like it should play like Halo, grab cover, figure the best way to defeat an area and do it! NO! It's more just keep killing what pops out and walking. Eventually you clear the area, walk on. Walk on. Walk on. Walk on. Walk on........................................

That's all you do, shoot, walk, shoot, walk.

It looks neat, but not special. There's maybe ten, fifteen monsters and a few easy, easy, easy bosses. Lots of blood and rot, but little else.

"Undying" was a better conceived game in the Clive Barker world, but neither game works because they each lack what the other has. "Jericho" is easy to play, clean interface, tight controls but no story, no puzzles, no exploration. "Undying" was hard to play, lots to explore, bad controls, wimpy hero. Niether has a Clive Barker worthy story.

What we need is "Weaveworld" "Imajica" "The Great and Secret Show" FPS RPG's!!! That would be best way to bring Clive to the game world.

I hate to say it, but Hellgate and The Witcher are better games. Even Halo is a better game.

Blood and Chaos

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 14 / 16
Date: October 26, 2007
Author: Amazon User

I've been a fan of both Clive Barker and horror games for a long time, and I played Barker's Undying and enjoyed it, so I was curious what he had in store this time.

I haven't finished the game, but I've made good progress so far, and frankly I think its quite a lot of fun. Blending elements from several action/shooter/horror game styles, Jericho offers a lot of interesting and flexible play. It also excels, compared to most games of this kind, in concept and story line. I like the characters, I found the idea to be interesting, the execution to be good, and the play itself to be enjoyable.

It IS an on-the-rails shooter, and there is neither time nor incentive for exploration. Combat is intense, close quarters, and comes in short waves throughout, but the variety of ways to achieve survival and victory is interesting due to the use of each character's unique attributes and weapons.

This game is not graphics intensive. The graphics are good, but not overly complex. The lighting is well done, and the use of depth of field and motion blur add nice touches to otherwise insane displays of pyrotechnics in cramped and ruined urban settings. I actually like the look of the game, and though it doesn't compare to some in this department, it is quite a lot more interesting than, say, the much hailed F.E.A.R. in which office cubicles and tunnels are the only things to see.

More than anything, I have enjoyed the personality of this game- the characters and the dialog are simple but entertaining, and the pace and plot are too. True, the main objective is to run from one place to another, shooting everything in sight and trying not to get killed, but there is enough going on and enough variety, primarily in the various forms of disgusting and disturbing monsters and scenarios to keep my interest.

The music is good, too, quite cinematic and well produced. All in all, I think the game is well done, and it is certainly embued with enough vintage Barker style horror to satisfy fans of that particular element.

Worth buying

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 2 / 3
Date: October 31, 2007
Author: Amazon User

A good gritty gory FPS.

You do a lot of mindless shooting in the game like any FPS and you also get to use abilities of all team members in creative and essential ways often. I liked them all for different reasons.

I will definitely be going back and playing specific levels I liked again. You may select and play any level you have cleared again under "Historic Missions". I'd like to take more time to unlock achievements too.

I like the story, the grit, the gore, the bizarre characters and changing between them to use their abilities when I feel like using another style, or it's essential to the situation at hand.

I don't mind the occasional button mashing sequences. They didn't go crazy with them so they add flavor. I like when you use them to escape from the grasp of creatures and beat the snot out of them in the process. It feels good to actively and progressively beat the crap out of something that grabs hold of you with evil intent. I found one to to be challenging. The rest were easy. Stare at the screen and use your peripheral vision rather than looking at each arrow as it pops. I used WASD.

Most users that got it like it and most reviews gave it good or slightly above average marks. The people that out right trashed it are a minority.

BTW, tough demons may be taken out with placed shots, typically three. Some creatures my also be killed by a single hit from the rear, instead of many to the front. Some creatures, like the demons that explode when they die, can be downed by a single hit from Black's mini launcher. Black's ghost bullet attack uses no ammo and may be used to strike up to three creatures by steering it. Church's sword can often kill in a single hit as well. Church also has a fire ward that does good damage to any creature that enters its area. Her blood ward will "snare". You need not even aim Delgado's fire demon attack. Just let it go. He also has a fire shield that will shield the party from fire damage and even reduce regular damage to a degree. Father Rawlings can heal/res team members at a great distance. Cole's frag grenades hit hard. She can increase the damage of the whole party for a short time. She can also slow time while she remains at full speed.

I have my favorite characters and definitely found them all useful. That's physical attacks and supernatural abilities. The game is much more fun if you know your characters physical attacks well and perhaps even more importantly, their supernatural.

Since I am partial to the dark elements in the game I gave it a 4. It is actually more of a 3.5, and still worth owning and buying.

If profanity bothers you, skip it. If gore bothers you, skip it. Conservative folks will likely find the game offensive in more way than one and I'd recommend they not bother. Of course if you hate FPS, skip it :p.

I did not like the last fight or the end Boss. Not because it was hard and rather because it just didn't suit my preferences.

Games, like music and movies are art, so reviews vary in rating because it depends on the taste of the person consuming the work.

Great FX, Good Story

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 0 / 1
Date: December 26, 2007
Author: Amazon User

This it's a great game, the visual effects are stunning, and the AI of the teammates it's not that bad.
Being able to go into your other teammates gives the game a lot of diversity.
The only thing which kind of disappointed me it's the ending, but I guess it leaves the game open for a sequel.

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