What we have here is one of the most intriguing and just plain different games to come along in years – not only for its affiliation with one of the best writers today, but in premise, design and gameplay. Seriously, Clive Barker’s Jericho is worth getting excited about. But it also has severe problems keeping it from true greatness – not least of which is one of the most anticlimactic and disappointing endings ever. Yes, even worse than Halo 2. After facing so much horror, turmoil, trial and intensity, braving sights unimaginable and enemies unintelligible, for the game to end so hastily without even resolving some of its smallest plot threads… well, it feels a lot like getting slapped in the face after 15 hours with a rather large piece of meat. Bloody meat. Ripped from Clive’s arse. Good thing everything that leads up to the anticlimax is so enjoyable then.

Not that you’d guess it immediately. Despite setting up the story perfectly, which sees a group of several ‘warrior magicians’ travel to the Middle Eastern town of Al-Khali to destroy the first evil, Jericho gets off to a relatively mediocre start. Initially playing as Captain Devin Ross of the Jericho squad, all you can do for a couple of hours is primary/ secondary fire and heal fallen squad mates. It’s a few hours before you start to possess the other characters, fully utilising their powers as you do. From there, you’ll find that Jericho gets progressively better the more you play. More importantly, characters you may have once taken for granted get to prove their worth and stand out. That’s because Jericho is a very calculated experience from start to finish that just so happens to start on a bum note.

Possessing six different characters certainly sounds daunting, given their wealth of abilities. But developer Mercury Steam does a good, if fairly rigid, job of tutoring players in how each character works. Our favourite was Cole, the geek specialist whose main power is slowing down time. In fact, her ‘temporal loop’ ability is good for several reasons; key among them is the way you move faster, can plant a grenade or two beside enemies or revive several fallen squad mates in one swift run. Her riflescope also highlights critical hit points on the enemies. Speaking of scopes, Black, Jericho’s resident lesbian sniper, gets herself the coolest ability ever – to telekinetically guide bullets through multiple enemies. Seriously, pulling off three successful headshots with a single bullet is incredibly satisfying.

As far as characters go, Jericho manages to give all playable characters the chance to shine in both the story and the gameplay. These are not just a bunch of nondescript one-line spouting punks with guns; they’re more, and you can thank Barker for that. In fact, Jericho’s fiction is strong throughout – touching on such minute details as why the bodies even vanish. You can spot his influence in nearly everything, and the rich matter therefore gives the game a bit of a boost over many of its contemporaries.

That said, those expecting a terrifying experience may be a little surprised to find it’s a far scarier game in subject matter than it is in terms of atmosphere or ambience. And to be fair, it would have been difficult to make a game where you’re rarely alone scary. But despite the odd dodgy texture or small dip in frame rate, the art direction, character design and locations – which span modern day, WWII, the Crusades, ancient Rome and the 4th Millennium BC – are exemplary. The various enemies and boss characters are as hideous as they are beautiful, and reminiscent of Stan Winston’s work on The Suffering.

Unfortunately, enemies expose their one attack pattern – rushing straight at you – early. They change appearance, but attacks remain largely the same. More annoying is the way you rarely happen on an enemy; instead they always spawn into locations. As disappointing as that is, the action proves so fast-paced and visceral it rarely matters once the first round is fired. This is because the action is one of the strongest aspects of Jericho – beyond its excellent story and locations. But problems are plentiful; particularly the way it sometimes refuses to be clear on exactly what you need to do to progress. We stalled several times because the game just didn’t explain itself properly. And as good as the Quick Time Events are in terms of chopping up the action (especially one featuring a binding ritual on an obscenity-spewing Nazi), they’re entirely misjudged in difficulty, proving a lot harder than they really needed to be.

Such things don’t ruin the experience as much as claw at your legs while playing. That’s because they’re mostly just a distraction in what is an otherwise damned fine shooter. Yeah, the ending sucks, but this is the closest we’ve come to emulating the author’s nightmares in interactive form. That sounds like a dark place to be, but as Clive Barker’s Jericho proves, it’s one we had a blast visiting. And blasting.

Craig Gilmore