I think Clive Barker’s Jericho is a very underrated game. True, it is all over the place, linear and repetitive, but the story, mechanics, graphics and gruesome character designs are great and still hold up today in my humble opinion.

The story of Jericho revolves around The Firstborn, who is freed by an abomination called Arnold Leach, a former General of the US DOW department. The Firstborn is an all-powerful being that, when unleashed, can destroy the world.

The special Jericho squad is summoned to enter the breached prison of the Firstborn, in an attempt to seal it. In the prison, they are warped through different time periods, each with their own horrors and psychological torment. The commander of the Jericho squad is killed by Arnold Leach, but remains a spirit, being able to take over squad mates by possessing them.

The squad eventually reach the Firstborn and fight him, rather than sealing him away again. With their special abilities, they eventually win and save the day.

In terms of gameplay, you control a squad of seven members, switching to another if so desired with the click of a button. Each squad member has its own fighting style and special abilities. Switching between the different abilities in your team can mean winning or losing sometimes. With your team, you make your way through the gruesome environments of the Firstborn prison, going through the twisted versions of the Second World War, the medieval crusades, and the ancient Roman times.

The graphics are still beautiful. They are dark and depressing, perfectly fitting for this game. The animations and First Person perspective with the smooth framerate made a big impression on me back when I played the game.

The sound is creepy and disturbing. The gunfire is fine, so is the voice acting, and the crying and wretched sounds enemies make really makes you feel uncomfortable.

The controls, interfaces and mechanics are easy to understand and work well. You have your primary fire, alternate fire, abilities, squad orders and switch mechanics by pointing at the desired character and press a button. Easy, simple and functional.

A complaint with this game is the AI of your teammates. In a game like this, this should be on point, but the AI is so incredibly stupid sometimes, that you are busy reviving everyone all the time, instead of killing enemies yourself.

Another complaint is the repetitive nature of the enemies. The environments change and provide enough variation in terms of atmosphere, but the enemies are constantly recycled throughout levels. It is always the same enemies, with some time period-specific ones added here and there.

The game is linear, which is okay for me, but it has tight corridors without much space to run around or take cover. There are also no alternate paths to approach enemies from another angle. Lastly, it has traditional kill walls, in which you cannot proceed further until you kill every soul in sight.

In the end, I think Clive Barker’s Jericho is a great game, just not the all-time classic that I hoped it would be.

I am on a journey to beat 360 random Xbox 360 games. Here's my next adventure

Game number 34 was Jericho. This is a first-person shooting game where you take control of the spiritual crusade army team (IDK exactly what they are): Jericho and their mission to stop a force called the firstborn from escaping its prison and taking over the world.

This game is the definition of being edgy for the sake of being edgy… it feels like Clive Barker put half the scenes here just for the sake of showing gore, horror, and moments that were supposed to be deep. This may be kinda fresh because we do not see this at all anymore… but it caused me to eyeroll more than a few times throughout the story.

The whole plot is about this team going to 5 different time periods, following the Firstborn and figuring out how to follow/stop him. The firstborn is supposed to be God’s first creation. In this game’s lore, it is essentially the person made before Adam. God thought this thing was evil and locked it up in a pocket dimension space and every few hundred years people need to come in and seal it up again. At the time you get there, the prison dimension seems like it has been neglected and is almost open.

This game is essentially a hero shooter, similar to Overwatch or TF2 in how each character works. All of them have different weapons and special abilities and you will need to utilize them to get through levels. For example, one of the guys can possess spirits and another one can slow time. I think that most of these characters work fine and it will be a matter of preference for who your favorite will be. The best part is that you can switch members on the fly and use them as needed.

The bosses in this game were actually pretty fun and memorable. They always had crazy designs and were super imposing. Furthermore, a lot of them actually had mechanics. Bosses in FPS games usually aren’t more than bullet sponges so I appreciated this. They were definitely a highlight here.

One last remark about the game: This game has god awful graphics. Most of the things in this game are blurry and look like crap. I get that it is an early game for the system… but things could have been done much nicer here and still given an eerie tone.

Overall, I think that Jericho is a novel horror FPS… but it isn’t really spectacular in anything that it does. The shooting is fine, the story is mediocre, and the horror is non-existent (I don’t think that any game that is fast paced can really be called horror). I don’t see much of a reason to go back to this one other than the cool bosses and decent historical time periods that you get to explore. (5/10)

I spent 5 hours, 27 minutes, and 10 seconds playing Jericho.

I have spent a total of 354 hours and 22 minutes on the Road to 360 challenge so far.

Next game: Dead Island

Some years ago i saw this game on my uncle's shelf, the box art really impressed me so i kept thinking along this is years every time i saw anything about this game: "i must play this sometime". Well, i tried.

My first disappointment was the extreme action in a supposed horror game, it looks like a horde mode all the time. You basically kill some enemies, then you walk, and then you kill some enemies again. It's like Doom, but without the fun. I've played some hours of it, 'cause the plot is a little bit interesting, but i gave up, never played something so repetitive in all my life, the enemies are almost the same everytime and even when the game change the look of them, it keep their moveset. There's not even collectibles or something like that in the game, it's just an unintentional run 'n gun almost unbearable to play.

EDIT: ok, i've just finished the game right now, and it really isn't a good game, BUT it gets a little better near the end, there's some boss fights that aren't all bad and some parts not so annoying like all the rest. Some reviews of the game says that the difficulty is quite high, i disagree with that, particularly, i've just used Black, the sniper girl, the entire game, and didn't find much trouble.

Even tho i said that there are some almost good boss fights, the last one is terrible, practically everything about the end of the game is terrible. I still think 1 star is more than enough for this game, just had to finish it to be sure.