In one part of the stage I played, Church’s nimble body allowed her to climb a wall and travel through a series of corridors on her own to reach the other side of a locked door to open it for the rest of her team. This involved a mixture of frenetic shooting sequences and ‘quick timed events’ wherein specific buttons have to be pressed when prompted on the screen. Church tried to slide down a rather deep, well-like hole and each face button on the controller corresponded to her arms and legs working together to help her. Of course it didn’t help when she looked up and a gruesome skeletal being spotted us and jumped down to attack, leaving Church to battle the enemy with her bare hands.
This kind of collaboration between the squad is perhaps best seen in a boss battle I played. Here, a banished Roman leader Cassus Vicus forces the
Jericho squad to play in a twisted Gladiator tournament - only to find an obese bleeding cannibal deep underground hanging from multiple tenterhooks. I had to use the surroundings of the circular coliseum and shoot in a use rapid-fire weapons to defeat him.
There will no doubt be more puzzles that posing bigger challenges: a later stage had me locked in a room with a massive juggernaut-type demon thing that liked to smack things… in the face.
I had a bit of a problem trying to figure out exactly what abilities my then-five-man squad had that could weaken it, as I was fast running out of ammo. The worry here is that a whole seven-man team could be too much hassle (and frustration) for players when faced with otherwise innovative obstacles. In short, the difficulty curve is – at this time - a little too steep.
It was also unclear (to me) as to how having so many different people would be equally useful throughout the game. Codemasters were on hand to inform me that the development team is still working on balancing the game. Aside from those niggles, the game appears to be progressing very well indeed.
The representation of Barker’s work is stunning: you can clearly see his auteur stamp in the dark, damp caverns and beefed-up militia that you control. I was told that the author is (refreshingly) very passionate and constructive throughout the project and has a clear vision of how he wants the product to be.
Finally, I hassled for details on a potential multiplayer mode. I was assured that
Jericho will not have one. The reasoning for this derives from a tried and tested industry line: developer Mercury Steam’s passion is to make the single- player experience as good as can be. Therefore, including multiplayer mode would – apparently - result in a removal of all the unique features of the campaign such as character switching, telekinesis and fast-paced action. Mercury Steam isn’t going to skimp on all online features, however, downloadable content is assured following the game’s release.
For fans of Clive Barker, the paranormal or those who just want some creepy, lights-off FPS action, keep an eye out for
Jericho when it hits PC, XBOX 360 and PlayStation3 in Autumn.
Remember - you can also see how the game's progressed by checking out our first hands-on,
right here.
