You will love and hate this gruesome horror from the master of the genre.
The story of this supernatural first person shooter follows the steps of Jericho squad, a group of soldiers fighting monsters and other kinds of paranormal stuff. Their mission is to stop so called Firstborn - a creature created by God before Adam and Eve - from escaping sphere where he resides. Well, he was banished by God and now he's in this sort of prison from which once in a while he tries to escape. Only Jericho squad can end this. So you travel through time to kill hordes of monsters and eventually Firstborn... hmm, or maybe not kill, I don't really know what happens at the end of the game. Is the Firstborn dead? What happened to Jericho members? And last but not least what the hell happened overall? Yeah, ending is kinda lame, it leaves you waiting for a sequel which I would very much like to see in some future but they could have at least show some sort of conclusion to the story.
Lame ending aside, "Jericho" features a fair amount of some great things also. The audiovisual presentation is one of them for sure. Graphics both from technical and artistic points of view is superb. Dark corridors covered in blood and dust and dirt, freaky looking monsters and the overwhelming feel of wickedness is what you get in "Clive Barker's Jericho". Very good lighting effects, not a bad physics and the rest of technological side plays without any framerate stutter or any kind of problems. All the sounds just feel right and the music composed by Cris Velasco is awesome and fits the game perfectly.
Clive Barker's contribution is omnipresent throughout the whole game. From storyline to art design to tons of recurring themes from his works. It's both beautiful and horrific, bloody and mature, with strong language - you will hear lines like "he's f***ing dead!" quite often - and some sexual references like one member of the team joking about Ross going into the body of one of the squad's chicks, though there's not very much of this cause you know sex in mainstream games is not positively received by rating boards. Anyway, for fans of "Hellraiser" or most of his other works in general "Jericho" is a feast they can't miss. There are also some really disgusting moments like the fight with Vicus. He's a big, fat, ugly being, hooked up on the ceiling with chains ripping up his flesh and he attacks you by tearing open his giant belly and pouring on you with blood and excrements from his guts. You can almost smell the vile stench of this horrific scene. You get the idea.
Unfortunately "Jericho" also has some irritating design mechanics. First of all it's hard and it wouldn't be that bad if not the fact that your teammates die a lot because of this high difficulty, and even this wouldn't be that bad if not the fact that to revive them you need to get close to particular character, press A button and wait till the reviving animation ends. It all takes time and there are plenty situations when reviving a teammate you will die yourself just seconds later. Levels are very straightforward, there is one and only one way to get through them but still in the all-present darkness you sometimes miss the road and actually go back the same way you came. Moreover, don't know why you can't jump, your sidestep is sloooow and yes you will totally hate those exploding enemies.
Still, there is something that keeps you going because it's quite good and sometimes very intense shooter with nice boss battles, except the last one which is not only the easiest fight in the entire game but also generally disappointing one.
Concluding, "Clive Barker's Jericho" is a beautifully horrific game that will appeal to Barker's fans as well as general horror fans who can turn the blind eye on its shortcomings.