Clive Barker's Jericho

I just beat Clive Barker's Jericho this weekend. The game is set in the near future, and you control an elite squad of psychic military operatives trying to prevent Hell from overtaking Earth.

Okay, it does sound a bit corny and cliche, but the game was worth playing. You can cycle through each of up to six characters in your squad, each of whom have unique abilities and weapons. The abilities are used throughout the game to solve puzzles or kill the legions of zombies and demons during your descent into "The Abyss".

The setting, graphics, and sound are all excellent, and create a frightening setting with rivers of blood and limbs and more.

The most frustrating aspect of the game is the allied AI. When you are not directly controlling members of your squad, they seem incapable of using their own abilities, and rarely even shoot at enemies. Fortunately you are capable of instantly bring them back to life. However, this requires you to be within melee range, leading to fights where the entire time is spent running between your incompetent team mates while chain resurrecting them.

Most of the puzzles in the game are frustrating with obscure solutions. The highlights of the game are the story, squad system, and just mowing down the almost endless hordes of zombies and undead with your team.

I wouldn't recommend buying the game unless you are a hardcore fan of zombie games or it is in a discount bin, but if you don't have anything else to play it is definitely worth renting.

Here is Yahtzee's review from Zero Punctuation. He didn't think as highly of it as I do. :)