Horror author Clive Barker last lent his name and narrative talent to a video game six years ago. The PC-only release, Clive Barker's Undying, was notably spooky in its delivery, if a bit derivative in gameplay. Recently, Barker took some time off from writing (and from an ongoing slap-fight with film critic Roger Ebert) to work on a new game. For his current spin on the video game merry-go-round, the author teams up with publisher Codemasters and developer Mercury Steam to deliver another horror-themed FPS. That game, Clive Barker's Jericho, is getting AAA-style treatment, with ports to the PC, Playstation 3 and Xbox 360, and an ad campaign both in print and on television. With some serious resources behind it, will Jericho match the critical success of Undying?
A Point to Prove
If you've followed any of the back-and-forth between Barker and Ebert in the press recently, then you know that the two men disagree on one key point: games have the potential to be held in the same artistic plateau as cinema as an art form. Specifically, Barker believes that video games, with their sometimes free-form narratives and their often multiple endings, are just as much an art form as a play or novel. Ebert, on the other hand, asserts that games are not to be held in the same regard as other forms of art, because the experience isn't static. A player has the ability to manipulate the storytelling experience, and therefore a video game can't lure the player to an "inevitable conclusion" because of the "smorgasbord of choices" at a player's disposal. As a literature student, these arguments can be interesting, but as a gamer, I'm more interested in entertainment than exercises in semantics and rhetoric. But after tackling an argument like that, Barker - and Codemasters - should know that his game is under even more intense scrutiny than usual to deliver an engaging and entertaining game.
Bring Some Wine for this Cheese
Unfortunately, the game doesn't get off to a promising start. The opening cinematic sets the stage for the action, and the narrative is pure cheese from the start. Dialogue is over-the-top, with all the nuance of a Wesley Snipes film [as classy as that? - Ed]. The voice acting talent is of similarly horrible, transforming most cutscenes into groan-inducing clips. The combination of a B-level action script with over-wrought delivery turns an earnest thriller into a farcical comedy. And what of the story? When the narrative revolves around a Special Forces team from the U.S. Department of Occult Warfare, you know that you're in for a ridiculous ride. A supernatural investigation in Africa, a Special Forces team with paranormal abilities and plenty of predictable plot developments are what Jericho has to offer for story.
None of this bodes well for the gameplay to follow, which starts off with a hint of promise. After easing you into the games controls - which are uncannily simple to grasp, a carry-over from the console versions - a squad-based mechanic is introduced. As you and your fellow occult warriors investigate the disappearance of a previous elite investigative squad in the ancient city of Al-Khali, an unfortunate turn of events grants you the power to move between team members. In this way, you're able to alternate between a half-dozen teammates, each with unique powers and weapons (though each character carries only two weapons).
Rudimentary squad controls allow you to roughly position the team, which is divided into two squads, Alpha and Omega. All tangible value in squad command is negated by the cramped level design, and there's rarely a reason for any tactic other than a full-on charge forward. The ability to inhabit distinct characters at any moment is the game's most original aspect, but from there the gameplay devolves into an FPS more linear than Doom.
It's Better on Paper, Really!
The frustrating linearity is due to the level design, which is more confining than any FPS in recent (or ancient) memory. Levels are little more than corridors, and moving from start to finish there's a constant sense of being herded. Dulling the experience to an even greater degree are the frequent level loads and checkpoint saves, which are usually followed by a bit of story exposition via in-game cutscenes. Here, the quips between teammates have a certain intentional humor to them, but don't expect to be drawn in to the story to any meaningful degree.
In another nod to frustration, control is crippled during these sequences. Movement slows and the player's weapon disappears from the screen; the only savior is the Escape key. Barker's story develops predictably but in a forced manner; it's relayed in spite of the gameplay and not because of it. It's as if Barker took a cue from Ebert's criticism and removed the element of choice from the game entirely, and the result is an FPS with less player choice than an on-rails arcade shooter. Playing Jericho is a bit like playing an interactive movie, with bits of exposition interrupted by moments of intense combat.
It doesn't sound like fun because it isn't.
Frustrating Gameplay? Sign Me Up!
Combat is just as mindless as the rest of the gameplay. As enemies begin to pour in, your squad moves to pre-defined waypoints to take cover and start the offensive assault. After that, all bets are off - teammates will frequently hit the deck after moving into the open, and it's likely that you'll spend as much time playing medic and reviving dead squad members than attacking. Combat sequences are entirely too scripted, and the cramped levels leave no room for tactics.
Enemies will always run directly at the player, despite the fact that there are potentially five other targets to choose from. Opponents are disproportionately difficult to kill, and many have special target spots that have to be hit to finish them off. The sheer number of enemies and the lack of assistance from teammates makes for maddening combat.
The timed button-press sequences, which work well in console games such as Shenmue and God of War, serve no purpose in a PC game. If you need any more evidence of the lack of originality in design, consider the "Time-to-Crate" rating system, pioneered by classic gaming website Old Man Murray. The Time-to-Crate measurement is simple: fire up a game, start a stopwatch, then see how long before you encounter the first crate. Seven years ago, this was an indirect measurement of a game's originality, and apparently it still works today.
Jericho's Time-to-Crate rating is well under 30 seconds, and you'll find destructible but empty crates throughout the entire game. The only conclusion I can reach is that the Ageia PhysX license had to be rationalized somehow, and with completely static environments the simplest way to accomplish that is through frequent and random crate placement. While it can't make up for the game's fundamental design flaws, the audio (other than the voice acting, that is) is solid, with decent sound effects and music that's capable of drawing some atmosphere into the game. However, I still have to wonder how a PC game ships today without hardware-accelerated audio, and this is one of those games.
The Mark of The Beast (or, How to Spot a Console Port)
We're well into the "next-generation" video game era, and by now an Xbox 360-to-PC port is almost instantly recognizable. Jericho has the telltale markings of just such a port: low-resolution textures masked with gaudy shaders, overused bloom lighting effects, unnecessary motion blur and frequent frame rate hiccups. Character models are the exception, as both teammates and enemies are modeled with above-average level of detail. There are a few memorable creatures in the game, but there's little variety overall - the same enemies attack in droves throughout the game. The visual emphasis is on lighting effects, with muzzle flashes and flames that light up enclosed spaces and rays of light that pierce the darkness.
Dynamic shadows add to the atmosphere, particularly when using the flashlight in dark areas. But the lack of detail in environments and the overuse of depth-of-field and motion blur speak to the game's console origins, where the use of special lighting effects and exaggerated shaders is the norm (motion blur, it should be noted, can be adjusted or turned off completely in the options). On a positive note, all popular resolutions (including widescreen resolutions) are supported, and the aspect ratio selection is unlinked from the resolution. Both options are helpful when playing the game in common HDTV and PC resolutions.
The Ends Don't Justify the Means
The most damning mark of an Xbox 360-to-PC port is poor performance on the PC side, a trait that Jericho exhibits. It takes some serious hardware to drive the custom graphics engine at an acceptable framerate. The limited graphics options leave little room for performance tweaking, and playing at anything less than the highest settings results in blurry, washed-out visuals. As a point of reference, an Intel Core 2 Quad Q6600 overclocked to 3.55GHz with 2GB of RAM and an NVIDIA GeForce 8800 GTX video card could barely muster a frame rate of 25 fps at 1920 x 1200. At a more reasonable resolution of 1280 x 1024, an Intel Core 2 Duo E6420 with 1GB of RAM is a good start. Toss in an ATI Radeon X1800 XL or NVIDIA GeForce 7800 GT with 256MB of video memory, and the game will run at a mostly smooth 30 fps (though expect some drop in frame rate when the on-screen action gets busy). Again, it's possible to drop below this YouGamers' minimum system by scaling back graphics options, but the results aren't pretty in the least.
If you're fortunate enough to be playing on a widescreen display, you may be used to the higher requirements that come with higher resolutions. Jericho requires a relatively greater leap in CPU and GPU power at these resolutions, however; a trait that all too often follows console ports which were coded with 720p HDTVs (1280x720 in PC resolution) in mind. To run the game at 1680 x 1050 or higher, you'll need a system with at least 2GB of RAM and either an Intel Core 2 Duo E6750 processor. If these requirements seem steep, they are; you'll need some serious cycles to avoid a CPU bottleneck, since the GPU requirements are equally as high, with an emphasis on video chipsets with plenty of shader processing power.
For a video card, an 512MB ATI Radeon HD 2900 Pro or 640MB NVIDIA GeForce 8800 GTS will do, though the recently released NVIDIA GeForce 8800 GT (with 512MB of video memory) is likely an excellent option as well (note that the game wasn't specifically tested on an 8800 GT-based card, but performance results and specifications indicate that this card should have no problem with Jericho and other GPU-intensive games). As always, drivers play a crucial role in game performance. I did my testing with NVIDIA's ForceWare 169.04 beta drivers and with ATI's most recent Catalyst drivers, 7.10. Since newer drivers (particularly NVIDIA drivers) have tweaks which improve performance in the latest games, it behooves you to go through the upgrade process.
How Not to Create Story-Driven Gameplay
It's a busy fall and winter for PC releases, and the list of upcoming titles contains at least a half-dozen must-haves. But even if it were a dormant release season, one could be forgiven for passing up Jericho. Despite its dark atmosphere and imaginative enemy design, the game fails to be frightening. Confined levels and too many scripted sequences leave the gameplay feeling too restricted, and the irrationally high system requirements on the PC will leave most gamers with a less-than-optimal visual experience.
Moments of interactivity seem to get in the way of the frequent bits of story; the result is a cobbled-together game that offers neither fun gameplay nor an interesting story. More often than not, you'll pound the keyboard in anger at the unnecessarily high difficulty level, made worse by useless AI teammates. Even the ability to play as one of six different characters at any time isn't enough to breathe life into the game. A horror theme often ends up translating to a silly premise in video games, and Clive Baker's Jericho proves that point once more.
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