Meadhall of the Comitatus

Clive Barker is far and away the most famous Clive according to Wikipedia’s main Search bar, and rightly so. After all, he gave us the Hellraiser series, and….there were other movies in the Hellraiser series. Then he made this video game! Afterward, he did a few more Hellraiser movies. Wow, I built him up just to link to that. That wasn’t nice!

Plot: 4/5

Our boy Clive, this ain't his first time to the RO-deo.

I acknowledge the creativity here as this game has many kickass elements, both in plot structure and game mechanics, but it feels like the extra time just wasn’t put in to make it all click. Matter of fact, the huge learning curve, monotonous gameplay and the feeling like you’re always headed nowhere in particular tarnish the shine right off this otherwise promising premise. As far as analogy applies, it kinda plays like it was an FPS of Hellboy, without letting you play as Big Red himself (although pyromancer Frank Delgado is pretty damn close).

Our plot? The latest generation of warrior-magicians, named the Jericho squad, works for the Dept. of Occult Warfare of the US Army. They get an urgent distress call when the mythic Fertile Crescent city of Al-Khalid suddenly materializes on the site of its supposed ruins. Events take a seriously grim turn when it’s revealed that the city is the site of an old Judeo-Christian entity called “The Firstborn”–God’s first attempt at creating humanity. Unfortunately God fucked up and spilled some black mana in with the white, so He imprisoned his creation in a pocket dimension and blithely went on to create the world as we know it. All praise our Deadbeat Dad in Heaven.

Soon after entering the city, Jericho Squad is abandoned by the laws of time and sanity in the depths of “The Pyxis” (get it? Then Google it like I had to). Through an interesting turn of events, your main character gets the ability to possess the whole squad, letting you gradually unlock their neato powers. Now enjoy playing as the entire party  through hellishly-fucked up versions of history’s greatest conflicts. Hope  you like walking straight into ambushes too…no really, you kinda have to sprout a hardon for getting ambushed, whether it’s brushing your teeth or just waiting in line at Arby’s. Fun fact, Clive Barker himself  is very keen on Arby’s and always makes like his roast beef sandwich, all adrip with signature red Arby’s Sauce, is hollering “PAAAAAINNNN!!” while bleeding profusely from what passes for a mouth. You know what, I’m sorry, that wasn’t that fun a fact because he just doesn’t know when to leave off and it really ruins a meal. The girls behind the counter do not get him and I don’t know why he regales them so singlemindedly this way.

Well, WE love you, Clive. But you have to own up because this (amazingly) is a FPS without:

• Jumping (!)
• Clear map linearity or differentiation (I got lost so many times, esp when Possession changes your direction.)
• Items/Weapons to pick up (!!)
• Any real goals other than ‘survive the next snaking corridor’
• Much plot

But wait, it does have:

• Clive ‘Hellraiser’ BARKER, motherfucker. Nonna that Wes Craven shit here. Better act like ya know. Unsurprisingly there are quite a few quasi-historical references he plays with, to great effect. The whole experience is legitimately Barkeresque too, with many images reminiscent of Hellraiser, or at least good examples of what I take for granted is going on in that guy’s head 24/7.

Op, there's another nightmare.

• 7, count them 7, characters that you can use at various points in the game. Don’t like one? Just jump into another! Just expect him to die too.
• A neat Dragon’s Lair-style “Survival cinematic” device that comes up both in cutscenes and in actual combat, which is really neat…but it’s not integrated well in that you often get no warning when one’s coming. One seccond you’re in dialogue and the next you’re already dead. Also, unlike Dragon’s Lair and the old arcade games like it, the buttons to push are hard to see (colored gray!) and you really don’t know when the next Survival is coming, which I can appreciate but doesn’t work smoothly  in practice. They’re also somewhat difficult, although you do get infinite lives to pass ‘em.
• Dead guys on fire with pikes up their asses that stick right out their mouths. Clive, you are just the biggest scamp.
• A pair of cool supernatural powers for each of your characters. Most of your team are viable once you get the hang of using them, which mostly amounts to whoring their power in combo with their natural attacks.
• Unlockable character bios which are pretty substantial if you’re a nerd like me. This is your only real chance to learn about anyone, though, since the game itself doesn’t develop them much. This also gives Jericho the only replayability it has.

Gameplay: 2/5

“We havin’ fun yet?” –Sgt. Frank Delgado

“…Negative.” –Cpt. Devin Ross

It says they went into that room over there. Jericho Squad, follow me into that room over there."

I bought this game for $4.50 from Half-Price Books and I still have gripes about it, but whaddya gonna do.  Who knows, you might just find it on Steam for the same price. You may not believe me, but  here we have a shooter with an interesting plot and scenery, but boring action. Only a few members of your squad are complete badasses; the rest are purely support characters or are just plain boring to use. It is neat that you have to switch around frequently depending on the situation, although much of that is just ‘possess Frank to open the door’.

The telekinetic sniper, for example,  is way broken and you’ll want to spend most of your time in “Ghost Bullet” mode, which lets you guide your shot through up to 3 targets. Ghost Bullet is the most fun thing about this game and I easily spent half of Jericho just popping heads off with it. Maybe they wanted me to switch off every once in a while, maybe find some combos, but I’m happy to just plow bullets into 3 heads at a go.

Death doesn’t have to be permanent as long as one of your healers is alive, but the fact that you have only 2 of them leads to two distinct styles of play I call Rawdog and Nawdog:

Rawdog: Possess Father Rawlings and suddenly you’re the only medic on the team. Going in Rawdog is really unsafe but can be quite gratifying as you fire point-blank into the…exactly.

Nawdog: Never possessing Rawlings means he’s available as the backup healer, even if he does die all the damn time. God sure does hate him for something he did which we will not mention.

You really spend an obscene amount of time healing your teammates. Seriously, you’re the biggest healing bitch ever. Oh, and if you don’t, everyone dies. The other healing bitch, Father Rawlings, usually goes down a few seconds into a fight, so you have to heal him, then you heal your way through healing, all while healing during healing healing in CLIVE BARKER’S HEALRAISER.

Is he healing her or going for the awkward assgrab? Can't it be both?

The game definitely delivers on its bosses, though. They’re reminiscent of the old Cenobites and most of them have a tactical nuance or puzzle you have to figure out to win. Feeling smart for no real reason is important to me when I totally zone out to play this shit.

Gameplay Gripes:

• All the healing. I’ll stop now.
• I kept getting slight motion sickness due to the realistic but disorienting reloading, constant character bobbing and movement, etc. Maybe I’m just a wuss. It’s been said.
• Not being able to jump is a real bitch, especially when these maps are designed to give the appearance of 3D. There are many places where you do have to climb, after a fashion, but you can only go up ramps. Lots of shit looks like a ramp but isn’t.
• Did I mention getting lost 10x a stage? Your crack team doesn’t always face the way they’re supposed to go, and possessing someone else can get them to face the wrong way. Fun times, but honestly if I wanna hopelessly wander around all day, I’ll just trip out to Lowe’s again.
• The endless handholding…after the first time I’m shown how to use a power,  I don’t want to be told the whole game that I need to Telekinesis the rocks away from the door, especially when it’s the only fucking door through. Attention game designers: I am not your buttpuppet.

Graphics and Frillies: 5/5

A Crusader army on the march...in HELL. Bravo, Mr. Barker.

This is where Jericho has the most to offer you. The maps lack a certain variety (even in “The Gardens of Hell,” there are no actual gardens, just the usual buildings) but wowee. I especially like how they rendered stone and lighted surfaces. Sometimes they’re overly glossy and showy, but there are many authentic and truly splendid rooms for you to get ambushed in.

The voice acting is also excellent, with a few of the top names in the biz, including my man Steve Blum and #1 pretty lady Michelle Specht. Their dialogue is damn funny too. The reviews often cracked on the voiceovers, but I think they were just stuck on the admittedly cheesetastic opening narrator who you have to hear every time you load the game up: “The WORLD as we KNOW it does NOT exist except through STRUGGLE.” That dude should stick to hyping protein bars for GNC.

Fun factor: 2/5 (TOPS.)

Finally someone made a video game about this great man’s life. They just forgot to make it interesting.

Like many a Hellraiser sequel, Jericho truly IS pleasure and pain, indivisible. I love the visuals and the concepts, but Jolly Jesus is this game a drag. Hey, there’s a hill, let’s go climb it. Halfway up, the demons start shambling forward. Let’s snipe them all from a comfortable distance! Yay! Wait, is that another hill? Can’t be. Alpha squad, FORWARD!

Now, I like the Barkerverse and will go quite out of my way to run for my life in it, for which I’m grateful to Jericho. However, not everyone will enjoy these endless stretches of dead people in various stages of deadness, oceans of disembodily fluids, and, my favorite, the insane screaming deathless torturees. Still beats the snot out of Doom 3, but if  you’re looking for a much more engaging trip through Hell, just go rent Hellraiser: Deader. Anyway, thanks be to Clive for trying as hard as he did.