Developed by Mercury Steam in collaboration with novelist and filmmaker Clive Barker, Jericho is a horror FPS. You will play as Capt. Devin Ross who will be able to control every squad member through his telepathic powers.
Pressing and holding the space button will pop-up an interaction menu from which you can instantly select which member you want to control. From all seven members in the whole game, in the demo (which can be downloaded from here) you are allowed to play only with three of them: Sgt. Frank Delgado (an alchemist and pyromancer), Lt. Abigail Black (a telekinetic sniper), and Sgt. Billie Church (a blood mage).

 

Unlike most of the FPS, weapons are not so important here. Any gun or pistol are used only as defence tool. In general you will use the psychic abilities of every character. You have to look always for the best combination between all three characters.

So how did the developers combine these psychic talents with fps elements? Similar to Dark Messiah. The visual effects and the gameplay itself focuses alot on melee combat. Unfortunately the melee combat mode is not so efficient as in Dark Messiah, but at least looks good and sometimes scarry. You can either chop and impale the enemy with the help of Sgt. Billie Church's katana, or use your fists to defend yourself in narrow passageways. Billie has also the ability to cast spells from her blood to create a fire sphere which can burn anything in a strict area, or a sphere which can paralyze every enemy that comes near it.

Abigail is much more vulnerable from melee attacks so she must be used from far distances where she can use her sniper ability. Every bullet can be controlled by her mind-power and can kill up to three enemies from one shot.

Frank is a huge soldier with a minigun. He can take the most hits and can create huge destruction with his minigun. He also posess a fire-dragon in his right hand which kills instantly any enemy in the area. To bring balance to the gameplay, the developers decided that every psychic ability should use health, otherwise the game would have been to easy. For instance, Frank will burn his hand everytime he uses the fire-dragon.

The good news is that every injured squad member can be healed by you. You just have to stay next to him and tap the space button.

Like in Tomb Raider-Legend, the game uses cinematic-interactive scenes in which the player has to use his dexterity. Every important cinematic scene can be controlled by a sequence of directional commands. You just have to pay attention and to push the right buttons.

The graphics look tempted, similar to what any game can achieve nowadays with the help of Unreal 3 engine. The demo takes place in semi-dark environment lightened only by fire. The developers emphasized on red color spectrum and effects like blur or emited heat. The enemy is as ugly as it can be tipically to what Clivbe Barker always created.

Blood and gore everywhere, that's his style. Although I had the impression that the story is not substantial as in Undying (the first game made in direct collaboration with Clive).

 

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