Well, I picked up the PC version today. I wanted the extra shit for the LE that they were selling for 360, but I couldn't justify an extra 30 bucks for it when I didn't even know how good the game would end up being. So PC it is. It's installed now, and I'm about to give it a run. Will post impressions soon as I have any to post.
I think already, however, that this is just a pure love it or hate it game. There are some niggles everyone seems to have (everyone hates the button-press sequences), but it's amazing how subjectively disparate all other opinions are, and from legit sources, too. I'm very curious now.
EDIT for IMPRESSIONS - Okay, so I gave it a little over an hour and a half, and... wow. I
really like this game. Explaining why, and also why I think others may not have liked the game, will take some time, and really, some more time with me actually playing it. I'm obviously not far in.
What it comes down to right now is this: Jericho is an attempt at a triple-A title from a developer that has not attained triple-A status. Pure and simple, that's what this is. Because of that it sometimes feels like
it isn't quite on par with certain other games, but in other ways it actually manages to distinguish itself, be different, and even be impressive. A lot of the impressive stuff is production-side. You've got great visuals, masterful camera work in instances, and pretty damned good sound overall. This makes even the more mundane shooter elements feel a hell of a lot more spicey than they would otherwise, much the same way that
Doom 3 managed to overcome being a fairly standard shooter by having great production and atmosphere, etc. The game doesn't feel like
Doom 3, I'm just saying that
Jericho is another example of where a more basic scheme was made more enjoyable because the surrounding experience was very well done.The unique things that make the game different from other games like it are actually pretty cool. The whole thing where you switch between squad members is actually fun to use, and each one actually does feel pretty different from the others, and
I honestly have to give major credit to Mercury Steam for a job well done on that, because it would have been really easy to fuck that up and make all the characters kind of samey. But they aren't.For instance, Delgado actually does kill shit much faster in the ballistic sense. His gun is huge and chews through guys much more effectively than the main character, Ross. Delgado also has a crazy arm-demon thing that comes out and burns the fuck out of people. Church, the little katana-wielding girl, can die pretty quick in the wrong situation, but her melee strikes are extremely quick and very strong. She can zip in and out and take guys down very effectively as long as you aren't trying to take down the wrong guys and are careful to make sure she doesn't get rushed by tons of enemies at once. Her powers allow her to hold enemies at bay with these blood tentacle things, so that helps with that, but you have to be smart about using it, because it drains her health. The sniper chick also dies fast, but she can kill multiple enemies at once using telekinetic control of her sniper bullets, essentially turning them into guided missiles you can control, ramming them right through the heads of several enemies in a row (neat). I won't bother describing each member in turn, but case in point, they each have their own weapons that nobody else uses, and their own skills that nobody else has. This gives them identity mechanically, but it's also cool that they talk a lot. Some phrases are definitely overused and are definitely going to get old before too much time goes by, but the audio cues are really quite well done on the whole. They give you information, but they're also nicely tailored to whoever is talking, so their personalities come through. Heal the tough guy, and he grunts and tells you to back off, he was just fine. Heal one of the ladies, they're a lot more appreciative. Some of them say stuff like "Aww, that's all?" when you clear an area, where others give you a businesslike "Area clear", or some such. Nothing major, but nice touches that add up to make you feel like you actually have a squad of different people with unique gifts. I like that.
I think combat will either be difficult or easy for some people. I think the difficulty will rise sharply from what it is where I am now, but the point is that
if you aren't using each individual person effectively, you're doing it wrong (i.e. make the guy with the fire shield thing protect some people that lay down suppressing fire, make sure the sniper chick gets a chance to take a few guys out while they're still too far to engage you, make sure the katana chick doesn't sit around using her gun all day since her katana is the more desirable choice).
The game seems designed around the premise that you try and use the best squad member for the job when you can, and if you can't, either heal them if they're down, or go find them and possess them so that you can make better use of their advantages. I can't speak to this in detail yet as the option just opened up in the game. From what I've heard, though, this is handled well, and the only people who seem to have a lot of trouble are those who don't seem to grasp the system.
And it's worth noting that the combat feels like warfare. Very chaotic, lots of shit blowing up, blood flying everywhere, people getting hurt and needing rescue, enemies spawning from multiple points... that kind of thing. Except it's warfare with fucking crazy zombies.Also,
the voice acting isn't bad at all. There are a few cheesier lines of dialogue, there's some weird idiot who reads the opening fluff and just sounds way, way over-dramatic about it, but on the whole I think the voice acting is really pretty good. This goes hand in hand with not expecting too much. Don't expect things to be flawless and you'll be fine.
Expect a good B-movie effort that rises above its peers because it's highly entertaining even if not always completely consistent, and while occasionally a little silly or over the top, it's in that more fun Aliens (the movie) kind of way.I'd say that Jericho on the whole feels like an intermarriage of Gears of War, The Darkness, The Suffering, FEAR, and Painkiller. It's got the
Gears of War no-health-meter thing, the squad thing, healing squad members thing, and some of the cool "zomg we're at war!" camera work, it's got
The Darkness's swapping of fun abilities for use in different situations and the cool FPS camera work, it's got some of
The Suffering's general aesthetic just carried into a different setting and with way, way, way better monster designs, the needs-a-couple-more-enemies-and-envionrments-but-is-still-fun thing that
FEAR had, and it's got enemy counts and a cheesy premise that still manages to be fun and badass ala
Painkiller.
I can't complain for 40 bucks at all.
It appears to be roughly the same length as your average FPS these days (8 to 12 hours reported that I've seen), and while it doesn't have multiplayer, a lot don't. This is no more a worse deal than The Darkness or BioShock.I'll definitely post more impressions after I get into it a bit more, but so far things are very positive. I'm really having fun and am very pleased. I didn't know what to expect, and while on some levels I was hoping for more innovation, I'm very glad that the game itself is just plain fun to play, even if not genre-breaking.
Oh, and on a last note, this game is absolutely nothing like Undying, for those hoping for something in that spirit. This is a much more standard FPS game for what it is, and I think Barker did more work with the monster designs and stuff (explains why they're so good) than he did writing some grand plot.
To end this,
I'll also give you all some screens to chew on. Surprisingly, these aren't very good.
The game looks way, way better in motion. My recommendation is to take these and zoom them in to fill your whole screen. That seems to help. Also, keep in mind that I've only gone through a small portion, so you've got the same enemies and the same areas all shown here.
The screens help demonstrate too that the game is extremely dark in spots, though you can have your flashlight on and have a weapon out at the same time, unlike Doom 3.
EDIT x2 - Forgot to add that the game doesn't feel like a bad console port on PC. Menus could use some help and stuff, but the engine itself is very stable and hasn't fucked with my system at all, and the graphics look beautiful. No errors so far except that there's a problem with the game not recognizing my "S" as "left" when doing the little button-press things. It still sees that as "A". This could easily be patched, and is so far the only thing I've noticed that's an actual bug.
This doesn't make a bad PC game at all so far, and the mouse control seems nicely done. Load times were also very fast for me, and many complained about that (
some of the levels are very short, so there's a lot of loading, but for me these times were all under like 5 to 7 seconds). What does annoy me about loading is that it "types" background info on the screen that I want to read, but it types it so slow I have to wait until well after the level has been finished loading. That kind of sucks, but it's a really minor complaint.
