Fear: Jericho

There are only two video games that I have ever given up on.  I quit playing a medieval strategy game called Excalibur because the programmers were obviously against players saving their games.  By the time you’re on level two, you’re pissed off because every failed attempt is 30-plus minutes of your life that you didn’t enjoy, you didn’t get paid for, and you’re never going to get back.

The other was Jericho - the other game from that infamous $5 clearance bin. 

I brought Jericho over to my friend Charlie’s apartment.  Charlie was extremely gung-ho to play the game.  That should have been an indicator right there for me, but it wasn’t.   Nor was his vampire and werewolf movies, Event Horizon, and the case for Bioshock sitting on his PS3.

The full title is actually Clive Baker’s Jericho.  Clive Baker - the writer best known for family film classics such as Candyman and Hellraiser.  Oh boy!

In  Jericho the haunted ruins of an ancient city mysteriously emerge out of a sandstorm in the Kalahari desert.  The EVP readings are insane.  For that reason, your military squad, Jericho, is sent in. 

Before the main menu loads, there are the ten second advertisements for the various programming and production companies involved.  I don’t remember which company it was, but I will never forget the video.  It had this crazed, pale-faced dude wrapped up in a straight jacket with his eyes and mouth sown shut.  He’s in a padded room, mumbling maniacally to himself as he rocks back and forth.  He looked like something out of a rated R version of A Nightmare Before Christmas. 

So we’re not even to the main menu and I’m already freaked out.  However, this is my first time enduring horror in front of Charlie; I was determined not to be a wimp about it.

The main menu is nothing more than a pulsating wall of stretched out flesh.  Off and on the faces of the damned push against it from underneath.  Joy.

Gameplay starts topside at the gates of the ruins.  I’m okay with this.  Its quasi-daylight, minus the fact the sandstorm is still going on; I have guns; and there are six other people with me. 

Naturally, I shift over to the shotgun.  A shotgun does a lot more damage when something jumps out at you.  And you don’t have to aim with a shotgun; you just have to be facing the right way. Perfect, because I’m won’t be looking at the screen once the creatures start jumping out.

We have a few encounters at first, but nothing I can’t handle.  Then, someone on the team says, “We should split up!”  No.  No we shouldn’t.  But of course they don’t give a damn what I think, and half the team breaks off.

Alright, fine.  I still have four guys, including me.

We get to the entrance to the underground compound.  Its locked, of course.  It can only be opened from the outside, go figure.  Two of us are going to have to stand watch outside.  I’ll stand watch. 

Nope.  They send me in with one other guy.  The stone door rumbles back into place, and we’re trapped inside.  Its pitch black.

Great, ten minutes in and I’ve gone from being outside with six men, to being trapped in the darkness of a crypt with only one other guy, and no choice but to go forward and feel my way into a heart attack.

At this point, Charlie asks, “Hey, do you mind if I kill the lights so we can get the full effect?!”

Without missing a beat I say, “Yeah, let’s do it!” and a part of me dies inside.

We switched off every so often over the course of the next 4-6 hours.  Honestly, the game wasn’t as bad as I was expecting.  However, it is extremely complicated.  You had to manage all seven of your guys to utilize their different abilities.  Without playing regularly, I’d have to restart just to relearn all the controls.  And let’s face it, I’m not playing the game by myself.

Out of everything in the game though, the thing that scared me the most was that crazy little dude in the straight jacket.  I did not have nightmares that night, but multiple times I woke up in the middle of the night fully expecting to see him rocking back and forth, back and forth, at the foot of my bed, mumbling away through his sown shut lips...