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.

Occasionally, a teammate will come to your aid

You'll spend an inordinate amount of time reviving teammates

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.

Timed button-press events are difficult and unnecessary

... just don't look to your teammates for much help.

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)

Dynamic shadows do much to add to the atmosphere

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.