" Who Tommy? Ze Germans?"

Apparently the Germans - like the Australians - ban and restrict video games for being too awesome. After reading a few articles last week about Germany's clampdown on Clive Barker's Jericho I was jumped on playing the demo on XBOX Live. The demo is also available for download for the PC. I suggest that after you read this you go download the demo.

As far as first impressions go Jericho looks too good to be true. I had pretty much written Clive Barker off - his novels haven't been too impressive, his game forays have been lacklustre, and his movie/tv ventures have been piss poor. Jericho has an old school Barker styled story - before Adam & Eve there was the Undying. The discarded and unloved Undying went bad, blah, blah, blah cut to modern times an elite squad of supernatural ass-kickers are investigating a swirling vortex of evil in the middle of nowhere desert of the Middle East. Then it all goes bad.

For a squad based FPS the squad control is simple and smooth and being able to switch between characters with D-pad is nice. The squad in the demo is made up of your standard big guy with a gatling gun and pyromancy, hot chick with telekinesis and sniper rifle, and stealthy hot chick with katana and creepy "blood magic". I have had a bit of trouble using big guy's pyromancy - I think that I'm hitting the wrong button - but his gatling gun shreds enemies. The sniper is my personal favorite and I dig the fact they gave her a grenade launcher. Stealthy girl is fun to play with and not quite as squishy as she could potentially be. What I like is the fact that when not being directly controlled the characters do what they should be doing - taking cover, taking point, and generally kicking ass. I look forward to seeing what the rest of team can do.

Jericho is going to be scary. If I can get the heebie jeebies and jump at shadows just because of a demo either I have turned into a bigger pussweed or this game is effective. The undead/demon/creepy whatever the hell they are awesome looking. The whole demo is awesome looking. Codemasters really nailed it with this game - Jericho looks great. Halo 3 doesn't look this good. Bioshock does though Bioshock also has a unique style to set it apart from everything. It remains to be seen wether or not Jericho has any truly new and refreshing elements. After all I've seen castles and catacombs and sewers and rivers of blood and skinless corpses and demon knights and the Apocalypse before. I do have high hopes for this game though.

It has a release date of 10-23-07 so expect a review soon after that.