The Unstoppable Engine of Jericho

Find out more about the haunted sounds of horror master Clive Barker's new game.

There's something of a tiff brewing between noted Chicago Sun Times film critic Roger Ebert and horror maestro Clive Barker. Ebert has reiterated his largely negative opinion about the merit games offer while Barker has come out in support of them. And why wouldn't he. After all, Baker has another game of his own coming soon.

Clive Barker's Jericho is a squad-based first-person shooter in development at Mercury Steam Entertainment and due to be published by Codemasters on PC, Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 later this year.

The game follows a group of seven paramilitary experts known as the Jericho Team has they try to uncover what's happened to Al-Khali, a Middle Eastern town with a violent past that is now the epicentre of a rift in our world.

Since the game relies on the dark imagination of horror writer and moviemaker Barker, you can expect much weirdness along the way, including terrible creatures and a building reliance on ancient arts over modern weapons.

Creating the right mood relies in part on the game's soundtrack, which Codemasters has revealed is in the hands of Cris Velasco. Velasco's work - if not the man himself - should be well-known to gamers through his recent work on the God of War series for Sony. Barker describes Velasco's music as "the unstoppable engine in the terrifying ghost train of Jericho".

Jericho will be one of Codemasters' spotlighted games at next week's Games Convention in Leipzig, Germany. The company is planning to have the game ready in time for Halloween with release date pencilled in for late October.

Find out more about the game at www.codemasters.co.uk/jericho.

Alex Wollenschlaeger
Editor, Kikizo