Clive Barker's Jericho (Xbox 360)

There are a lot of interesting mechanics to Jericho that you won't see if you get put off by the game, you'll miss the weapon customisation where most of the team members have hardware that can be set to different configurations. This goes beyond the usual set the gun to burst, single and automatic fire, to the configuration of dual pistols (such as Rawling's Faith and Destiny) where you can change the ammo type to fragmentation, explosive and so on.

Simone Cole's grenades can be toggled in the same fashion, giving you another tactical advantage in combat.

Ross' ability to head-swap from member to member allows you to take control of a team-mate and execute a specific special ability when the going gets too tough. Frank Delgado (Pyromancer) has a fire shield, so it's useful to have control of him and let the other Jericho's dish out some major damage as you keep the power up by pressing the LB.

There's also Threading, where you can link powers but I'll let you find out about that yourself.

Jericho is a fine mix of gun and hand-to-hand where a lot of emphasis has been placed of giving the player toys and choice. You feel like you're in control of a bunch of warrior-witches who can kick some serious evil ass and take names. There's an incredible amount of detail gone into the design of these powers, the Jericho's themselves and even something as simple as opening the zoom mode of say, Simone Cole's character is significantly different to Abigail Black.

In Black's case you'll snap open a sniper scope. In Cole's case you are given a threat-assessment HUD that can mark weak-points and see through solid walls. It is touches like this that appeal to me regardless of the reviews the game's been getting elsewhere. I have to ask, just how much time did certain people spend on the game before they went back to say, *cough* Halo *cough* 3. There I said it. Point of note: I enjoyed Halo 3 but it's not the be-all-end-all-shooter.

I've heard bad things about the action-button-God-of-War-style sequences that people complain pop-up without warning. I've had a few of those appear in combat as well as scripted events, they weren't particularly hard and perhaps I might have a Karate Kid style Mr. Miyagi lightning-fast chop-stick gamer reflex when it comes to things like this, but I thought the timing was just right.

I've heard that these button press sequences are bewildering to some, who claim the buttons make no sense. Y=head, A=feet, X=left hand/arm, B=right hand/arm. If you get too close to an enemy in combat they might decide to try some hand to hand, you can see this coming a mile away when you suddenly lose control of the character and the bad-guy drops the nut on you several times making the screen shake a little.

Usually it's a case of Y, X, B or Y, X, A, the game does like to pull different moves so don't try and counter with the same combo all the time. To me this system works perfectly and it adds to the simple gun-blasting combat that happens time and time in the game. I like going to hand to hand, I loved Riddick and Project Breakdown for that and Jericho delivers this in spades as far as I'm concerned. Especially with Church's custom sword and the general melee B-button attack too.

So lets sum up for those people who like to read down and down without reading the whole thing. Jericho has squad-based combat; you're not always in control of every member of the squad as some parts of the game split you up and have you going solo or in smaller groups. Each of the seven Jericho has two distinct powers and some serious hardware to back that up. Each Jericho is more unique than a dozen Master Chiefs (even though I love Master Chief) and the powers are actually useful not just a frivolous addition to make the game: COOL.