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1[[quoteright:280:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/clive_barker_jericho_cover_7860.jpg]]
2
3''Clive Barker's Jericho'' is a 2007 squad-based, FirstPersonShooter video game with supernatural and horror themes. Horror author Creator/CliveBarker provides the storyline, and the game is developed by Creator/MercurySteam and published by Creator/{{Codemasters}}. The game was released on UsefulNotes/PlayStation3, UsefulNotes/XBox360, and PC on October 23, 2007 in the US, and November 2, 2007 in the UK. According to [[WordOfGod Barker himself]], a trilogy was planned, which never came to be.
4
5The story revolves around the legend of the Firstborn, a being created by God before Adam or Eve. However, disturbed by his own creation, God banished it into a slice of reality known as "the Box" or "the Pyxis", forever unloved and forsaken. Naturally, the Firstborn is not happy about this, and despises humanity for being given what it was never allowed to have, and makes several attempts to escape, using human beings as its pawns by seducing them with dreams of whatever they desire. Each time it attempts to escape, seven powerful warriors, skilled in supernatural arts, would be sent to trap the Firstborn back inside its domain once more. Each time it is sent back, it takes back a piece of the earth to add to its domain. Fragments of time and space would form layers around this domain, linked to the mortal world in the city Al-Khali. These layers would entrap pieces of history within its walls. Unfortunately for the seven warriors sent to seal the breach, they would also be trapped inside the Box for all eternity. Death in the Box has no meaning; if one is killed inside the Box, they are taken away by flies and are reanimated by the Firstborn's powers, transformed into twisted versions of their former selves.
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7In the 1930s, The Department of Occult Warfare (D.O.W. for short), a top-secret U.S. Special Forces organization, was created to combat the supernatural and unexplained, with the general population kept unaware. The top-secret combat arm of this agency are Jericho Squad Teams, a seven-man elite commando unit trained in conventional and occult warfare. When the lost city of Al-Khali reappears in 2007, the latest Jericho squad - consisting of [[DeathByOriginStory Cpt. Devin Ross]], [[TheBigGuy Sgt. Frank Delgado]], [[FriendlySniper Lt. Abigail Black]], [[DisabilitySuperpower Cpl. Simone Cole]],[[BadassBookworm Cpl. Xavier Jones]], [[ActionGirl Sgt. Wilhelmina "Billie" Church]], and [[BadassPreacher Father Paul Rawlings]] - is sent to Al-Khali to prevent [[TheDragon Arnold Leach]] (a former D.O.W. member, now the leader of a cult that worships [[EldritchAbomination the Firstborn]]) from opening the breach and unleashing the Firstborn upon mankind once again, traveling to each time the breach was opened (known as "time slices"), in order to seal the Firstborn away once more. These time slices are, in order: Al-Khali (2007 A.D.), UsefulNotes/WorldWarII (1942 A.D.), The Crusades (1213 A.D.), The Roman Empire (38 A.D.), and Sumeria (3000 B.C.).
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9The gameplay allows control of all Jericho Squad members by jumping to each character during certain points in the game. Each squad member has both a primary and a secondary attack. They also each have unique supernatural abilities, which play a prominent role in the game.
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11Not to be confused with [[Series/Jericho2006 the 2006 TV series]], [[Series/Jericho1966 the 1966 TV series]], the ''WesternAnimation/MyLittlePonyFriendshipIsMagic'' [[Fanfic/JerichoMLP fanfic]], the British series ''Jericho of Scotland Yard'', or the wrestler Wrestling/ChrisJericho.
12----
13!!Provides examples of:
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15* AbsurdlySpaciousSewer: A few areas in the Crusades levels.
16%%* ActionCommands
17* AdmiringTheAbomination: Despite hating Leach with a passion, Delgado cannot help but admire Leach's extensive years of planning to open the Breach, by using mass human sacrifice and all manners of horror-show to create a "Karma Bomb" while the Jericho team was none the wiser.
18-->'''Delgado:''' All that shit those Dark Rapture-dickheads have been pulling... killing babies, blowing up schools, they've been saving that negative karma for this moment. How the hell did we miss something like that?
19-->'''Black:''' You almost sound impressed.
20-->'''Delgado:''' I am. Spellcraft like that takes vision. Foresight, man.
21* ArtificialStupidity: The enemy AI is dense as lead, and the allied AI isn't very smart, either.
22* BeingGoodSucks: Each team that is sent into Al-Khali has managed to reseal The Firstborn and give Creation a little more time to exist, but none of them have come back out again. The ones who don't [[CameBackWrong come back wrong]] are tortured for eternity, or forced into non-stop combat against the Firstborn's abominations to keep themselves from being tortured for eternity.
23* {{BFG}}: Delgado's primary weapon, a three-barreled [[GatlingGood gatling]] gun named "Hell's Keeper".
24* BlackDudeDiesFirst: [[spoiler:Muriel]] is the first human casualty of the game.
25* BloodBath: The Sumerian demon Inanna is encountered while taking a blood shower. As a skilled sanguimancer, she can use the blood to summon the Sumerian Puppet God. Some of the pools in the Roman baths are also filled with blood.
26* BodyHorror: All over the place.
27* BodyOfBodies: The Behemoth enemies.
28* BoomHeadshot: Extras can be unlocked for exploding a certain number of heads. It is best to use Black's sniper rifle for this.
29* BossRush: The Sumeria levels.
30* TheCaligula: The hedonistic Roman Governor Cassus Vicus was banished to Al-Khali for his legendarily depraved hedonism by [[EvenEvilHasStandards Caligula himself]].
31* CameBackWrong: Pretty much every single enemy, being former humans that allied themselves with the Firstborn or were tricked into doing so (although most of them were evil and/or insane to begin with).
32* CliffHanger: Quite possibly one of the most frustrating "endings" in existence thanks to being a blatant SequelHook, with practically no chance of it ever being resolved since it didn't sell well enough to justify a second entry.
33* ClusterFBomb: This game is full of swearing, but Delgado and Black especially love this trope.
34* CombatTentacles: The Child Crusaders have them, in place of hands.
35** Church's BloodMagic traps also use them to bind enemies.
36* {{Cult}}: The Brotherhood of the Dark Rapture.
37* CustomUniform: Each character's military uniform is unique.
38%%* CutShort
39* DeathIsCheap: For anyone as long as Ross or Rawlings is up.
40* DidYouJustPunchOutCthulhu: [[spoiler: Jericho Squad manages to reach the deepest part of the Box, where they're prompted by Antadurunnu to do their part and seal away the Firstborn. The Squad, after seeing the horrible fates of all the other teams that did just that, realizes that it'll do nothing to actually solve the problem, so they decide to fight the Firstborn directly... and succeed, but not without losses]].
41* DiscOneNuke: Every member of the squad (except Ross) has at least one, most of which become available about a third into the game.
42** Black: Ghost Bullet is able to pop the heads of up to three Mooks in one shot, her underbarrel GrenadeLauncher gibs most common enemies in one shot, and then she always has regular shots from her rifle. Black becomes a borderline jack of all trades once her telekinesis is upgraded and sets enemies on fire while repelling them.
43** Church: Blood Ward. It paralyzes a majority of enemies completely, even causing legionnaires to lower their shields.
44** Cole: [[TimeyWimeyBall Temporal Loop]]. Activate it and you can usually chuck three grenades or fire two full clips from her rifle before you run out of "time" for it. Just one grenade is usually enough to kill common enemies if it's set to an impact fuse.
45** Delgado: Ababinili won't always kill enemies with one hit, but it can even hit legionnaires through their shields and usually doesn't take more than two hits to kill even on hard. It's fully capable of wiping out groups of enemies all by itself with no input from the player beyond letting it loose.
46** Jones: His possession gimmick allows him to cast Blood Ward ''from the target's hit points.''
47** Rawlings: His twin .357 caliber magnums can be adjusted to fire explosive rounds which tend to kill most enemies in two shots and Rawlings' old arms can fire those desert eagles pretty damn fast.
48* TheEndOfTheWorldAsWeKnowIt: The Firstborn is trying to bring about this, and has been trying to do so since the start of Creation.
49* AFateWorseThanDeath: Poor, poor [[AndIMustScream Tertius Longinus]]. In fact, being trapped in the Box is AFateWorseThanDeath by itself - anyone who is trapped there is forced to spend eternity battling monstrous Firstborn-warped creatures, and anyone who dies there ''becomes'' said monstrous creatures.
50* {{Foreshadowing}}: During the 'Spiritual Guide' level, Black (when AI-controlled) may randomly mention that she can hear the ocean. [[spoiler:This foreshadows the cliffhanger ending, after the fight with the Firstborn, where the remaining members of the Jericho Squad somehow end up in an ocean]].
51* FunctionalMagic: Most of the members of Jericho have extremely practical uses for their abilities.
52%%* GainaxEnding
53* GallowsHumor: Jones and Delgado sometimes like to use this trope.
54* GameplayAllyImmortality: The game ends if every member of the Jericho Squad dies. However, if a few of them have died during battle but the player manages to finish the battle, the incapacitated squad members usually get right back up again, even without the intervention of Ross' or Rawlings' healing powers.
55** This could possibly be explained by Cole's reality-hacking powers, as at these points your ammo is also refilled by turning back time in the characters' ammunition belts. Of course, this doesn't explain how it still works if Cole is incapacitated.
56* {{Ghostapo}}: The [[GratuitousGerman Geheimnisvoll Abwehrmacht]] was an elite army of psychic German soldiers when they were still mortal, heavily tied with the Nazi hierarchy, who, in an apparent attempt to further their war effort, originally attempted to open the Breach.
57* GhostlyGoals: Although the influence of the Firstborn makes them a whole lot more monstrous than they probably would be in "normal" circumstances, the Child Crusaders are violently angry spirits desiring revenge on those responsible for their deaths - especially Maltheus.
58* [[UsefulNotes/{{Gnosticism}} Gnosticism]]: Most of the plot's underlying mythology.
59* {{Gorn}}: Strong and omnipresent.
60* GroinAttack: This game seems very fond of this (both implied and executed), what with the gaping holes in the crotches of the Cultists, and Lichthammer's threat to Rawlings when they first meet.
61** Both Lichthammer and Maltheus' crotch areas appear to be bloody and mutilated, too.
62* HateSink:
63** Hanne Lichthammer is a psychic Nazi commander who guards the Path of Souls, littered with the countless bodies of her victims over the years in her service to the Firstborn. When confronted by the Jericho squad, Lichthammer continues to show her sadism in combat and even mocks the sexual abuse suffered by one member in her past.
64** Bishop Maltheus St. Claire is an insane bishop and implied pedophile who convinced the Pope of his time to grant him an army of children for a crusade, only for them to be slaughtered alongside with him. As a spirit in service to the Firstborn, Maltheus traps the children's wrathful, tormented souls in his chambers (believing himself to be protecting their souls) and has the audacity to curse the Jericho Squad for calling him out on the monster he is.
65** Governor Cassus Vicus is a bloated Roman aristocrat who sates his appetites on the endless suffering of his immortal subjects and anyone attempting to pass through his domain, regularly having them crucified, defiled and cannibalized for his own delights. Aroused by his combat with the Jericho Squad, Vicus' vile nature is symbolized in the waste he spews forth during their fight with him.
66* HumanoidAbomination: Any poor soul that finds themselves stuck in the Box and perishes there is twisted and resurrected into zombie-like monstrosities that can decidedly no longer be called human or animal. At least, [[EldritchAbomination if they do keep some form of their original selves anyway.]]
67* HideYourChildren: Subverted with the Child Crusaders - sure, they cannot die. You wish they could, though.
68* HoistByHisOwnPetard: A weakened Maltheus is torn apart by the children who died fighting for him.
69* InCaseYouForgotWhoWroteIt: '''''Clive Barker's''' Jericho''. Barker collaborated on development and is listed in the credits as "creator".
70* JigglePhysics: Very subtle, but definitely there. Check out Cole's rack in the intro, for example. Or Church's boobs during her battle stance.
71* KarmicDeath: Lampshaded by Jones when the Children tear Maltheus apart after Jericho team weakens him.
72%%* KillAllHumans
73* KillItWithFire: Black's telekinesis eventually adds a touch of fire with the knockback, Church has the ability to cast a spell that ignites all nearby enemies, Delgado can summon a fire demon to go on a rampage, and Jones can ignite any poor demonic sap he possesses. If that's not enough, Cole eventually gains the ability to make ''all attacks by the entire squad'' do fire damage. Being a pyromaniac may quite possibly be a prerequisite for being placed in a Jericho squad.
74* {{Leitmotif}}: A recurring piece of music throughout the game is the game's theme tune, which plays almost every time [[spoiler:the Firstborn]] appears. It is sung acapella utilising the voice of a choirboy and a low, ominous background choir to haunting, beautiful, yet creepy effect. A similar-sounding piece of music is used on the main title screen.
75%%* MildlyMilitary
76* NintendoHard:
77** Try doing the levels 'Blackwatch' and 'Exorcism' on Hard Mode, without cheats, without dying the first time around. Curse you, Machinegunners!
78** Not to mention an utterly, utterly ''evil'' section in 'The Low Road'. Delgado, by himself, versus a vast number of constantly spawning Exploding Cultists, with long spaces between certain checkpoints. And this is just on the ''Easy'' difficulty mode.
79** Or just try playing Church on hard in any place involving splash damage or ranged enemies. [[CastFromHitpoints Casting from hitpoints]] doesn't work when being a OneHitpointWonder.
80* NoSidepathsNoExplorationNoFreedom: This trope is one of the biggest reasons why the game has drawn criticism.
81* NoSwastikas: Lichthammer's SS armband is completely devoid of one.
82* NotUsingTheZWord: Very rarely are the former-humans-turned-demons referred to as "monsters"/"demons" or anything of the like.
83* NothingIsScarier: In between all the combat, as the player walks through nightmarish landscapes with little ambient music... right up until the monsters burst out of the surroundings to attack again.
84* OminousLatinChanting: Kyrie eleison (which is Greek for "Lord have mercy") and Confutatis Maledictis, [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I9yHJC1rHmM the theme of Cassus Vicus.]] The music that plays while you make your way alone, without your comrades, through [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AtKO0Dojfvk the catacombs of the medieval fortress]] also counts.
85* OminousMusicBoxTune: [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ddFwTecOJtI The Child Crusaders' theme.]]
86* OurFounder: Antadurunnu is actually this for Jericho, considering he founded the precursor organization that would eventually become Jericho centuries prior. Unfortunately, he's long since become a fatalist who is willing to repeat a cycle of sacrifice to keep the Firstborn sealed away, even though it's patently obvious that this cycle doesn't keep the Firstborn held back for more than a couple centuries, if that.
87* OurDemonsAreDifferent: They're all humans who CameBackWrong. Or rather, were brought back this way on purpose.
88* PathOfGreatestResistance: There are a number of places where there is no obvious direction until something tries to kill you.
89* PeekABooCorpse: When Cole is running away from a battlefield, [[DemonicPossession a random mutilated corpse, possessed by Lichthammer]], suddenly sits up and grabs her.
90* PersonalSpaceInvader: The Cultists (regular and Flying variants).
91* PrecisionFStrike: Cole, Jones, and Rawlings, typically cursing in the manner of SophisticatedAsHell; in stark contrast to the pottymouths of Black and Delgado.
92* PressXToNotDie: In certain cutscenes, and when grabbed by certain enemies and occasionally when the Mooks get too close they trigger such events.
93* RealIsBrown: A very unfortunate problem with the backgrounds and environments is that they all look extremely similar, and the limited color palette doesn't help. It's common to unwittingly find yourself backtracking just because the area behind you looks like the area in front of you.
94* ReligionOfEvil: The Brotherhood of the Dark Rapture, again.
95%%* ReligiousHorror
96* SayMyName: When the Squad members die in battle, some of the other characters have a tendency to yell out their names if they are still incapacitated. However, story-wise, [[spoiler:Black]] gets a pretty big one when [[spoiler:Cole and Jones get blown to smithereens right in front of her eyes: ''"COOOOOOLLLLLE!!"'']].
97%%* SceneryGorn
98* ScrewDestiny: [[spoiler: Towards the end of the game, the Squad are told by Antadurunnu that, upon re-sealing the Firstborn, they will eventually enter a collective conscious and go into a dreamless sleep, only to be awakened by those who attempt to awaken the Firstborn. Although the team initially accepts this and try to say their final goodbyes to each other, Delgado decides that Antadurunnu is bullshitting them, stating that all they've seen of their predecessors is them being stuck to combat hellish horrors for all eternity, and, in the case of some of them, eventually going batshit insane. He states that they should just try and kill the Firstborn itself to end the cycle, proceeding to shoot Antadurunnu in the head]].
99* ShootingSuperman: The first thing that appears onscreen in the fight against the Firstborn is "bullets cannot harm the Firstborn." Guess what everyone immediately begins doing.
100* ShoutOut: When entering Vicus' gladiatorial arena, Delgado quips [[{{Film/Gladiator}} "I've seen this movie."]]. Later on, in the same level, Black mentions that her [[ComicBook/SpiderMan "spidey sense is tingling"]].
101* SniperRifle: Abigail Black is able to telekinetically control her bullets, steering them into the path of enemies. This helps a lot when trying to rack up multiple headshots. The rifle's regular bullets also work pretty well.
102%%* TheSquad
103%%* StuffBlowingUp
104* SwordAndGun: Church's weapons are Nodachi (her sword) and Kenjuu (her sub-machine pistol). [[DoesntLikeGuns She prefers]] [[RuleOfCool the sword]].
105* TacticalSuicideBoss: In the first fight with Lichthammer, she conveniently teleports away whenever the player attempts to use Church's Blood Ward. In the second fight with her, however, she fails to be quite so alert - [[spoiler:and it only takes one Blood Ward to end the fight...]]
106* TimeTravel: Sort of. Time does not exist inside the Box, so the eras the Jericho Squad travel back to are actually frozen in time.
107* TimeyWimeyBall: Cole can create temporal time loops using her equipment, reversing time on the team's weapons so they're now back to when they were full of ammo.
108* TortureCellar: Lichthammer's lair. No prizes for guessing what those sharp, unpleasant looking instruments and that chair with straps on it are for...
109* TheUnfought: Leach and Ereshkigall, who is also [[TheGhost never seen]]. [[spoiler: The game's [[WhatCouldHaveBeen unused ending]] would have featured her as the TrueFinalBoss.]]
110* UndeadAbomination: Many of the enemies you face are hopelessly insane, mutilated, undead caricatures of anyone (un)lucky enough to die in the Firstborn’s sphere of influence, having been warped by its godlike power and revived as horrific monsters.
111* UnorthodoxReload: Cole is able to reload the Jericho Squad's weaponry by using her TimeyWimeyBall to turn back time to a point where their weapons were already loaded.
112* WeCannotGoOnWithoutYou: In the early chapters of the game (before Ross' PlotlineDeath), if Ross and Rawlings both die, then it's game over.
113* WhamEpisode: [[spoiler:The sudden and ''messy'' deaths of Cole and Jones]] towards the end of the game. ''Yikes''.
114* YourHeadASplode: There are actually Xbox 360 achievements for causing this.

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