As a fan of horror movies and violent FPS games, it takes a lot to unnerve me. The story-line of CodeMasters 'Clive Barker's Jericho' for the 360 is completely unnerving... so much so, that as I started the demo (which has recently popped-up on Xbox Live), I almost didn't continue after the intro video to the game. I understand fantasy and fiction concepts, but when the narrative of a game starts delving into religious themes, I get very uncomfortable.

'Jericho' is based on a premise that God's first attempt at creating man was so hideous that it was destroyed in the desert somewhere in the Middle East. Fast forward to modern times, and at said-location, a city rises from the sand... a kind of "hell-on-earth." Some military occult specialists are dropped into the creepy city and, I guess, are ordered to find out what's going on in this place.

Am I the only one that finds this premise upsetting?

A major plot point is revealed in the demo... one of the commandos is killed and his soul is able to move between any character in the game. Gamers are allowed to control this soul-movement and take control (possession?) of any character. Each character has different psychic abilities which, as it turns out, are relevant to the various situations they encounter.

Oh, and each character has a big gun. The only time I giggled at this game was when the narrator was dramatically voicing the bios of each character and said something like, "... she has the amazing ability to use telekinesis for moving objects with her mind, and she carries an automatic pistol."

The game environments are very creepy. Super creepy. Nightmare creepy... very hell-like. And, from the video in the intro, I was expecting to encounter a lot of scary devil-monsters with pentagrams gouged into their foreheads. In this demo however, I mostly ran into "Mummy"-movie rejects. I guess the really disturbing stuff is left for the full game.

'Jericho' is well made, plays well and has a ton of production value, but I'm not sure if I will buy this one... just because of the subject matter. I'm very interested to see if there is any sort of media backlash similar to what 'Manhunt 2' experienced. Strangely I'm more accepting of 'Manhunt 2.' Go figure.