I had a go at the rather short demo of Clive Barker’s Jericho today. I was allowed to control three squad members - the sniper girl, the katana girl, and the minigun dude.

They all have their own supernatural powers, like telekinesis, pyromancy and blood scribing (casting spells using your own blood), as well as melee attacks. The squad members that aren’t directly under your control are fairly adept at killing the enemy by themselves, and as far as I can tell it takes some effort to get killed in return. Maybe that could be due to my awesome thumbstick control.

I actually found the squad control system to be a bit confusing at first, but then I realised that the seven man squad is split up into two teams - Alpha and Omega, each comprising of three people. The seventh man is meant to be the leader who "possesses" his team mates in battle. I don’t quite know how things are handled once six players come into play, but it’ll be interesting to see the result.

In terms of gameplay, my initial first impression was that it was all a bit stale. It didn’t offer anything new. But on the second play, it seemed to make a bit more sense. Once you get your head around the controls and figure out the individual abilities of each character, it allows you to experiment with different methods of engagement. I can foresee some puzzles come into play ala The Lost Vikings.

But the important question: was it some freaky, nasty shit? I’d say yes. The environment is suitably dark, with generous helpings of red textures illuminated by fire. The enemies are decomposed, weapons grafted onto their limbs, grinning skulls staring back. The scripted sequence was a particularly nice touch.

Despite this, I’m hesitant to drop some coin on this at release. I feel that it will probably fall short of my expectations. However, from what I’ve seen, it will top Clive Barker’s Undying, and that’s gotta count for something.

In the past, I never really did understand credit cards. The whole concept of paying banks a fee to spend money that you don’t have in the first place was a puzzling one to me. What confused me even more was the fact that people would use credit cards to finance old debt. Isn’t it just delaying the inevitable, the equivalent of putting out bushfires with jet fuel?

Oh well. I never knew the joys of spending back then, so everything and anything related to the "evils" of capitalism was lost on me.

Fast forward to the present in an age of disposable income, and you’ll find I just applied for my first credit card. And even then, it’s the one with the least obligation whatsoever. No annual fee, low interest rate, and most likely an equally low credit limit. It’s okay - the whole point of me getting a credit card was so that I could use it for all those facilities that don’t accept bank transfers.

That includes purchasing the Orange Box on Steam.

While I’m pretty keen to try Halo 3 on XBL (co-op last night was hillarious) I’d rather get into TF2 and play for multiplayer action that doesn’t require money to play. And besides, after listening to everyone rattle on and on about how good TF2 is (and reminiscing about the good ol’ days of TFC, and comparing it to the subtleties of Fortress Forever), it sounds like a nice investment for AU$50.

Gotta love a solid exchange rate.