You're probably still using one of those old 2007 calendars that hasn't been updated yet and still reads 'August, September, October, November and December'. You probably want to get one of the newer ones that go 'August, Halo 3, GTA IV, Assassins Creed and then December'. You can be forgiven for forgetting that other games are out this autumn.

BXB was invited to the inspiring and thoroughly British Churchill Museum and Cabinet War Room to experience two new titles from Codemasters. Sadly, Midland Mainline decided that I wouldn't get to see the Turning Point: Fall of Liberty presentation. We did get some hands on action with Jericho, a squad based, first person shooter with a hefty dose of shocking horror from Clive Barker, who's the twisted mind behind horror movie classics like Hellraiser and Candyman, Candyman...

Wandering alone, through the corridors of the World War Two bunker which was once the haunt of Winston Churchill was a spooky precursor to the shocking horror images that were on show during the Jericho in game footage.

The game is set in the fictional middle eastern city of Al-Khali which was built upon ground tainted by its legacy of being the only place on Earth that was touched by Gods aborted first attempt at creating mankind.

The "Firstborn" was an entity that was neither male or female, dark or light, but a singular being that was both beautiful and terrible to behold. Fearing his own creations power, God banished it into the abyss. But the taint it left on the land was so powerful that even Gods will could not stop it from breaking through into the real world to reclaim its birthright.

Throughout history, the "Firstborn" has risen in great times of death and destruction but each time it was banished back to from whence it came by a Jericho Squad. Each time they've had to sacrifice themselves to an eternity of torture and pain for the sake of mankind. Being as we'll be taking control of a Jericho Squad in the game, we're probably in for somewhat of a trying finale.

The Jericho Squad consists of seven highly trained and supernaturally skilled warriors each with their own unique weapons and magical powers. The early death of your character, Captain Devon Ross, would normally be seen as somewhat of a crippling blow to the game but it actually opens up and interesting game play element. After your death, you return as a spirit and can possess each of your team and make use of their weapons and powers to fight evil.

Switching between the characters is done by holding A and selecting which character you'd like to inhabit using the D-Pad. You can also place your reticle over the desired character to possess and tap A and you'll quickly zip over to them. It feels a little clumsy at first but quickly becomes very intuitive and it's nice to see a developer actually trying to come up with a real reason why we can switch from person to person.

It's also nice because you don't have to baby sit the other NPCs as well, if you want them to do something, you just do it yourself. This saves you from having to wrestle with some form of commander system which always seems to end up with your squad mates pulling moonies at massive enemy gun turrets when you want them to be stealthily sniping patrols.

The NPCs aren't too stupid on their own either. In the small, winding corridors of the game combat with so many people can get a little confusing but in the larger arenas you'll run into throughout the game things are easier as you can position you can give basic squad orders to your Jericho Squad and effectively take down opponents.

Questioning Barker's Mental Health

As mentioned the entire game takes place in Al-Khali but this hellish city is broken into 'time slices' which are caused by the repeating banishment of the "Firstborn" throughout history. Moving from slice to slice using portals means you'll fight various different enemies through different periods of time. Taking on fused Nazi soldiers in a World War 2 era Al-Khali gets a thumbs up from us as we like anything with psycho, supernatural Nazis in gets our vote. It's all very Wolfenstien.

You'll also battle debauched crusaders and the obese, perverted cannibal Cassus Vicus in the Roman era Al-Khali. We got some intense and horrific hands on experience fighting this bloat bastard's corrupt Roman Legionnaires. We also witnessed the Jericho Squad being drawn into a Colosseum to fight for Vicus' viewing pleasure. Later we saw the Jericho Squad taking the fat man on himself, as well as being guarded by a 40 foot Gladiator, Vicus has a grotesque way of protecting himself by opening up his stomach and spraying you with his own bile and blood. Throughout the entire battle he is hanging from chains which have massive hooks impaled through his shoulders. It's all very grim.

As well as the standard FPS game play elements and the character switching, there's a healthy dose of puzzle solving and plenty of QTE events like getting up close and person with ghastly opponents and clambering over crumbling obstacles or climbing up stuff. There's not much more to say around this, they work well, but after not enjoying them in Spider man 3, it's hard to be looking forward to more.

Madrid-based developers Mercury Steam have created their own proprietary next generation graphics engine (we're not sure what this means, but it sounded good in the press release, so we added it here to make us look clever). What really matters is that the game looks awesome. People have been hammering on about how great Killzone 2 or Halo 3 look, but Jericho is a real gem. Of course, with a horror theme, the game is rammed full of blood and gore plus some really quite horrifically designed monsters that really make you a bit worried about Clive Barker's mental health (if you weren't already).

It was certainly a surprise to see some really quite amazing lighting effects and equally impressive draw distances on the massive Colosseum and plenty of detail all round. Although, we did notice that everything had a kind of supernatural blur to it. Although, this could have been the ageing Samsung TVs we played it on.

There was no talk of multiplayer at the event and the game was playable on both Xbox 360 and PS3 and the game is due for a release in September. Seriously, if Halo's not your thing and horror is then this game is well worth a look. Our full review will be up later in the year.