Pariah - Australian Review (Reviews)

Chris Stead, GamePro Australia

12/07/2005 11:32:12

Digital Extremes have left their comfort zone. With Pariah they've stepped away from electrifyingly fast multiplayer frag-fests (as seen in the legendary Unreal Tournament games) and into thought provoking Sci-fi single player. Ok, so there is a large multiplayer component as well, but the question remains, do the masters of online gaming have what it takes to craft a compelling FPS adventure?

The story definitely has all the hallmarks of a classic. In 2520A.D, Earth is a wasteland dotted by prisons and you're burned-out hard-nut Dr. Jack Mason, sent to the planet to investigate the threat of a new found disease. However, when your transport and cargo (infected patient Karina J.) are brought down by rockets, the two of you must work together to escape the planet in sixteen hours. Why sixteen hours? Because if the secrets of Karina's disease aren't uncovered by then, the planet will be detonated Alderaan style - hey, that's standard biohazard containment procedure.

With such a rich mythology to work with, you would think this Sci-fi yarn would be deep and engaging, but Digital Extremes are inexperienced storytellers and that fact is blatantly obvious. The cut-scenes are poorly directed, the dialogue is abysmal, there is bugger-all character development and it can be exasperatingly illogical. For example, in one mission, you and Karina enter an open area only to see the infected bitch run through a hole in the rock, jump in a car and speed off for no apparent reason. Your task is to then catch up with her, battling through a battalion of troops and navigating a whole level to get to the same area she just waltzed into. WTF?

Somehow though, you want to turn off your 'this is stupid' alarm and game on. This is largely thanks to the Weapon Energy Core (WEC) upgrade system that shapes every weapon, including shotguns, sniper rifles, plasma guns and the brilliant grenade launcher. These WECs can be found scattered through the levels and can improve each of the eight weapons three times over, with impressive in-game affects. Add one WEC to the standard rifle, for example, and you will get faster fire. Add another two and you will get reduced recoil as well. The system works quite well and your persistence in searching out these WECs, combined with the order you upgrade the weapons provides varying gameplay experiences.

Controlling the doctor will be a breeze for veteran FPS campaigners, especially those that have played Halo 2. However, it won't take long for you to realize that Pariah requires little in the way of actual skill. There is no body-specific damage and your reticule is massive - just choose your preferred killing devise, aim it and shoot. To be fair, the level design and enemy types do call for smart weapon selection, but this is still below par for the genre. Hell, you can walk around at normal pace in zoom, without even knowing it!

Multiplayer and Map Editor
Pariah comes packed with some very impressive multiplayer features - this is Digital Extremes after all. On Xbox Live or on a single console, you can battle it out in four different game modes (DM, TDM, CTF and Front Line Assault) against humans or bots. Before the start of a game you choose from a character class (defined by the two weapons provided) and once you are in game you can collect WEC's off felled opponents which can be used to upgrade your weaponry - pretty damn cool. The level design is very good, and although there are only a handful of maps, the easy to use and impressively detailed Map Editor will ensure hundreds more are on the net within weeks. To top it off, you can hit the single player mode in co-op.

You just get the feeling that Digital Extremes just weren't sure how to best execute all their cool ideas and ended up following the Halo template by default. This inability to carve out new gameplay ideas is best illustrated by the dire action sequences. Such as a car chase that has your vehicle stalling at random interviews in a poor attempt to fabricate tension or the sequence on a moving train where you must man a turret gun and defeat incoming ships in completely illogical and boring ways. And let's not even touch on the randomly ending missions and dodgy vehicle combat - ouch, ugly.

At least the level design is reasonably impressive. It more-or-less avoids backtracking, but by the same token you don't get much value out of exploration either. So why does it work? There is always a constant sense of forward movement, like your making progress towards your destination in ever-changing ways. The AI (which ranges from 'I'll just stand and shoot' to 'I want cover first') gets suitably harder as you progress and you are often skipping between outdoor, indoor and vehicle based levels. There is a big problem with repetitive mission objectives (why must every door be locked?!), but it's paced well enough that you keep on gaming.

Visually, Pariah makes good use of the Unreal engine, with sprawling outdoor worlds, nice sci-fi models, plenty of on-screen action and nice atmospheric effects (heat cloud around explosion, geo-mod). Unfortunately, it does bring with it some of that engine's problems (such as bland textures, crappy water and dodgy animations), plus there are occasional frame-rate gremlins and HUD issues (you can never tell which way fire is coming from). Still, the excellent score and thunderous SFX make up for it and the impressive HAVOK rag-doll physics rewardingly throw bodies every which way.

So, back to the original question, do Digital Extremes have what it takes? No, not really. Pariah is an impotent gaming experience, hamstrung at every turn by simplistic gameplay and pathetic storytelling. And we're gutted! Pariah arrived packed with potential and while we love the WEC gimmick and happily blasted our way through the entire game, built a few maps and owned the bots in multiplayer, this is middle of the road gaming.

Verdict
It's fun, sure, and strangely addictive, but it's a class below the likes of Project Snowblind and Halo 2. Better package for gamers on Xbox Live.
Pros: Great weapon system, excellent multiplayer, addictive gameplay.
Cons: Terrible storytelling, little mission complexity, frame-rate issues.

Score = 8/10



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Graphics: 4.0 Sound: 4.0 Control: 4.0 Fun Factor: Fun Factor
Scoring scale: 1-5
Publisher: Hip Games / Developer: Digital Extremes / Retail Price: $89.95 (PC) /, $99.95 (Xbox) / Release date: 31/05/2005 / Genre: Action / OFLC Rating: MA (15+)