Review: Pariah
By Eli Green
September 26, 2006 - 11:45
Studios: Digital Extremes
Groove Games
Rating: M
Genre: First-Person Shooter
Platform: Xbox, PC
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While the story above may seem like a good a good plot line for a game on its own, add in Jack Mason's ability to wield firearms, some Havok engine tools, for better physics and realism, and the Unreal Engine and you've got yourself an instant first person shooter. That must have been what the team at Digital Extremes was thinking when they made Pariah, because, while the game definitely has many good aspects, it falls short on many others.
The story is just one of the details that takes what Pariah could have been and brings it to a lower level. The plot in the game was thin, and there was no real connection from level to level. Most of the storyline looks like it was based on the level maps and objectives, rather than an actual story or focus. Most of the time you'll be occupied with trying to stay alive and fighting off enemies, but there aren't even any side stories to get involved with, so there isn't much to keep your mind on the story. Even the attempt to make a connection between Mason and Karina was botched by the fact that she has no backstory and the interaction time between the two of them is minimal.
Gameplay
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Weaponry in the game, however, is certainly something to talk about. While many FPS games allow for a large array of weapon choices ranging in levels of power and force, Pariah uses a small amount of weapon choices with upgrade options. This means that you can be using the same weapon throughout the game, and the same weapon you've been using since the first level can go through some variations by the time you've finished, which can make taking out enemies all the more fun. My selection for weapon of choice is between the grenade launcher with remote detonation upgrade and the sniper rifle with enhanced sight. While a properly lobbed grenade, with a timely detonation, in a crowd of enemies makes for a very nice corpse fireworks display, there's nothing quite like getting that perfect pickoff from on top of a mountain, or from the complete opposite side of a factory.
There
were some weapons that I didn't quite see a point for though. The
Plasma Rifle and the Bonesaw were two weapons that were either too
annoying to use, or were simply unnecessary. The Plasma Rifle is
supposed to be a very powerful weapon, yet it's only able to fire a
maximum of three rounds at a time, and then it charges up for a
single shot which uses the rest of the magazine's energy, all 150
shot's worth. The Bonesaw, on the other hand, is completely useless,
at least on the easiest difficulty. I never used it, and the only
times Mason ever wielded it were the times I accidentally pressed the
L button. The development team clearly knew it was was an unnecessary
weapon, because they didn't even put it in the list of Y button
weapons or the D-pad toggling list.
The use of the Havok tools were a nice touch used for adding realism to the game. A good physics engine is always nice to see when playing games where the characters, even slightly, interact with the environments. Looking at the bodies of your fallen enemies, you can see the engine at work. This is especially true in the cases where their body has collided with an object, like a wall, and the position of their body matches the way they fell.
The last thing I want to mention about the gameplay is how irritating it was to have some weapons of the weapons, not the Bonesaw, seem as if they were useless. I'm talking particularly about the Assault Rifle, or Bulldog. Having to sometimes empty more than half of the Bulldog's magazine directly into an enemy, only to have him still coming at me was, to say the least, frustrating. One I saw the recoil stabilizer upgrade, I thought, surely, that was the reason Mason wasn't able to get past enemies as easily as he should have been able to, but once I upgraded, there was barely any difference. How can 75 bullets not put a man down?
Environment and Graphics
If
the developer deserves any praise for Pariah, environments and
graphics is the place to do it. Hands down, the levels in Pariah
looked lush, distinctive and every bit like you would expect jungles,
command centres and factories to look. Terrain had form and texture,
buildings looked uniform, but had architecture and even military
bunkers had the appearance one would expect. There were some slight
glitches with the environments though. At one point, while riding a
vehicle, the terrain beneath the vehicle and the vehicle itself suddenly disappeared from underneath
Mason and he fell to his death.
The character models were very nicely done, especially characters' faces. The faces were some of the most realistic I have seen on current gen consoles, full of emotion and personality. There were a couple of times that the faces suddenly lost the particular emotions they were supposed to be showing, which was rather odd, but it didn't happen frequently.
Vehicle
models had a large amount of detail and design. From the way they
moved around the terrain, to the way the on board weapons would fire,
each vehicle had its own unique qualities.
The Bogie, in particular,
had a very interesting firing animation. After the rockets fired, the
launcher would flip upside down, load the new rockets and then flip
back into place.
All of the cutscenes in the game were rather short, adding to my frustration concerning the lack of a real plot. The cutscenes were all done in real time, but since the graphics were so nice already, they were a pleasure to watch, even though they were as short as they were. The only problem with the cutscenes being real time was the fact that the flashes to and from cutscenes were sometimes interrupted by a glitch, showing the regular gameplay view of Mason pointing his gun. This glitch severely interrupted the flow of gameplay to cutscene and vice versa.
Sound
While
most of the games I've reviewed to date have had great sound, voice
and music, I found there were some serious discrepancies in Pariah.
On a good note, many of the sounds in the game were properly placed,
as were the voices, however there were quite a few sound effects, in
particular, that made me want to cringe. Weapons and voices were well
very well done, some sound effects and music were very out of place.
There were not many different types of terrain that Mason would walk
over in the game, mostly dirt, rock and metal. For some reason
though, there were times that I would have Mason walking on a metal
walkway and his footsteps sounded like he was walking on dirt. Some
times the exact opposite would happen.
The music in the game was not without its problems either. When the music was playing, it fit very well with the tension at that point in the level. That is, of course, if the music was playing at all. While the game wasn't very long in the first place, I must have played half, or at least one third, without any musical accompaniment. The voice acting certainly made up for quite a bit of what was lacking, for sounds that were missing or otherwise improperly placed. Each actor did a great job of portraying their character, even with so little backstory to run off of. That takes a lot of skill.
As usual, I'm making sure to note that this game is Dolby Digital capable, but since the Xbox is still not hooked up to a surround sound system, I can't say how it sounds.
Conclusion
Pariah makes for a great first person shooter, if you don't mind the fact that it's short, a little glitchy and has some sound problems. Overall, it's a good game that just has some problems that the developer simply didn't take the time to deal with. There are other extra features I didn't have the time or ability to test out, such as the multiplayer, Xbox Live online play and 480p HD output. The multiplayer mode will certainly add some hours to the amount of gameplay time available for the game, but the single player definitely could have used some more work.
Gameplay:
8.5
Environment and Graphics: 9
Sound: 7.5
Story: 6
Fun: 7.5
Verdict:
Rent It or Buy It Used/Low Price