Dr. Jack Mason has been given yet another milk run. Assigned to escort a virus-infected prisoner between prisons in the not-so-distant future, Mason finds himself with yet another boring assignment at the twilight of his once illustrious career. However, after his transport plane is struck by a well-fired SAM missile, Jack and his now awakened Typhoid Mary find themselves confused, lost, and behind enemy lines.
And now both of them have the virus.
Pariah, the futuristic first-person shooter from Groove Games, seems to have all of the elements of the more successful adventure-based shooters out there, such as Doom 3, Unreal Tournament, Halo, and Half-Life. But how does it stack up against these heavyweights in the FPS world?
Let’s look at the good first: For graphics, Pariah uses a modified Havok engine, which has been very successful with Unreal Tournament, among others. This makes for crisp skins, “rag doll” body effects, and good detail to surrounding areas, and Pariah exploits this with very few problems on high-end graphics cards. In game vehicles are also fun to use and very effective in usage throughout the game. Controls are easy to use (The WSAD keys default for movement) and modify as necessary, so getting control up to speed for the average FPS fan is quite easy. What this makes for is a game you can get into quickly and enjoy all of the scenery while you’re at it.
Alas, this is where Pariah starts to show its flaws. Though the game starts off well, the storyline in the game becomes almost completely incomprehensible after just a couple of cut scenes. Audio is well done for the most part, but becomes repetitive VERY quickly, and dialogue is weak at best. Enemy AI is not exactly something to strike fear into the hearts of competitive gamers, even at the highest settings. Though in game bots tend to be fairly accurate with their armaments, their movements become quite predictable.
Speaking of weapons loadout, what is up with the cookie cutter FPS games out there? You have your obligatory automatic (Bulldog), the completely ineffective shotgun (Frag Rifle), and the high end exploders, and that’s about it. Pariah tries to innovate a bit with Weapon Energy Cores, items that can modify and boost your weapons stats, accuracy, or special abilities, but they’re mostly hit and miss. They can make some weapons very effective, but add almost nothing to others.
Pariah’s single player game is also obscenely short for an FPS. I finished the whole thing in under 6 hours, and I’m no power gamer anymore. Add to this the almost incomprehensible story and absolutely no connection with your protagonist, or even an understanding of your enemies and friends, and you’ll understand why I was less than pleased with the single player game.
Pariah does have a small but loyal multiplayer following, with multiplayer games following the basic standard of death match, capture the flag, assault, and variations on these themes. The action tends to be fast and furious, and one feature I found surprising and actually likable is that all players are limited to two projectile weapons per person. These are selected via prepackaged loadouts before you begin fighting (Bulldog and Grenade Launcher, or Rocket Launcher and Sniper Rifle, for example). While I at first found this somewhat restrictive, I soon began to enjoy the ability to specialize in certain weapon types and boost my skills with others, while learning to use tactics on teams.
Still, unless you’re only into multiplay, Pariah quickly loses it’s appeal. First person storyline has low appeal and almost no replay value, and frankly, there are other titles out there that do it much, much better. Fair to good multiplay keeps this from being a complete waste of time, but not by much.
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