Pariah

"The 2nd best game for MP fragging with a bad rap!"

Well Pariah won E3 for best shooter finalist and its no wonder why! But it gets a bad rep and ill explain why at the bottom of this review!

Story 10/10:
To make it really short you're a doctor named Jack and your transporting a woman that in cryo (look it up) to a prison and you crash and....etc. Play it and find out the rest!

I found the story to be great, It wasn't the best ever kind of material and some of it was confusing but it leaves it open for the next two games that are coming out! Through out the game the story is shown in cinematics which are actually really cool to watch although seem low res for some reason in some scenes.

Graphics 10/10:
The graphics are amazing. The game is based on the Unreal Tournament 2004 engine and has some really advanced effects. Visually the game is stunning and often you find yourself wanting the action to stop just so you can look around and stare at all the great environments and effects going on!

Oddly enough with its stunning graphics it seems to run just fine even on lower end machines. Online is no different and still has the amazing depth of realism in its levels and effects. The weapons themselves have amazing effects when they shoot and explode!

Music & Audio:
Music wise the game is actually really great. For once I took a games music and listened to it separate outside the game, the Pariah theme alone gets you pumped!

Audio wise most everything is fine, crisp and clear. But in single player for some reason they chose to make the enemies sound really... stupid. They repeat the same NON threatening lines like "Do Re Me Fa So long" or something along those lines over and over when they attack you and it does sound very silly and out of place. Other then that Audio is great.

Controls 10/10:
Controls are real easy with Pariah. There are very few buttons and if you've played something like Unreal Tournament then your set already.

A.I. 10/10:
Now some people argue about this but the difficulty makes a difference. Play the single player on easy and the AI is so dumb they tend to kill themselves by jumping off cliffs or blowing themselves up. However set it to hardest setting and you got a different game.

And online when you add Bots to a match assuming you changed their difficulty they can be very hard but there is no bot pathing with the mini map editor they included so bots can be stupid unless you use the main editor and give them paths.

Replay Value 10/10:
Single Player wise you could probably play it 3 maybe 4 times. That is assuming you try the different difficulties. But after that you wouldn't want to play it anymore.

But multiplayer is what this game was made for. So you could play this game every day online for years and never get bored! You got a map editor and the original Unreal editor to so you can always make more maps to play on with other players or with bots!

Features:
2 Map Editors:
You get M.A.P. which anyone even a monkey can use (I seen a monkey use!). It's a simple map editor where everything is point and click to make a map. And with these you can share them online and the maps are always small usually under 20k! Your 2nd map editor is the usual Unreal Editor but they call it Pariah Ed.

Upgrading and WECS:
The other big thing about this game is upgrading. When you kill someone with a higher score then you get a power core (WEC). And depending on what upgrade is next in line you trade them in anytime during play for an upgrade for you current weapon load out. You can also upgrade your health tool, which lets you heal yourself in battle!

The bad rap of Pariah happens to be its feature :
The problem with the game is most people play it not knowing about its feature, upgrading! Most people play the game online not knowing you can upgrade your weapons and heath tool and they die and then they give up and they say the game is bad.

Hopefully you'll read this review and understand that's why most people don't like the game because they didn't know of this simple fact this way if you deicide to get it you'll know and learn!

The other thing is everyone likes to compare games to other games now. This isn't Halo or Unreal Tournament...even though it uses its engine.

Pros & Cons
Pros:
-Amazing Graphics
-Fun Online
-Easy Map Editor
-2 Map Editors
-Overall Great Everything

Cons:
-Ummm....3 Cds to install? I guess that's a con.

Overall 10/10:
Overall there is really nothing bad about Pariah once you get into it. Its single player isn't anything amazing like other games. It was made for its multi player and with two more coming out it's definitely going to be a great series! They are releasing patches to fix any bugs and dedicated servers are finally popping up so overall Pariah is finally becoming popular like it should!

Reviewer's Score: 10/10, Originally Posted: 05/11/05