Pariah

"Pariah, a failed attempt at a good FPS"

Pariah is an FPS title made by digital extremes, the folks who graced all of our gaming experiences with the Unreal series. This title, unlike the Unreal series does not live up to being a great FPS. My personal disappointment factor was huge. Well that's enough of an intro; let's get on with talking specifics.

First let's talk about the game's controls. In a FPS one of the most important things is good control. In this category Pariah fails miserably. Put simply, Pariah controls very sluggishly. Anyone used to playing Halo or Doom 3 on the Xbox will find that it is not possible to adjust the analog sensitivity to a level that is comfortable. Combine this with the fact that there seems to be a pause between when you move the stick and when the view rotates and you have a sluggish control that can seriously hinder gameplay. In my opinion you should never die because of a game's controls being crap. This tends to happen in Pariah, not often but just enough to piss you off.

Other than the sluggishness of the analog control the controls aren't really that bad. You can use the d-pad to scroll through your weapons. It would have been nice to see the right and left directions, which aren't used for anything, used for quick selection like they are in Doom 3. Also the use of the left trigger to select your melee weapon seemed really strange. The developer should have used the Halo-style melee attack or used another button for it. Another control flaw would be the dash button. Apparently in the world of Pariah you cannot run and have your weapon out. That is just stupid. For anyone who thought the whole Doom 3 flashlight switching was annoying, I just found the ultimate crap control.

Next let's discuss the graphics in Pariah. The first word that came to mind here is mediocre. Character models are done decently well, but they fail to capture the real-life looking feel present in games like Halo 2 and Doom 3. Environments are where the game does a face-plant into the ground. Environments are unimaginative and dull. The first few levels seem like they are just paths and tunnels. There is little or no environmental interaction, save pillars crumbling under fire and barrels that roll. Unfortunately there is nothing real good to say about the graphics. They aren't bad, but they are far from good.

Pariah also has some technical issues with the graphics. There are many areas where the game will begin to lag horribly. Considering that games like Halo 2 and Doom 3 look and sound as good as they do and don't lag, there is no excuse for the frame rate problems in Pariah.

The story in Pariah may be one of the worst aspects of the game. You are given a typical sci-fi story. In Pariah you are trying to transport a woman with a rare disease. Your ship is shot down over a prison planet and you spend the majority of the game chasing after the patient you were transporting. The story also makes no sense and is not really that interesting. There really is nothing worse than a FPS with no interesting plot.

Gameplay is Pariah is, to say the least, repetitive. Missions basically entail finding your way through an area. Along the way you will fight many of the same enemies over and over again. The most you have to beside walk and shoot is push a few buttons every once in awhile. Driving missions would be interesting but since the vehicles control like crap and the game lags like all hell there is little if anything to enjoy from them.

Enemy AI is Pariah is dumb, like room temperature IQ dumb. If you manage to sneak up on an enemy, they will just stand there and take fire as if the game missed the trigger to activate them. This is countered by the fact that at long range they will take cover and pop out to shoot at you. This can get annoying fast considering that most all of the weapons are effective at any range. The assault rifle is practically a rapid fire sniper rifle. Also as cool as it is to have a 2x optical zoom on a shotgun and have it be useful for long range, it fails to be realistic and really gives the player no reason to use different weapons since they all work about the same. Plus reload times are so stupidly long that it is possible to die merely from reloading at the wrong time.

Sound is a mediocre point in Pariah. The music tends to be appropriate fro what is happening. Gunshot sounds and the like seem very generic. Voice recordings are not done as effectively as they are in some games. On the note of the voices, there is no subtitle option in the game. This means that if you can't understand something, you are SOL. There is also no 3d positional audio in the game. This sometimes complicates finding your enemies before they waste you.

Probably the only really good thing about the game is the MAP editor. There are not many Xbox titles that give you the option to make maps. This is a good point because usually you have to have the PC version of a game to edit maps. With this tool you can create and share custom maps. You can even publish these maps on Xbox Live for others to download. No waiting for new maps to be released here. Make your own.

The Xbox live multiplayer is your standard set of FPS gametypes. There really isn't that much to say about it other than it can't even attempt to come close to Halo 2's online multiplayer. Multiplayer in Pariah does support bots, but so do the Unreal Tournament games and they tend to be far more fun to play.

Replay value in Pariah is next to non existent. The single player campaign is boring and doesn't really leave you feeling like you want to go back for more. Multiplayer could be interesting for a time, but when you have games like Halo 2 and Doom 3 I don't know why you would waste your time with Pariah.

The final word on Pariah is this it is mediocre. It is the kind of game that pollutes a genre after the release of good games. I strongly suggest against buying this game. Thankfully I borrowed it from a friend so I didn't have to shell out anything. This game is a rental at best. If you are looking for a good FPS for Xbox play Doom 3 or Halo 2, or wait a few months and play Half-Life 2. Pariah does a good job of being mediocre; in fact the Map editor is the only thing saving it from being total crap. Pariah for the Xbox gets a 5 out of 10.

Reviewer's Score: 5/10, Originally Posted: 05/13/05