Pariah

"Bad..."

Where exactly are First Person Shooters going? They're stubborn, slowly dragging us through short-adventure, after short-adventure. In this generation's life-span, a slew of great shooters has been introduced. Halo, Timesplitters, and a few iffy 007 games that really weren't all that spectacular. The genre's undergone changes, since Goldeneye, no game has achieved such status (without stealing the majority of Goldeneye's ideas). You'd think some developers would branch out and do things differently. Digital Extremes set out to try some new things. The online play ranges from 1-16 players, and packed within is a map-creator which would lead you to believe that Pariah has something going for it.

Oh no! It's Unreal 2 all over again. Uninspired, drab environments (even when user-created) show off nothing of the Xbox's power. The gameplay inside these boring levels is even worse, though. Playing through the first few levels you will soon realize how absent-minded, and tiring the plot is. The enemies have no sort of personality whatsoever, it's a chore to kill off swarms of them, and being thrown into the action like Pariah displays will be slightly upsetting for new-comers. The intense play isn't led so well by tight controls, and the lack of accuracy in the aiming system. There's also a lot of holes worn into the gameplay, Digital Extremes have probably now realized this formula can only work in the Unreal universe. Otherwise, it's too shoddy, and uninventive.

The map-creation process is both troublesome, and creative at the same time. Firstly, there's no real direction with any user maps. They're mostly flat or hilly areas with dabs of water, and a lot of chaos. The organization is poor over the internet as well. Interestingly, you can download your friend's published maps over Xbox Live, which can be pretty fun at times. But I only know one person who has ever played Pariah, so that feature's useless for me. Overcome with the challenge that is creating a working map, the more experienced users will be able to make volcanoes, or other useless geological features, that appear to be nothing special. The heart of the community is in the map creation process, but the good maps are few, and far between.

Set in 2520 A.D., earth is a wasteland, and you're stuck on it with no hopes of escape. How unoriginal. Assuming the role of Dr. Jack Mason, you must shoot your way through 18 niche “chapters” filled to the brim with baddie after baddie. After the first cut-scene, you're placed thoughtfully into the action without much context. Doctors don't usually kick ass, Dr. Jack Mason most certainly does not either. So basically in an effort to save a prisoner, you become prisoner to earth itself, and fight a bunch of look-alike enemies without any real motive to do so. Science fiction shooters are over-done, and far too common-place in a market that just doesn't care. You'll have no idea what's going on throughout the game, so don't worry too much about what's going on, and the fact that there's no established connection with your character.

The Xbox is already so crowded with look-alike shooters (appearing on nearly a weekly basis, it would seem). Every gun within the game appears to be large and overly blocky. The ammo emitted doesn't seem to really hit, or impact the enemy in any way. So how are you supposed to know if you have any accuracy or not? I guess it's a sci-fi game, so Digital Extremes can enjoy whatever liberties it wishes to own. However, I'd suggest having some kind of reaction to being shot by a 200-pound block of steel. The graphics themselves are wishy-washy and crumby in most areas, much like everything else in the game except for audio. I enjoyed the underlying music, and the weapon-effects were passable.

Overall what's in Pariah isn't enough to last us until the next Goldeneye clone. Although what DE has burrowed from Halo since Unreal 2 has effected the gameplay quite a bit, there's still so much progress that needs to take place before gamers are left high-and-dry. There's no reason for a game like this in the midst of a generation which's produced already three excellent Timesplitters games, and two Halos, respectively.

2520 A.D. blows.

3/10

Reviewer's Score: 3/10, Originally Posted: 07/06/05