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Developer: Digital Extremes
Publisher: Groove Games
Genre: FPS
Region: NTSC
Format:
Release Date: 03 May 05
User Rating
10 (2 votes) -
- Digital Extreme's latest does everything it is expected to, but not an ounce more. A fairly average FPS with a bland story and lackluster modes.
Overview
To bring out a first person shooter onto the Xbox, you have to realize that you are going up against some stiff competition, as the console is more than well represented in this genre. We have so many different first person shooters on the Xbox that picking a game can even be a challenge. Well now we get another first person shooter that has come out somewhat under the radar from Groove Games and Digital Extreme. It is Pariah, a game that takes a look into the future to try and make a mark on the Xbox. Can they accomplish this goal? Read our full review to find out!
Gameplay
The game market has been becoming so commercialized over the years that every game is trying to do the latest and greatest thing to make their mark in the biggest entertainment industry in America. Pariah starts off strong with a very interesting opening storyline. You take the role of Jack Mason, a former doctor who now is now on security details, which seems a bit far-fetched. Jack has to transport Karina, who carries a mysterious virus. Well their transport ship was shot down, and somehow Jack now has been infected and Karina has been taken.
The game starts there, and although the opening cinematic was extremely interesting, past that the game falls flat on its face in terms of the story. It reminds me of the movies that have all their funny parts in the preview and the rest of the movie is as dry as the Mohave Desert. Well with this game, the story starts off really interesting, and from there it went all the way south pretty fast.
Since we covered the storyline of the game pretty well now, we get to move onto what I like to call the real meat of the game, the gameplay. Once you get through the cut scene, you are immediately placed in the action (somehow our character knows what he is doing) and from thereon the action never really stops. For those of you who don't know Pariah makes use of the aging Unreal engine. As such, the action in the game is going to be very familiar to some, as we have seen this engine used on many other titles. Pariah uses the system pretty well, but unfortunately the single player mode is rather bland. I say this because through the game's single player mode, Pariah doesn't offer something new, and after a while I feel that I'm just going through the motions, with little motivation and incentive to keep me going.
Luckily for all of us, the multiplayer in the game is much stronger then the single player, as it consists of some really nice features. First and for most the game has a very easy to use Map Maker, that really is a lot of fun to use because you can really make some interesting maps to play on. I honestly don't usually get into that sort of thing, but with this game I actually was really intrigued by it because it was on the easy side and it was fun playing in your own custom map.
The online support does include bots (something more FPS should do) and although they are not the most intelligent guys on the field, it is good to have them! With that being said, the online support does not have all that many modes to choose from, except for the usual Deathmatch, team Deathmatch, Capture the Flag and other modes that have been done to death in other shooters. The game however does handle very nicely online, and you won't see a whole lot of lag on Live, which is always a good thing.
Overall the gameplay could have been better, had the storyline tied in better with the single player mode and had the single player mode been more inspired. Once you get a few levels in this game you are going to realize that it never dares to be different from other FPS, and this is what I consider Pariah's biggest downfall.
Graphics
Graphically I don't really have a whole lot to speak of for Pariah, because it doesn't do much wrong or right in this category. For the most part this is the standard looking first person shooter that seems have the same sort of look and feel throughout. I was actually somewhat surprised to see that the game didn't host better detail on the characters, but even that wasn't all that big of a deal.
The environments in the game are what I would consider very average as they don't go for too much but it didn't leave me with anything to really argue against either. They have a moderate amount of detail and they mix them up pretty well. And finally the frame rate in the game doesn't hit many rough spots and therefore this is honestly a very average looking first person shooter.
Fun Factor
The fact that we have seen everything in Pariah done much better elsewhere makes the game feel even worse then it really is. The single player mode is probably the more disappointing of the two because it really doesn't seem to flow all that well and to be perfectly honest doesn't make you at any point want to complete it. The multiplayer is the better end of the game but even that feels like it is missing some originality.
Overall
Pariah is what I would call an average first person shooter on a console that is full and rich of these sorts of games. The game has some nice touches, like the map editor, but in the long run it's just not a good enough FPS to stand out against the rest of the Xbox library. If you really need a FPS, then this makes a good rental, but it doesn't deserve anything more than that.
- Gameplay
6.0 - Graphics
7.0 - Fun Factor
6.0 - Overall
6.0
