Pariah

Posted 07/08/2005 at 7:45am | by

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Pariah is a better game than its first 30 minutes indicate. Unfortunately, we found those first 30 minutes so annoying that getting to the rest of the game was a genuine challenge. In the end, the game proved unworthy of our efforts.

Graphically, Pariah is borderline luscious, with detailed models, gorgeous landscapes, and plenty of stuff to blow up. The special effects are killer, too: On a second pass through one of the earliest levels in the game, we discovered that chucking a grenade into the foundation of a mammoth concrete tower brought the entire edifice down. That didn’t happen the first time we attacked that position. We were less impressed, however, when an enemy soldier sauntered out of the piled rubble unscathed.

In fact, the untouchable soldier proved to be just one of many events that yanked us out of the game world. Of course, the developers provide little reason to stay in the game world in the first place. There’s no real storyline behind the carnage: You have only the vaguest idea of who you are, who’s trying to kill you, and what you’re supposed to do. This wouldn’t be so bad if you got sucked into the run-and-gun action, but the game’s checkpoint-based save system forced us to repeat so many levels that we found ourselves wishing we could turn our exotic weapons on the devs.

Breaking up the monotony is a better-than-average arsenal of weaponry. The bone saw is a fabulous melee weapon, whether you run out of ammo or just can’t avoid hand-to-hand combat. All six of the projectile weapons can be upgraded, sometimes spectacularly. The grenade launcher’s “fragment attractor,” for example, draws metallic debris from the environment to increase its damage when it explodes. Sadly, these upgrades don’t carry over from one mission to the next.

Fun weapons, fancy graphics, and a few good ideas aren’t enough to make a great game. Far Cry and Half-Life 2 raised the first-person shooter bar to new heights; Pariah can barely see said bar, and never stood a chance of vaulting over it.
—Michael Brown

DAY TRIP: Pretty graphics and imaginative upgrades for weapons.

BAD TRIP: Boring and repetitive. A powerful source of not-fun.

Month Reviewed: August 2005
Verdict: 6
URL: www.digitalextremes.com ESRB Rating: M