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PARIAH (XBOX)
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Publisher: Groove Games.
Developer: Digital Extremes. Released: May 2005. Genre: FPS. Other versions: PC. Posted 12th February 2021. By Shane Battams © 2021 |
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If you were to place the multitude of first-person shooters on to a scale, with games like Doom or Halo on the top and Rogue Warrior at the bottom, Pariah would land right the middle. Unfortunately, it’s a mediocre experience, not lacking for mechanical solidity, but failing to produce anything to distinguish itself. There’s no shortage of modes, weapons or levels. The problem is, none of them are compelling. Even the somewhat intriguing premise is wasted woefully, failing to help salvage this one. It’s a shame; Digital Extremes showed pedigree with their work on Unreal Championship, but it doesn’t shine through here.
After a devastating war 30 years prior, Earth is left to ruin by scavengers as the off-world Alliance rules over The Zone. This story puts you in the boots of Jack Mason, a medic transporting a virus-carrying convict. But when his ship is shot down and Jack is accidentally infected with the virus Karina is carrying, it becomes a race against time to reach the core of this attack. The story isn’t lacking for ideas, but it is short on context, failing to explain much of the world’s lore and prior events, forcing you to read the manual for basic information. The cut-scenes are beset with weak voice acting and odd animations, as they fail to help explain things. Jack Mason is as generic as his name and Pariah offers little more than the forgettable framework of a basic, yet confusingly articulated, narrative.
Pariah delivers plenty of action, it just doesn't pack as much of a punch as the genre's big-hitters
Pariah isn’t a bad shooter, but it is one which feels very meek. Aiming works well enough, movement feels weighty and levels are spacious. But the handful of weapons available just aren’t potent, firing more like cap guns than armaments, which is criminal considering you can wield auto-lock rocket launchers. You can upgrade both weapons and your health via energy cores, but it doesn’t make firing weapons fun. A.I. ranges from smart (flanking and rushing at the right time) to borderline inactive, likely a bug. The other elements are standard fare for shooters at the time, including vehicle sections which feel a touch hard to control and rail shooting which is fine. There’s nothing inherently broken or terrible about Pariah, the problem is that it’s just very bland, a completely typical mid-2000s shooter without any flair or unique quirks.
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Pariah is divvied into three key modes. The single-player, taking place over nearly 20 levels, keeps you playing for around 10 hours, but when you factor in the weak story and unremarkable shooting, it definitely doesn’t warrant a second run. Multiplayer, which allows for two player split-screen as well as bots, fails to capture the imagination either, with only a small selection of modes and maps. The aforementioned gun-play plagues this mode too, even classes can’t save it. Lastly, there’s the Map Maker, taking a page out of the books of TimeSplitters and Far Cry. You can make multiplayer maps of your own creation, and there’s definitely a lot of tools available to allow for deep and time-consuming sessions. But, without sounding like a broken record, you won’t feel all that compelled to spend time with it only to partake in forgettable combat.
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It doesn’t help matters that Pariah suffers from a very dreary presentation. The small handful of environments are polluted with dark colours, the geometry is pretty flat and the animations lacklustre. Performance also varies, sometimes keeping pace, but often chopping up. Sound is equally forgettable; with dull voice acting and a flaccid script which only sees the story sink further, an unremarkable soundtrack that rarely adds to combat intensity and weak gunfire which dampens the impact of shooting. It reeks of a rushed product: even the main menu suffers from stuttering.
Pariah ends up being one of the driest, most unfulfilling shooters of the sixth generation. It’s got solid fundamentals, and some cool ideas, but these are not capitalised on whatsoever. With underpowered weaponry, a dull and confusing story, bugs which hurt the experience and an uninviting presentation, it’s one of those games you’ll forget not long after you finish it. If you’re a genre aficionado, it certainly isn’t the worst FPS you could get on the system. But when titans such as Halo, Far Cry and TimeSplitters are all available on Xbox, you can certainly do a lot better.
Pariah ends up being one of the driest, most unfulfilling shooters of the sixth generation. It’s got solid fundamentals, and some cool ideas, but these are not capitalised on whatsoever. With underpowered weaponry, a dull and confusing story, bugs which hurt the experience and an uninviting presentation, it’s one of those games you’ll forget not long after you finish it. If you’re a genre aficionado, it certainly isn’t the worst FPS you could get on the system. But when titans such as Halo, Far Cry and TimeSplitters are all available on Xbox, you can certainly do a lot better.
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VERDICT
“Pariah has solid fundamentals and some cool ideas, but with underpowered weaponry, a dull story and an uninviting presentation, they aren’t capitalised on.” OVERALL: 5/10 |
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Halo: Combat Evolved (2002, Xbox)
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Dead Man's Hand (2004, Xbox)
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