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My Apology for Liking Pariah

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 28 / 30
Date: March 20, 2006
Author: Amazon User

I've read some very disparaging reviews of Pariah. And, while it is certainly all a matter of perspective, let me counter some of the critiques I've read.

First, speaking of perspective, I think this game was short-shrifted by every reviewer because of the time it entered the market-which was pretty much on the heels of Half-Life 2. Everyone had just finished making their way through that incredible epic and was ready for the fun to continue with Pariah. So, when it was clear that Pariah wasn't Half-Life 2 (NOTHING is Half-Life 2, of course) lots of reviewers griped: "It's trying to be Half-Life, but it just doesn't cut the mustard." I think the disappointment in many reviews I've read has little to do with Pariah itself, and more to do with reviewers' disappointment that, for the time being, they were going to have to wait for a new Half-Life 2 saga.

Well, I'm an extremely slow gamer (or maybe I'm just a busy person), and it took me the better part of half a year to finish Half-Life 2 in an utter state of amazement, and after that I followed it with another 6 months of F.E.A.R. shaking in my boots, and another 3 months of Quake 4. But considering the dearth of FPS games on the market at any given time (and wanting to play something new while waiting for the next installment of anything), I haphazardly came across Pariah for a handful of dollars (prices cut no doubt because of bad reviews) and picked it up. I was no longer riding the high of Half-Life 2, I had played F.E.A.R. and busted it wide open, limped through and finished Quake 4 with glee, and decided to give Pariah a try-I was predisposed to like it, having only bought it (new) for $7. What I found was a beautiful-looking game with complex inside and outside terrains, battles, and a nice array of weapons and vehicles. I bet Pariah, if it had preceded Half-Life 2, or had been released at a different time altogether, would NEVER have gotten the negative reviews it has garnered, because it is a fine, fun, entertaining game with decent action and simply great graphics. But I kept seeing reviews comparing it to Half-Life 2-and no game would ever stand a chance at that comparison. A little adjustment to expectations, and I found that Pariah was a VERY engaging way to wait for HL2 Episode One, or whatever. Many reviewers simply never gave Pariah a fair shake because of their own previous "metaphysical" experiences playing HL2. How fair is that?

Next, many negative reviews griped that "In Pariah's story line, some dumb girl who is infected with a virus keeps running away from you and you have to go find her. I just wanted to shoot her and be done with it." Excuse moi, but in what video game doesn't this happen? For example, how many times did Alex Vance (or Barney for that matter) disappear and reappear in HL2? This sort of plot contrivance is simply video game convention-certainly nothing to complain about. Again, the HL2 comparison did Pariah in, unfairly in my book.

Next, I've read many reviews that complained "Pariah just can't make the action of shooting a gun interesting. And the weapons seem weak, and they sound weak." I know these kinds of elements, if not done just right, can ruin a game. But I've got my system hooked up to powerful stereo studio monitors and these guns are vibrating the floor. Now that may seem extreme, but from where I'm sitting, I'm going deaf. I don't see what the problem is. And some reviewers will lamely say, "Yeah, in Pariah you can upgrade the weapons as you go along, and this is an interesting idea, but...(it's no Half-Life 2)...yadda, yadda." I think the idea of upgrading weapons is super cool and really quite innovative. And it's easy to do within the framework of the game. Sheez, I thought having to fiddle with the PDA in DOOM 3 was more complicated and tiresome!

Next, I've read: "In Pariah, your opponents move around too quickly to hit sometimes, and then they run right back up on you after retreating, and the enemy characters keep repeating the same lines like `We don't want you, doctor! We only want the girl!' If I heard that line one more time, I was going to shoot myself," said some chimp of a reviewer. Uh, again excuse me, but this critique is coming from people who played games like F.E.A.R. where every psychic soldier has the EXACT SAME VOICE and has the same range of about 5 phrases? F.E.A.R. is an awesome game, but few people seem to level their sights at its limitations. Again, this sort of AI silliness, or limited dialogue, is either video game convention, or it is a testament to the state of technology right now. These issues are not endemic to Pariah by any means. Check your bias, folks.

All of this is not to say Pariah is a perfect game-there is no perfect game. (I have gripes about everything I play-even The Chronciles of Riddick: Escape from Butcher Bay, to which Gamespot gave an orgasmic review.) Let me enumerate my Pariah-problems.

First, many reviewers said that the story line, or plot, was so convoluted as to be senseless. On this point, I must agree. The storyline starts off very strongly and is promising (recently demoted and down-on-his-luck field medic is escorting cyro-sleeping, virus-infected female patient across the battlefield of Earth in 2550, gets infected himself, and tries to stay alive). But that very nice premise, somewhere in the middle, completely falls apart. In fact, late in the game, there are cutscenes designed to drive the story forward-and they end up making no sense whatsoever. I entirely gave up on trying to interpret the story about halfway through. That didn't ruin the action for me, however. And that is also not to say that the main characters themselves aren't somewhat interesting, because they are.

And talking about cutscenes, this brings me to my biggest gripe about Pariah. It seems this game has it backwards a bit. Usually, in the games I've played, the cutscenes are the movie-moments-big in scope and beautiful to look at. Well, in Pariah, the first-person playing screens (everything but the cutscenes) are really quite gorgeous, lush, nice color palette, some nice vistas, good shimmer-effects on the explosions, etc. On the other hand, the third-person cutscenes themselves (which should be awesome if we are talking video-game-convention here) are horrible looking in comparison. When a cutscene loads, the characters suddenly look chopped up, images become super-low-resolution and really quite crappy. The cutscenes almost look as if they are unfinished beta-tests or something. Very strange. But soon enough, the first-person-playing-screen reloads and we are back to the beauty. Unfortunately, every cutscene suffers from this, and it does detract from the game. Who knows what the game developers were thinking? Initially I thought there was something awry with my video card settings. But nope-the cutscenes are simply the pits, graphically speaking.

Lastly, there is one element to Pariah that ALMOST ruins it-at the very least, it causes a lot of grief and swearing. Heads up: There is no quicksave function. Instead there are predetermined loading points where the game saves automatically. Almost finished a level, but you suddenly die near the very end? Guess what? You're right back at the beginning of the level to play it all over again...and again and again and again. There is no overriding this. Want to talk about aggravating? Don't get me started. But I persevered, and the save points are liberally placed (usually), and, honestly, this factor does add an element of extra tension to the game. (But it's still aggravating as hell.)

One review I read said: "Pariah represents forty bucks I'll never get back. If you ever make the mistake of buying it, look for it in your budget bin. Don't pay top dollar." I don't know how I would've felt had I spent $40 on this the second it came out. It probably would've colored my review of it significantly. But as it stands (lucky for me) I didn't spend $40 on it. I spent $7. And what an incredible, great, fun value! You know, in my wait for the next FPS installment of whatever, I went back and played Halo and also the original Half-Life. Then I got Pariah and realized that by playing those older games, I was wasting my time. They pale in comparison-simply from a technological standpoint-to Pariah. Come on, you high-falutin' game reviewers out there! Adjust that bias a bit, and you'll find that Pariah is quite lovely and engrossing. Be aware: There's nothing new in Pariah. You've seen and played it all before-the interiors and exteriors; the sci-fi themes; the vehicles that change from first-person to third-person perspective; the array of machine guns, grenade launchers, and sniper and plasma rifles; the woman you are trying to save that keeps running away from you. But it is a solid, eye-pleasing game that is long-playing (for us snails anyway-I clocked in around 20 hours) and challenging.

This won best of E3 2004 for a reason.....

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 12 / 12
Date: June 21, 2005
Author: Amazon User

O.k., this does have some weak spots. Especially the check-point saving only. But, other than that, this game is TIGHT! You are on Earth in the distant future. About 500 years or so. The Earth is a wasteland. Years of War and poverty have turned the world into a disaster. You are in the role of Jack Mason. An outcast doctor with nothing left to lose. Your plane is shot down while transporting a patient who is infected with a serious disease. From there the game is outstanding. The visuals are breathtaking. The acting is moderately good. The scripting is above average. The cut scenes are plentiful and well thought out. I LOVE THE M.A.P. EDITOR! You can even swap and/or share your home-made maps over the internet! It's very easy. The driving feature is primo. The physics are quite realistic. There are some cool ground assault vehicles to pick from, too. This is VERY bloody and quite riddled with language. So, the kiddies should probably stay away from this one. I think this game is great. Hey, what else could you expect? This game was designed by the same folks who brought us the powerful classic 'UNREAL'!!! They know what they're doing.

Good gameplay, abysmal story

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 7 / 8
Date: July 14, 2005
Author: Amazon User

Okay, first the good stuff out of the way. The graphics are great and the gameplay is mostly pretty fun. The game start to finish will take the average gamer roughly 5-8 hours to complete. The Quick Point save feature really didn't bug me at all as there was plenty of quick points and not too much to have to go through if you die. The areas are all well done and the weapon selection is very nice with a small complaint that the guns are a bit too big and take up a lot of the viewing space.

Now to the complaints department. Vehicles...why? They are about as useful as poop flavored ice cream. You get in your vehicle and drive a whopping 20 feet before you get out and have to clear some obstacle. Vehicles are more of an annoyance and something you drag with you rather than help you. It was much easier to get out and snipe the baddies rather than sit in the Road Warrior Style vehicle getting shot, rocketed and grenaded to death. Half Life 2 got it pretty right on the money with the vehicle not only being fun but extremly useful.

Now, it's pretty obvious Pariah is a clone and I don't mind clones at all. If a game type is good...then hell make more because they are fun to play. If you ARE going to make a clone tho, at least give the story a plot. Just because the game is powered by the Unreal engine doesn't mean you have to make the story unreal. It made absolutely no sense and skipped around to random parts where the two main characters (They were so uninvolving lets just call them Bob and Bambi) looked longingly at each other where they would quickly abandon each other in order to get lost or crash or...ugh, trust me the story sucked.

It does have multiplayer but doing a quick search of the entire world yields about 14 people spread out over 5 servers...gee, what a treat. It's like playing Jacks.

Overall, it balanced out with the good gameplay,weapons and graphics and craptastic story,plot,vehicle implementation to 3 stars. Okay to pick up if you are bore for about 5 hours.

Pariah is Another Sad Example of the FPS Glut

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 6 / 7
Date: May 09, 2005
Author: Amazon User

Just a few years ago Pariah would have garnered praise and a decent fanbase. Unfortunately, in today's market, it sits squarely among a legion of also-ran first person shooters.

I found the single player game to be offendingly tedious. While the creators tried to tell an interesting story, it was lost in the uninspired level design and irritatingly awkward weapons. Props for the healing tool, though. The way the healing tool and health are handled is the only innovative aspect of the game.

The last straw for me was the fact that the single player game is checkpoint based. After ten tries of running over a bridge and methodically mopping up the enemies, only to die from a grenade I could never see coming, I uninstalled the game.

Over-hyped game

2 Rating: 2, Useful: 3 / 3
Date: December 29, 2006
Author: Amazon User

After reading the reviews on Amazon and other sites, I decided to try Pariah. Boy, was I duped! This is the most boring and needlessly incomprehensible game I've played in a long time. At least with other games like Halo and Far Cry, you have some idea of why you are doing what you are doing in the game. Pariah leaves you wondering (1) what is my motivation, other than just trying to survive, and (2) why am I playing this game in the first place. Just like Black, it is nice graphics-wise, but really not worth the effort or trouble required.

Gorgeous game, with only traces of sedatives

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 3 / 3
Date: September 30, 2006
Author: Amazon User

Alright, Pariah has been around for a little while now, so the initial hype, resultant disappointment and retaliatory defense has cooled down, and now we're actually getting some fairly balanced opinions.

To start out with, this game is just beautiful graphics-wise. Even now, in the latter half of '06, this '05 game is one of the best-looking around. Using the Doom 3 engine to full effect, the outdoor environments especially are stunning. What is more, the system requirements are not too demanding, and it runs on my laptop (sporting a Radeon Xpress 200 128MB shared video card and only 512MB RAM) like a charm.

Gameplay is good, with a caveat or two. One, the single-player game utilizes a Half-Life style weapons inventory, meaning that you can actively carry and switch among seven weapons at any given time, once you have collected them. Not only is this unrealistic, but it cheapens the strategic value of the game - and makes it a little too easy - when one can pick off enemies from a great distance with a sniper rifle, then switch to the heavy firepower of a rocket or grenade launcher, and always have a submachine gun on hand to deal with any flanking maneuvers. I much prefer Halo's concept of only two weapons carried at any given time. This is remedied in the multiplayer game, however, where you choose a two-weapon load-out upon joining the game. This is a fine system, and makes the multiplayer game shine. Then there are WEC's, the upgrades for weapons, which are strategically good, and interesting. Some weapons upgrade better than others, but carefully chosen application will result in some very powerful guns.

Now for the single-player game. As has been said before, the idea behind this one is good, and promising. But the game lets you down mightily on that front: the story spirals downhill, being chaotic, incoherent, and all in all rather like someone's dim recollection of an action film ("well, then this happened... I think - no, wait, I think this happened too..."). While the voice acting is actually quite good, the dialog is poorly-written. I suspect some synthetic depressants (cough) went into the making of the story. There are some good moments, quite, but the overall scene is poor. The campaign is rather short (12 hours or so for me), but that is common enough these days.

What saves this game for me is the multiplayer game, although you will not find very many games online. But Pariah offers a practice mode with bots, whose AI, on three difficulty settings, is quite decent - definitely multiplayer AI: they run around as madly as human players on the 'net ever have. With some very decent maps and fun gameplay types, there is always fun to be had when one feels more like downing a few digital badguys than saving the world.

Then there are the editors - yes, there are two, actually, one a basic map editor useful for tweaking the multiplayer maps, and the other a full-fledged campaign editor. My skills with the latter are not overly astonishing, so I can't give it a rating, but the map editor is easy to use. Definitely some fine tools made available to the player.

How much is all this worth? Not forty dollars, to be sure. But Amazon's $10 price? Most assuredly. If you are willing to trade story for some breathtaking vistas and fine mechanics, you will want to pick this game up.

Decent Game

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 3 / 3
Date: September 08, 2006
Author: Amazon User

Pariah is a decent game. The graphics are decent, gameplay is decent, the voice acting is decent, the plot is.. well you get the idea.

On the other hand it is pretty fun the play. I played it all the way through the single player campaign and enjoyed it right up to the end (more about that later). The graphics are good but not great, the level designers do a good job of mixing indoor and outdoor environments which look quite good. The engine has some limitations, such as the lack of shadows but really..is it that important?

The enemy AI is pretty standard for these types of games, the enemies hide behind things and dodge left/right and shoot at you, so it makes it pretty fun. Weapons for the most part are standard weapons, I found the lowest weapon, the machine gun to be my weapon of choice for most of the game.

The plot starts out quite interesting, you are a doctor with an infected girl being transported over a no-mans-land. Your shot down and infected. Everyone wants you (and her) and you don't really know why or who to trust. Its a pretty good storyline with a lot of possibilities, I expected to be able to watch things develop more in the cutscenes and overhearing bad guys talk, to slowly develop some strange powers as the game went along.. but sadly the promise of the story never develops. The game is strictly shoot-all-bad guys with guns..and thats fun as well.

The end-game was a real let-down though. You enter a new area, discover a bunch of new information and receive a new weapon with interesting powers. Then there is a mere 5 minutes of play through about 4 rooms before the ending..and without being specific so as not to ruin it for anyone, I thought the ending sucked..big time!

So take it for what it is, a fun shooter with an interesting premise and some good levels. Just don't expect greatness...heres hoping Pariah2 will continue the storyline and add more interest and a better engine.

Lack of Saves sinks this game

2 Rating: 2, Useful: 2 / 2
Date: July 21, 2006
Author: Amazon User

The graphics are gorgeous, the levels are interesting (though at times needlessly and over-the-top deadly), and the concept of weapon enhancements is great. But the fact that you cannot save this game before (or in the middle of) difficult sections makes it so frustrating as to be unplayable. Even the $10 I spent on it seems too much given that there's no way I'm going to waste my time trying over and over again to get past the third level. Save your money and buy a game that's more fun than frustrating no matter how cool the graphics look.

Pariah

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 2 / 2
Date: November 10, 2006
Author: Amazon User

This is a FPS-a shooter. Some have stated this game isnt anything special. Well maybe it isnt the "best shooter of all time" but all games cant be the best. What is this game then ? Its a shooter thats fun and exciting,kind of futuristic like "Unreal II" . If you like shooters then this one is worth a try.

Crashes every time, no customer support

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 2 / 2
Date: July 18, 2007
Author: Amazon User

Pariah crashes every time I start it. The bug report tool sent an email to an address that bounced. I patched it with the latest patch and it still crashes every time. This is probably the 10th game I've installed on my current computer and the only one I've had any problems with.

EDITED TO ADD:
So, I got this working. It doesn't run on dual core processors, so you need to google "processor affinity" and set it run on only one processor. Also I had to turn off full screen transform and lighting because it would turn my whole screen black every time a grenade went off. It's still a lame game. The incredibly stupid enemies stand up behind crouch cover while reloading. The levels are totally linear, you go, you shoot, repeat. Boring.

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