Xbox

Pariah

Pariah is a worthy contender in the FPS marketplace, and while I personally enjoyed it more than Halo I’m not delusional enough to think that it would ever replace it. But there is enough quality content and challenging gameplay to earn this title a spot on your gaming shelf.

Even with this major drawback hindering the experience, Pariah's high-caliber gameplay is hard to deny. You'll tip your hat toward Digital Extremes every time you see a gas tank mounted on the back of an adversary catch fire and explode, and you'll have a hard time setting the controller down once you hop online. Digital Extremes provided a rip-roaring play, but neglected to make it mean something.

Pariah may not be the next step in FPS gaming, but it holds its own against any shooter in the Xbox library. The single-player campaign is mindless, action-packed fun, with a few setbacks in the way of enemy AI and issues in tying the story together. The upgradeable weapons are a blast (wow, bad pun), and the online multiplayer may not have the depth of Halo 2, but it’s just as fun. With only a handful of FPS games left on the current Xbox platform, Pariah should be remembered for being one of the better ones.

Sadly Pariah isn’t quite the Halo beater we had hoped for though, but it still stands head and shoulders above most of the other shooters released on the Xbox this year. The single player mode may well be a short (but equally enjoyable experience) but once you sign into Xbox Live and start creating and downloading those user created maps, Pariah soon evolves into one of the most enthralling multiplayer experiences in the Xbox Catalogue.

Pariah seems to have had a lot to live up to, what with comparisons being made with other games and the like. On its own merits, Pariah is a fairly standard first person shooter that plays pretty good despite some minor flaws here and there. The weapons upgrades are a cool feature (although maybe this is just another way of limiting the amount of weapons in the game) and the map making is a welcome addition if you have access to Xbox Live. On the whole I can recommend Pariah as a decent rental that you might wish to purchase after checking it out first. If you are not grabbed in the first hour or so of play then maybe it’s not for you. As it stands Pariah is a welcome addition to the Xbox library of games and with its fun multiplayer will no doubt keep you entertained for some time.

Beyond the great game types and numerous maps, the simple but extremely powerful map maker gives Pariah some long legs to run on. I'm a sucker for a great story, which is why this game left a little sour in my mouth, but don't miss out on its other great features because you share that same disappointment.

Gamer's opinion of Pariah will probably change vastly with their expectations. While the game promises many of the same features of the best shooters on Xbox, it doesn't quite meet them terms of quality. The single player game is enjoyable but it is over quickly and the driving and rail shooting elements are substandard. The online modes and map editor will provide gamers with a ton of content, but I don't see this game replacing my current Xbox Live standbys. FPS junkies who are wowed by pretty visuals should give this game a spin.

Pariah is a decent game that I believe would have been better if it was released before Halo 2 hit the world. Another thing that would have made this game better is if the developers took another month to thoroughly polish the game or at least make sure there was no framerate drop. All in all if you are in the need for a FPS then check this game out at your local videogame rental store.

When push comes to shove, Pariah is a solid FPS. Everything it does, though not done expansively, is done very well. Most importantly, it has the all-important replayability that can sometimes make or break a game. This game stands up to any FPS out right now, and surpasses some.

There are a few flaws that fracture Pariah as a game, but a better-than-you’d-expect single-player mode coupled with a very good online setup give Pariah enough of an advantage over other Halo wannabes as a perfect alternative to the mass contingent of Xbox FPS online gamers that play Halo 2.

Pariah's virtues, ultimately, are adult virtues: it's a solid, serious, deeply competent game. This competence may not prove an adequate substitute for the moment-to-moment buzz of the mindless FPS in its terminally adolescent pomp. But if you have to grow up sometime, there are vastly worse ways to go.

Grafik ist nicht alles: Um bei der Fülle an Xbox-Shootern herauszustechen, muss ein Spiel schon etwas Besonderes bieten. Digital Extremes versucht bei "Pariah" augenscheinlich über die ansehnliche Optik Aufmerksamkeit zu erregen. Doch hinter der hübschen Fassade verstecken sich unschöne Mängel: unorigineller Spielverlauf, dümmliche KI-Gegner, heftige Ruckelattacken sowie eine nur halbherzig erzählte Story werfen den Shooter im Konkurrenzkampf zurück. Warum "Pariah" trotz technischen Schwächen für Unterhaltung sorgt, liegt an der tadellosen, wenn auch standardisierten Action-Atmosphäre und dem aufrüstbaren Waffenarsenal. Zudem gefällt der Multiplayermodus durch eine Vielzahl an Spielmodi und den gelungenen Karteneditor.

Fresh out of the box, Pariah not worth looking into. If it catches on and gamers start putting together some interesting custom maps, it may eventually mature into a decent multiplayer shooter. In the meantime, there are tons of great action games on the Xbox, and you probably haven’t played them all. Go check out one of them instead.

Si Pariah a de quoi distraire ceux qui apprécient les FPS en général, notamment grâce à l'intervention de divers engins à piloter et d'un éditeur de niveaux, le jeu déçoit en contrepartie au niveau technique avec une réalisation qui n'exploite pas vraiment les capacités de la console et une IA défaillante. De plus, l'action est un peu trop basique et dépourvue d'une once de réflexion, ce qui l'obligera à rester un cran en-dessous de ce que l'on a vu de mieux jusqu'à présent dans ce domaine.

On a console over populated with first person shooters, there's nothing exceptionally special or unique about Pariah. If you really want to play it, give the game a rental. However, if you can envision spending hours constructing maps of genious design, then go ahead and pick the game up.

I can see ambition in the eyes of Pariah, but the sci-fi shooter falls short of its mark and as a result, the gaming experience is average at best. The upgradeable weapons and map editor are solid gold features, but a confusing plot, uninspiring indoor environments, predictable AI and occasional visual quirks hinder its best intentions. There are just too many good shooters available on the Xbox to really recommend Pariah. If your curiosity is peaked, a rental should be the cure.

When playing Pariah you may find yourself pausing to scratch your head either because the story doesn’t make much sense, or because you’re simply wondering why the game was so blatantly pushed out the door without even half of the polish it needed to live up to the hype that has been created – and we’ll be the first to admit our own share of responsibility. In the end all it boils down to is the fact that Pariah just isn’t all that much fun to play.

Despite its many flaws, Pariah is a solid FPS. It’ll never go down as one of the greats, but any FPS fan looking for something to occupy them in this barren time of year should give this a go. But given its length and lack of online activity, I’d certainly advise to shop around first.

There's nothing we having seen here that wasn't done better almost eight years ago

When it comes down to it, Pariah is nothing more than just another shooter. While its map maker is excellent, the rest of the game lags behind in mediocrity. The singleplayer is hampered by poor attention to detail and a story which confuses the player right from the beginning. Get together with some friends and you'll probably have a lot of fun in multiplayer, but at the end of the day, you'll be wondering why you didn't choose something better to play. Halo 2 features superior single- and multiplayer modes, better visuals and audio, tighter gameplay and all for the same price as Pariah. This is by no means a bad game, it just doesn't give you a good enough reason to play it, let alone buy it.

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.

It's by no means a bad game, not at all. Those of you that love a sci-fi shooter may actually really enjoy playing it. As I said though, it tries too hard to be Halo rather than finding its own niche in the market and comes across as a game that doesn't try hard enough. There are moments of enjoyment, but not enough to recommend this to the average game. In the word's of the legendary Roy Walker, "It's good, but it's not right."

Had Pariah been released five or six years ago, it would have been at the forefront of its genre. However, it's ended as merely another forgettable entry in the overcrowded first-person shooter genre. While competent enough to satisfy hardcore fans between better games, Pariah never really takes off and brings its ideas to fruition. It is at best at second-tier shooter that rides the waves of its peers instead of making them.

Pariah seems to be built on the concept of "if you liked Halo, then try this one out." But the game simply can't make the act of firing a weapon interesting, and this plagues every mode in it. When you toss in cutscenes that don't move the story along in a useful way, you've got a game that doesn't live up to the standards of the genre in any way whatsoever. The Xbox has certainly done better than Pariah, so there's no need to spend time trudging through its uninteresting adventure.

I'd hoped for more from Pariah. But in the cold light of day it's simply another FPS that falls halfway between memorable extremes.

Well, enough of you have bought it anyway that it's already been propelled into the UK Top 10, but if you were biding your time for a few more reviews to appear our advice is to check it out first. Get a demo, or rent it to find out if you thought it was as uninspiring as we did. Pariah certainly isn't committing any real gaming crimes in what it's doing, but suffers a harsh fate for coming out just on the cusp of the next generation and looking like a tired me-too effort that does virtually nothing that half a dozen other similar games haven't already done far better.

An open note to ALL game developers, not just Pariah's: Give us something new and revolutionary! Being in tight spots and having to fight armies of (insert any warm blooded mammal here)is getting tiresome. It's time to give buyers of $50-$60 games the content that we're paying for. It was fun for awhile but we want your best and newest now!