by:	May 05, 2005

Pariah is a game of me too moments, from graphics to story it just doesn’t do anything to make you need to play it. You’re Dr. Jack Mason, your job is to get a sick patient to a medical facility when everything goes wrong and you crash land in hostile territory and now you only need to worry about getting away with your life.

Graphics
Pariah is the kind of game you look at and say wow that looks really good, but that’s only at a first glance. The character models are decent enough but they don’t have as much detail as you would expect especially from Digital Extremes. They just look plain and nearly every enemy per map is identical. Their saving grace is the animation, they move in a realistic fashion and the Havok Physics engine creates some great ragdoll moments, the only real problem here is the enemies fade into non existence a few seconds after they die. Call me crazy but I like to look at the destruction I’ve caused and a battlefield full of nothing is just that, where is the proof I was even there to begin with? I understand ragdoll's take a toll on the frame rate but at the very least they could have made dead bodies non interactive objects.

The maps look good, the textures are all high res and the overall design is very nice. There is ample bump and normal mapping which gives the textures some much needed depth as well. The terrain is always changing much like it did in Halo but there is one stark difference. The maps feel almost empty, there aren’t as many little details as you would expect in a game like this and some of the structures look downright plain and boring, add to that the disappearing bodies and you have maps that feel devoid of life. Sure they look pretty but at the same time they also manage to be pretty boring.

Another problem I’ve noticed is the frame rate gets sluggish, it doesn’t happen all that often, maybe once or twice per map but its enough to notice and it does get in the way of game play. It always happens when multiple enemies are on screen firing at you or when there are large explosions. It becomes a chore to aim at 15 FPS and you will lose health because of it.

Sound
As far as games these days go the voice acting isn’t half bad, it’s not Hollywood caliber but it’s no Resident Evil either. The delivery of the dialog fits what you would expect In terms of emotional levels and there aren’t any odd pauses to be found either. I still wonder what’s up with the oddly placed and overused swearing.

The music fits the game quite well but you will often get that same empty feeling you got from the graphics. It’s almost like no emotion was felt by the composer which in turn means the music is often but not always lifeless.