12-Oct-2004 Storylines in games are shit. Not a new observation by any means, but one that's as true today as it was ten years ago. For all the credit we give games like Sam & Max, Knights Of The Old Republic and Max Payne 2, most game plots are wafer-thin excuses for slaughter, daubed on the back of a napkin by a semi-literate, attention-disordered metal fan. If a game's not a rip-off of Aliens, it's probably a rip-off of Neuromancer or The Matrix, with a level of character development slightly less sophisticated than your average porn film.
Which is why it came as such sweet music to our ears when we found out that Pariah, the new FPS from Unreal-developer Digital Extremes, is all about telling a great story.
"We really want to push the envelope in storytelling," agrees James Schmalz, founder and creative director of the esteemed Canadian codeshop. "I've played too many games, especially in the FPS genre, where the story is like 'ho-hum', and the game's really not that compelling. Even Doom 3 - an amazing game - is at best a B-movie. We're putting a lot of effort into making a really interesting story - one where you have an emotional investment in the situation and the characters, and we're trying to do that more so than anyone has done before."
Getting Emotional The game itself is a handsome sci-fi shooter set on a far-future Earth. Like many of its ilk, you've got a selection of vehicles, some big guns, a few enemies and the trusty old Unreal engine humming away beneath it all. The big difference, as far as James is concerned, is that these factors are matched by an equally advanced emotional aspect, something he sees as increasingly critical in today's hi-fidelity game environments.
"With the level of graphical detail, the facial animation and the physics, you need to have a much better storyline that blends in with and matches that level of realism. And if you don't, it's that much more disappointing. As the technology gets better, you need to have the better actors and the story to deliver a compelling overall experience."
It might sound like hype, but Digital Extremes is leaving nothing to chance in its quest for the perfect story, enlisting the help of two Hollywood scriptwriters, spending painstaking hours casting voice-actors and generally laying out a shedload more time and cash than most FPS developers would ever dream of.
"Oh yeah, we're going crazy," enthuses James. "We've done all sorts of research about how stories are made and what makes a great story. We're on the fifth revision of the script right now, and we still want to tweak the dialogue, make sure everything's just right. Then, when we record the voice-actors, we're going to videotape the actors' faces too, so the animators can match the facial expressions. We don't want our characters to look like manikins."
Feel The Force Unfortunately, the results are so far a bit difficult to judge. Not only are the final voices yet to be recorded, but Digital Extremes is also being understandably cagey about the plot. After all, it is the game's key feature and the company doesn't want to spoil it.
What we can tell you however, is this. The year is 2520. You are Jack Mason, a suicidally depressed doctor called to Earth - now a horrific prison colony - to escort a patient off-planet. You've been told your patient is a prisoner with a dangerous virus, but when you get there you find she's also a hot ex-military chick called Karina. On your way back, your dropship suddenly goes out of control (sabotaged) and crashes into a forest. All hell breaks loose, and you find yourself fighting for survival with Karina at your side. As you make your way back to the prison however, the real story starts to unfold...
Who's That Girl? "We've tried to create a lot of really interesting mysteries right from the very beginning that draw you in," says James. "You find out who Karina really is, what the virus is and why they want to nuke the planet to get rid of her."
If you don't mind a slight spoiler (skip ahead a paragraph if you do), we've already discovered some of the answers. The so-called virus Karina is carrying turns out to be - no prizes - an immensely powerful weapon. She's been experimented on to be the first of a new breed of super-soldiers that can generate energy from the molecules in their bodies and project it outwards. And needless to say, you eventually get the power too.
Now, I know what you're thinking - what's the big deal? It's a bit of Jedi power mixed with a bit of military conspiracy, boiled up with a bit of despite-the-odds romance. Seen it all before. However, it's worth remembering that your beloved Half-Life was basically a skilful re-telling of Doom - scientists inadvertently open portal to another dimension, violence ensues. And as James points out, a good story has more to do with character and emotion than any sort of plot summary.
"When you think of a great movie, it's usually not the great effects that you remember. It's the emotional experience that's the important thing. Having a good story and having some sort of emotional buy into the characters is what's going to make a game more memorable and satisfying to people."
Digital Extremes is particularly mindful of the player's - your - relationship with Karina. Seeing as you inhabit the body of Jack in the game and rarely get to see him - er, you - Karina is very consciously designed to be the primary emotional and visual tie with the characters and situations.
"We've really worked on the relationship between Jack and Karina," says James. "We didn't want them to be stereotypical game characters, we wanted them to be much more believable. Karina isn't your scantily-clad female with big boobs. Jack isn't the typical ass-kicker guy. He's balding a little; he's got no background in weaponry. Even though they've crash-landed and have to fight for survival in the forest, he finds it difficult to trust her, and the way they gradually bond is a big part of the storyline."
Of course, we could talk about the story all day, but it doesn't tell you much about gameplay. From what we've seen, think Halo - especially in the use of vehicles - and possibly Far Cry, as Pariah is set 80 per cent outdoors.
There's also a strong nod to Half-Life in the way the story elements are integrated, with minimal use of cut-scenes and a strong sense of pace. Standard run-and-gun sections are interspersed with short on-rails shooting sequences and free-roaming vehicular jaunts. "The vehicles are a bit UT2004-ish," says James. "We've got single, two-man and four-man varieties - six in total, though we may add more."
Supersize Me As you'd expect from the creator of Unreal Tournament, Pariah also boasts a full multiplayer component. It seemed slightly skewed towards an Xbox audience when we played it, but nonetheless offers a few interesting features. For a start, there are two new multiplayer game types: Siege and Front Line Assault. Siege sees you and your mates trying to protect a base from an onslaught of AI opponents, while FLA is a team-based game centred on capturing control points - similar to Advance And Secure in Joint Ops.
Classic modes like Deathmatch, Team Deathmatch and CTF are also in the mix, but with a new gameplay device to help keep things fresh. Says James: "We wanted to have all the familiarity there but with a different spin, so we've introduced upgradeable weapons. All the standard FPS weapons are used - the shotgun, the rocket launcher and so on - that's what people are used to. However, we didn't just want to do the same thing over again."
So, all the weapons in both single- and multiplayer are upgradeable through two or three levels, using pick-ups known as Weapon Energy Cores or WECs - left behind when you kill an enemy (see 'Tweak Your Tool', opposite). Using a pop-up menu, you can choose to upgrade your weapon, increase your dash time (a standard sprint function), top up your health or boost your shield: "Though we may change the health in favour of increased ammo capacity," muses James.
Look Before You Leap The idea is, you have to think strategically about what to spend your upgrades on: whether it's a more powerful rocket launcher, a silencer for your sidearm or a stronger shield.
"What this gives us in the multiplayer games is the ability to grow into the role you want to play," says James. "Instead of picking a class at the start of a game, like medic or engineer, you work on developing the tools you need for it as you're playing. If you want to be a medic, you focus on upgrading your healing tool - the final upgrade of which allows you to resurrect your team-mates."
To make sure people who get a few upgrades don't become invincible, the final, most powerful upgrade you get in single-player is not in multiplayer. "The first two levels are more functional," says James. "So the grenade launcher upgrades to a poison grenade, the sniper rifle gets a heat-vision scope. So you get things that make your weapons more functional, without necessarily being more deadly."
It may sound cumbersome, but the process happens quickly in multiplayer matches - a matter of seconds or minutes, though WECs are significantly harder to come by in the solo campaign.
"It really adds a different flavour to the multiplayer game," grins James. "We wanted to get away from people running routes through the game, knowing the timing of when pick-ups were going to spawn. Now you have to confront enemy and kill them before you get a pick-up. It's a far more strategic way of handling things."
Singles Mingle While this may well be true, we suspect that these features will ultimately be far more interesting in the single-player game, where you have more than a split-second to think about how to distribute your WECs. Indeed, we can't help but think that Pariah's multiplayer game is a bit too console-oriented to have much of an impact on the PC - we'll wait and see.
In the meantime, Pariah's true power remains a mystery. With so much emphasis on things that must remain secret to preserve the experience (the plot), or that must be experienced at length to be fully appreciated (the emotional aspect of the storyline), it's nigh-on impossible for us to truly assess the game. Despite that rather large caveat, one thing we can say for sure is: if Digital Extremes gets it right, Pariah could be a revelation.
The first-person shooter genre is full of outdated conventions dating back to the early days of the form - warehouses full of crates, mysteriously roomy air con ducts, chainsaws in space stations and of course, the good ol' exploding barrel. The latter items feature quite heavily in Pariah, but rather than making excuses, the lads at Digital Extremes have decided to have a bit of fun with them. "Every FPS has to have barrels," grins James Schmalz, "but we've tried to take them to the next level. So we've got these barrels full of fuel, and of course you can tip them over, you can blow them up and it's all physics-based; but you can also shoot them and poke a hole in the side. Then, if you push one over, you can roll it around wherever you want, leaving a path of fuel behind. And when you shoot the fuel, this huge wall of flames shoots up." Seeing a rudimentary version of this trick in action, we can't help thinking of old Looney Tunes episodes. "Exactly," laughs James. "But it's got so many cool gameplay uses. You can create a path of flames, set traps, cut off pursuers and funnel enemies where you want them. It's the ultimate barrel experience." Quite.
Best barrels yet! Allegedly.
// Tweak Your Tools
In order to quiet the din of whingeing gamers complaining about weapon balancing, Digital Extremes has introduced a new weapon-tweaking feature into Pariah's multiplayer. At the start of each match, you get to spend a number of points on your weapons using a kind of graphic equaliser interface. You can only carry two weapons into a multiplayer bout, so it only takes a few seconds, but you can very quickly change a weapon's power, how fast it uses ammo and a range of other parameters. It's only in the two to five per cent range, so it won't upset the gameplay too much, but it means you can customise your arsenal to some degree at least. "In every game we make, there's always somebody saying 'the rocket launcher's too powerful', or 'it does five per cent more splash damage than it should'," says James Schmalz. "Hopefully this will shut them up."
// Why Don't You?...
While we've only played a very small portion of Pariah alpha code, we're quite taken with the idea of the upgradeable weapons. Sure, it's not a major breakthrough, but it is a neat way of adding variety and complexity to a standard weapon-set without having to reinvent the wheel. However, it seems to us that FPS vehicles are also at risk of becoming a bit predictable and standardised - just look at the similarities between Halo and UT2004. As such, it'd make perfect sense to have an upgradeable vehicle system in Pariah to complement the upgradeable weapons. You could pick up Vehicle Energy Cores and use them to add speed, stability, extra mounted weapons or even a flying function to your vehicle, enabling you to reach previously unattainable areas or just kick much ass in multiplayer. "That would be really cool," agrees James Schmalz. "Maybe for Pariah 2." You read it here first
Imagine if you could load this baby up with more speed…
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