7-Feb-2005 Take one look at Karina. Is this the face of a woman who could bring the entire galaxy to its knees? (Oh no, you can't because they won't let us internet types publish the shots - Ed ) Beauty can be deceptive though. Karina is a pariah, the unfortunate carrier of a deadly pathogen. In fact, she's so deadly that the authorities are happy to nuke Earth to stop her. Maybe she's not the kind of girl to introduce to mum and dad...
As military doctor Jack Mason, you're sworn to protect the sick and do everything in your power to save Karina. Ironically, that probably means slaughtering hordes of escaped convicts, corrupt prison wardens and insane religious fanatics. You're dealing out a prescription for total annihilation!
Pariah is the latest FPS from Digital Extremes, the developer responsible for Unreal Championship (Issue 10, 9.2) on Xbox. It has a long history of making top-class shooters, having also worked on all the Unreal Tournament games for PC. Although this is their first foray into a new franchise, Pariah maintains all the qualities that Digital Extremes is known for; exciting weapons, dramatic visuals and cutting-edge technology.
There are 18 single-player maps in total. You are just about to transport Karina from a military prison to an off-world medical station when your space pod crashes down in the wastelands. It's an inhospitable place occupied by prisoners who got out on a day pass and never went back.
"The most important thing in any FPS is the weapons system," divulges Digital Extremes' founder and creative director James Schmaltz. We tend to agree with him, especially after wielding some of the lethal little numbers in Pariah. Eight weapons sounds a little meagre, but that soon expands to more than 30 thanks to an inventive upgrade system.
"The upgrade system is almost like an action RPG where you spend experience points," says Schmaltz. "Instead of experience points though, you're trying to collect Weapon Energy Cores (WECs). While most of these can be found on the beaten path, hardcore players who want to max out every weapon will have to search high and low for the high-value WECs."
He continues, "The first upgrade for each weapon is easy to get but you need twice as many WECs for the second, and three times as many again for the most powerful enhancement. As you go through every couple of levels, not only do you find the WECs but also get to try them out in a new situation. It's a really cool extra thing to look for instead of just the standard type of pick-ups." Each weapon has three lights to indicate its current level of enhancement. Tantalisingly, you won't always know what the upgrades do before you spend precious your WECs on them. It's always fun to guess just how much carnage the 'Dual Warhead' or 'Titanium Concentrators' will cause and thankfully you're rarely disappointed.
Schmaltz confesses, "We wanted to keep a lot of the favourites from Unreal Championship. We found that there's a huge demand for certain types like the shotgun, which originally we weren't going to have."
That's not to say that the weapons haven't been given a fresh twist though. Pariah's grenade launcher starts out like the flak cannon from Unreal Championship, but soon evolves into a launcher for Duke Nukem 3D-style pipe bombs that can be detonated remotely. Pariah's sniper rifle is just as cool. It can be upgraded with both thermal vision and armour-piercing rounds.
Pariah adds an extra twist by making certain weapons counter each other. Brandishing the plasma rifle gives you the added bonus of some anti-glare goggles. These protect you from the blinding flash of the plasma, which is equally helpful when others are wielding it against you.
Given that most of the weapons are particularly damaging, it's also a relief that your health slowly recharges up to a point (like in The Chronicles of Riddick - Issue 33, 9.0). You start out with six blocks of health and will almost certainly lose a few of them along the way. Luckily, you also have a health tool to regenerate missing blocks.
Following Half-Life 2 and Halo 2 (Issue 36, 10.0), no FPS seems complete without a stockpile of ass-kicking vehicles. Pariah has four vehicles in total, including a motorbike with tyres so fat that even Judge Dredd would be jealous. The others are a two-man armoured jeep, a tank that seats four, and a hovercraft that's armed to the rotors.
Not only are they fully destructible, but they also handle convincingly courtesy of Havok 2 engine physics. Running over an enemy and watching their body get mangled under the wheels is tremendously satisfying. Another great thing about the vehicles is that ammunition is unlimited. Trigger-happy drivers will find them overheating after sustained use, though.
Of course, all the vehicles and weapons work just as well in the game's multiplayer mode, currently supporting up to 16 players. System Link and Xbox Live are both up and running across 14 gorgeous maps. There are all the usual game modes including Deathmatch, Assault, and Capture the Flag.
After trying out several of them, we've decided that Assault is the most fun. There are bases at either end of the level and you must occupy them for a set amount of time to capture them. It's very similar to Star Wars Battlefront (Issue 35, 9.0), where having more players at a base accelerates the process.
Easily the thing we're most excited about though is Pariah's excellent map editor. It's way more sophisticated than the modular editors in TimeSplitters 2 and THUG2 (Issue 36, 8.5) but just as intuitive to use.
"The idea was to squeeze as much functionality into the editor as possible, but without making it too cumbersome for the player," explains Schmaltz.
You start out by choosing one of eight different map templates. Each one has a distinct look and includes all the basic environmental objects you need to make a good level (you can add more along the way). At this point, it's just a basic land mass surrounded by water. By the time you're finished using the raise/lower terrain tools though, you could have a mountain range, lagoons or even immense landfill pits stuffed with explosive barrels.
This mini-editor is really simple to use but still extremely deep. It's possible to knock out a decent map in 15 minutes or spend days working on a really incredible one. Xbox Live gives you an extra incentive to make your map as cool as possible. Any created maps can be uploaded to the Xbox Live servers and copied onto your buddies' hard disks. If enough people go for Pariah, we could see a potentially unlimited source of downloadable content in the form of mini-editor maps!
It's an extremely exciting prospect and has the potential to make Pariah one of 2005's must-have FPSs. Digital Extremes seems rightfully confident about going up against Unreal Championship 2 (see page 039) this spring. Pariah has the same engine, all the corresponding enhancements and a whole load of new tricks in its tightly packed weapons crate. The mini-editor really is Pariah's ace card though. We can't wait to see what the combined might of Digital Extremes and the Xbox Live community can come up with.
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