In Pariah, you play as Dr. Jack Mason, a disillusioned, anti-authority field medic. Having recently been transferred to the now wasteland-filled Earth, the good doctor must escort a prisoner with a strange new virus. Well, no sooner than you can say "plot twist" Jack and his prisoner, Katrina are shot down into the very wastelands that they were flying out of. Again, in almost predictable fashion, Jack now has the same odd virus that Katrina has and is forced to basically kill anyone who gets in his way. Which is made all the more difficult with a plot that has no real cohesiveness.

First-person Shooters are arguably one of the most popular genres in all of videogames. Some, like the original Half-Life elevated the genre to new levels, forcing game makers to become not only more creative in terms gameplay, but to invest as much time into the plot to really pull the gamer in. Others (which shall remain nameless), continued to use the same premise, weapons and literally no sort of story to move things along. Soooooo .... Pariah has a pretty good idea behind it, let's look at the basics:

1. A waste-ridden future Earth, where escaped prisoners now rule the Northwest, and you get shot down in the middle of it.

2. You're infected by the very prisoner you are escorting, time is not on your side, better get moving.

3. Wasteland scavengers, escaped prisoner mercenaries and even your own military all seem to want you dead.

Now even I could get excited about these three things, the whole infected thing could really bring about some panic-driven gameplay and envelope the player in a desperate need to complete the game. But sadly, this isn't what happens. After 10 minutes into the game, you're not quite sure why you are doing the things you are doing. Killing the AI in the game isn't as much fun, if you don't know why nor is the seemingly force-fed direction that the game takes you. The game lacks the storytelling flow that is needed for a truly good gaming experience. Without it, I simply never felt that pull I had when I play a game that does have it, like HALO.

Now from a graphic standpoint, Pariah does have some nice features, like character models and vehicle design, but for the most part, the game has a repetitiveness that is prevalent throughout the game. Bad guys only have a couple of different looks to them and even the terrain has the same feel and look to it. The buildings even had no real "feel" for what they were supposed to be. To me, I would think a holocaust-ridden landscape would include some interesting looking buildings (damage-wise) including a unhealthy feel about them, I just never got that from the game. And even though the game box really boasts about how the game's weapons are upgradeable to the point of mini-nuke power just didn't seem like that. Sure there are explosions and death dealing left and right, but the firepower just doesn't seem to gel correctly. As you upgrade your weapons (three upgrades per) using the upgrade points you can begin to improve on your weapons' heart-stopping ability. I personally liked the sniper rifle with infrared scope allowing you to see the heat signatures of your prey. Pity the game doesn't give you enough opportunity to play around with it for very long.  

The game has above-board sound, and the voice acting is better then most, but be advised, the game is rated M for Mature, and the language used in the game made me think that the programmers wanted a game on par with an R-rated movie. Where the game fails is the lackluster sound coming out of the weapons featured. I personally have never heard a rocket launcher exploding into a group of scavengers, but I'm certain that there would be allot more noise then what's featured here.

The game plays like many other first-person shooters and is pretty much fully customizable. I had to tweak a couple of the default controls but the game does handle fairly smoothly. Even though the graphics are a bit rough around the edges, the game clips by at an acceptable rate.

You can also play online with others in the standard series of online games, or create your own levels with the level editor/creator.
 

Gameplay: 8.2
It handles nicely and you can customize the keys. The biggest drawback is the uneven plot that moves/shoves the game along.  

Graphics: 6.6
The game's cutscenes are flat and drab looking, but also paints an acceptable picture of a bleak and battle-scarred world. But it's not just that, I almost felt robbed by the game's overall appearance. Often I would go into a new scenario and think about how things could and should be better.

Sound: 6.8
Weak-sounding weapons and strong language don't pull together the game's overall audio. Not too bad music, but it's all for naught once the action kicks in.

Difficulty: Medium
Anyone who has a top-shelf FPS under their belt will burn right through this title.

 Concept: 6.4
It's a first-person shooter, but they threw in an interesting back-story that sadly is not built upon. I stated it above, and the game makers really dropped the ball, but this game should have had a much more desperate feel to it. It does not and that's partly because of the uneven storytelling that's present here.

Multiplayer: 6.5
Again, not much new under the sun, the map editor is kinda nifty.

Overall: 6.7
I wanted to like this game so much, I thought the premise was awesome, but when it was game time, the experience left me wanting to play a better-built game.