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From the official site:
"A spiraling plunge into descruction, despair and disease. JackMason is a burnt-out doctor and an outcast rejected by society. With nowill to live, until he nearly dies in a transport crash, Jack and hisinfected patient are stranded deep within the most visious prisonsectors of a wasteland called 'Earth'".

Well I'm glad I found that on the website after I played the game.While I was playing through it, I really couldn't figure out what I wastrying to do execpt rescue some girl that keeps running away from me.

I really had high expectations for this game. As most of you know,I had been playing a lot of RTS games. So coming back to my love of FPSwas a nice change, or I thought it would be one. I didn't hear muchabout this game in the media, which I guess is good otherwise I wouldhave been more disappointed. "Immersive Storyline"? I think not.

The game opens with a nice almost movie like feel to it. Both wordsand images faded in and out, almost like you're ready to play or watchthe next blockbuster. After that sequence things start to go up anddown like a teeter totter. The cinematic sequce following the openinglooked very unfinished. In fact, almost all of the cinematic sequencesdid for some reason. That wasn't the biggest issue for me, as if itwere up to me, I'd have the better graphics during game play not whenwatching a movie.

So let's break things down shall we?:

Game Play/Controls:
As with most FPS's, Pariah uses the W,A,S,D keys to move yourcharacter around. The number keys act to change your weapons along withthe wheel of your mouse if you have one on yours. Left click to fireyour weapon, along with right click to zoom in. The mouse also helpscontrol some of your viewing and believe it or not controls invehicles.

When playing from first person, I had no problems at all with thecontrols. Mouse speed was perfect. I never found myself taking too longto turn around or too fast for that matter. Climbing up ladders was aseasy as running to them and looking up while pressing your forward(default W) key.

Somethings like your sprint (default F) they honestly could haveleft out of the game or improved it and THEN kept it in. While you'rewalking around you can hit 'F' and give yourself a little speed boostfor about 3 seconds. It'll wear off and you'll hear a little pant fromJack as he catches his breath. I think I used this feature maybe oncein the game. It was pretty pointless in my opinion.

I'mnot sure what they thought when they designed the controls for thevehilces. Most of us would think that since we're already using W,A,S,Dthat any vehicles would be controlled with the same keys. Not true! Youmove any vehicles forward with 'W' and then backward with 'S'. Youactually turn your vehicles with the mouse. Since there are weaponsmounted on every vehicle, you might be wondering to yourself how yousteer and shoot at the same time. Well...you just do I suppose. So inorder to steer, you can't remain locked on a target or you'll justdrive right into the target. Not sure what they were trying toaccomplish here, but it's not user friendly at all. Should have stuckto the tried and true for this one.

Another brief quote from the website:
"Emergent Tatical AI- The enemies in Pariah are more aware of one another and unite to make them fierce foes."

Riiiiiiggght. The AI in Pariah is so wishy washy you could get thatstain out of your jeans with it. The AI makes absolutely no sense onhow it operates or thinks.

Good stuff first. The enemies will use cover when firing on you and they will work together to come after you....briefly.

Now bad stuff, and there's plenty of it. As I said, the enemies dohide. Then they come out from hiding and run directly at you. That'snot very smart AI at all. What happened to me on more than one occasionis one of these enemies ran straight towards me and when it was closeenough blew us both up with a grenade launcher. Another really dumb AIcharacteristic.

Theyalso did this strafing maneuver. Yes, strafing is good but not whenit's not at a relevant speed to the rest of the game. These guys couldmove from side to side faster than they could move from back to front.Very unrealistic and made me feel like I was shooting at something inone of those carnival shooting galleries.

Here's the kicker and you're going to love this. Just remember thatquote from the official website OK? Towards the end of this game thereare a couple of levels where the enemies are shooting one another.Alright!!!....I thought. I stood by for awhile waiting for them to killeach other off. It never happened. They just kept shooting one anotherand no one would die. Then to top it off, I thought I might be able tocoax one of the fighting groups to my side by wiping out who they wereoriginally fighting against. Nope. As soon as I did that, they allturned on me. Which leads me to this question that I have unanswered,why on earth are they fighting each other on the first place, if theyall turn on me and don't die?!!?

Oh and as far as them being "aware" of one another? I enjoyedpicking them off with a sniper rifle right next to each other with noreaction from the one left standing. Yep, they're really "aware" ofeach other alright.

By the way you get your standard armament of a knife, machine gun,shotgun, grenade launcher, rocket launcher, plasma rifle and of coursea really big thing called "Titan's Fist". Not sure what that last onewas, but it made a really big bang. What I didn't like is I could lob agrenade or shoot a rocket and unless I was super closed to the enemy Iwas firing at, they wouldn't die from the explosions either.

Sound:
The sound is as wishy washy as the AI. The ambient sound as well asthe sound from any weapons being fired was fine. No complaints at all.The complaint I had with the in game sound was when you were runningalong something metal. Sounded just like my N64 did when I was runningacross something metal in Goldeneye. I'm sure it's easier to copylittle sound like that and use them, but the game would be much betterif they would have created their own unique sound or at least modifiedit some.

The cut scene sound was awful. I had to turn up my speaker volumeeach time in order to hear what they were saying and then quickly turnin back down when the game started, otherwise everyone in my housewould know I was playing something where things explode.

Whatwas REALLY annoying was the stupid lines the enemies would say. I musthave heard "It's not you, we want the girl!" or something like that atleast 200 times during one level. Or when I was playing againstStockton "I can feel the virus flowing within me". Ok, you already saidthat about 6 times already. I guess they were trying to give each enemysomething to say. Big mistake, considering they only gave them one lineeach to say.

Graphics:
Here's where Pariah did good in my book. Taking away the cut scenesthat had these really jagged edges, the actual in game graphics werepretty damn nice. Explosions looked good and weren't blocky. There werea lot of inanimate objects that could be broken or destroyed for thatmatter. That's always a nice touch when you shoot something and itbreaks. I liked when I had Titan's Fist and I was charging the weaponand the screen rippled from the energy being sucked it. I did have allthe graphic settings turned up to Very High.

Too bad the enemies looked like photocopies of one another and just changed from level to level.

I didn't notice any clipping or glitches. I didn’t find any areaswhere I got hung up or stuck. Overall, the graphics are what gives thisgame what it does have.

Overall:
There's really no point in going out and buying this game toentertain yourself as a FPS. The storyline is weak, the weaponrystandard and the AI should be AUnI. For those of you looking foranother Far Cry or Halo 2, you're looking in the wrong place my friend.

What this game might be actually good for is an online multiplayergame. There are some really good maps with some really good hidingspots. But that's all this really is.

Definitely a play before you buy.