Gameplay
So now we’ve done all the details, the big question is “How does it play?” The short answer is, “It plays just fine”, but seeing as I’m paid to write a bit more than that, I guess I’ll have to be more specific.
Movement is achieved by using the two sticks, one to control your view and the other to control where you actually move… The left stick moves the target reticule around and is mercifully customisable to be able to invert it, something I just HAVE to be able to do. All the other controls such as jumping, weapon selection et al are all sensibly placed, avoiding some of the weirder configs I’m come across in the past, and even if you can’t get along with what’s on offer, you can customise them all yourself anyway.
Being a console game, aiming with a joypad is always tricky, especially if you’re used to a mouse and keyboard for your FPSs. Pariah hasn’t fallen into the Halo trap of having a massive hit area on the screen meaning you only have to be vaguely facing in the direction of your enemy. To get around the aiming issue, DE have made the AI fairly inaccurate too, which gives you a fair chance of lining up on your target, even if they’re moving.
There’s also the zoom view, which is essentially a gunsight view and therefore far more accurate. You do move a lot slower and your field of view is less, but it’s dead handy for picking off bad guys quickly. The zoom view also comes in very handy for taking down baddies quickly as we’ve got a damage model in effect here. You can rattle away at an enemy’s torso before he drops or switch to the zoom mode and headshot him down with a couple of hits, very handy.
The HAVOK engine comes into effect nicely during in combat too, with bad guys falling down stairs, tumbling over balconies or cart-wheeling through the air as you wreak havoc among them with some of the deadlier weapons. A nice touch is to launch a grenade into a bunch of baddies and then watch as barrels blown around the room knock more bad guys over… class stuff.
Sadly, the vehicles are a little trickier to master and could have been handled better. Instead of keeping the same look and move config for when you’re on your feet, the vehicles steer in the direction you’re looking, which is a real pain to get to grips with. The auto-rear look function is a hindrance more than a help too as heading backwards rapidly and then slowing means your view swings about and as it switched back the damn car or bike tries to turn with the view… I had the wife in stitches with my poor attempts at reversing out of trouble… I looked like a learner trying to parallel park for the first time. That said, the vehicles are a fun addition and pretty much compulsory for any FPS worth a look nowadays, the ones in Pariah just take a fair bit of practise to master.
