If you love First-Person Shooter games, and you have an Xbox, then right now you must be in hog heaven. In the past few months there has been a landslide of first-person shooter games. Wait, let me retract that statement and say this: there has been a landslide of good first-person shooter games. This makes it harder for people who are on a gaming budget to figure out which ones are worth their time. Well Digital Extreme’s wants a piece of that pie with their release of Pariah. Read on to find out more about this first person shooter game, and if it is worth your time to pick it up.

The story for Pariah starts off differently than more first-person shooters. Players take on the role of Dr. Mason, who is scheduled to transport a patient. During the flight over to their destination, their escort disappears, and then you have a crash landing into hostile territory. During the crash, some of the patient’s blood gets into the Doctor and infects him with the same deadly virus that she is suffering from. During this time the patient disappears, so it is your job to find her and find a cure for this virus, or else you won’t survive for long. Are you up to the challenge?

There are no “wimpy” weapons in this game, all weapons are huge, eat up tons of ammo, and are super powerful. To put it as bluntly as I can, this game is about one-hit kills. Most of the time it doesn’t matter if you are at full health or not you will die if you get hit, which makes it frustrating because in some missions you will keep getting killed over and over again, because some moron is using a sniper rifle. This make the game stray away from close-quarter combat, and is all about the long range.

If you get bored of cutting down people with guns, you will be able to hop into a vehicle and just run them over. The vehicle control for this game is Ok, but it is not really as “tight” as other games that have this feature. This is sad, because having this form of combat really helps flesh out a game of this nature.

The graphics for Pariah are pretty solid. The character models are nicely done and have good attention to detail. This will become really apparent during the cutscenes when they see the different character's faces up close. The environments that you will traverse though during the game are really nice looking and full of life. Explosions that you will see in the game are nice looking and helps complete the game’s package.

One thing that kills the game is that at certain times the framerate drops and the game gets “jerky.” This is the most annoying thing that can happen in any game, especially in first-person shooters, because a drop in the framerate can literally kill you. On the plus side, the framerate seems to drop only when there is heavy action in one portion of a level, but I have had it happen to me on certain non-populated areas as well. Also beware of split-screen games because the framerate drop will be pretty noticeable there as well.

Sound effects for this game are very run of the mill. Everything from the gunfire and the explosions are very generic and really lack the punch that is found in other games in the same genre. The voice acting is not good and yet it is not bad either, it is just there. The soundtrack to this game is also easily forgettable, which is sad because this is what really draws many people into a game by how the music effects the gamers emotions while playing through certain levels. While the soundtrack is not bad per se, it just doesn’t grab your attention like other soundtracks do.

For all of you that enjoy taking on humans rather then computer-controlled characters, you will be glad to know that this game supports Xbox Live and System Link. The system link allows up to eight different people jump into a game and get their “fraggin” action on. The Xbox live portion contains the normal multiplayer modes that will keep you busy for some time. If you want to play a multiplayer game, either on Live or System Link, and can’t find enough people, you have the ability to add bots with adjustable AI.

One of the strongest assets that Pariah has is its map editor. You will be able to set up everything in this game with this editor including spawn points and vehicle placements. You will be able to make you own maps and share them with other people on Xbox Live, then play on them. This really adds some extra depth and replayability to the multiplayer aspect of this game.

Pariah is rated M for Mature for blood, violence, and language. It supports HDTV 480p, in game Dolby Digital, and Xbox Live.

Gameplay: 7.8
Pariah plays like any other FPS currently out on the market, which means that it is really easy to pick up and play. The only thing that really kills the gameplay is the drop in framerate, which can kill the action onscreen at times.

Graphics: 8.2
Pariah isn’t the best looking game in town, but it is far from the worst. The character models and environments are really nicely done and detailed.

Sound: 7.8
The sound in this game is decent, but totally forgettable.

Difficulty: Medium
Pariah includes an adjustable difficulty so you will be able to set it to your individual skill set. There are a few missions that you might find will be particularly challenging, but it is nothing that you will not be able to get through with some time and patience.

Concept: 7.4
The premise of the story is nice, but the entire game has a “been there, done that” feeling to it.

Multiplayer: 8.0
The multiplayer for this game includes all of the standard things. The best part is creating your own maps, then sharing and playing through them online with other people.

Overall: 7.9
Pariah is a decent game that I believe would have been better if it was released before Halo 2 hit the world. Another thing that would have made this game better is if the developers took another month to thoroughly polish the game or at least make sure there was no framerate drop. All in all if you are in the need for a FPS then check this game out at your local videogame rental store.