Take me down to the Paradise City where the Gangsters roam and camera’s fiddly…
Naming a game after one of the most famous rock songs of the past twenty years was always going to attract attention and comparison in equal measure; but while Slash’s legendary shredding, Axl’s screeching voice and the sunny video paint a picture of an urban Eden, 93 Games’ new RPG/RTS crossover is vastly different: dystopian, bleak and angry in tone.
It’s well implemented and works intelligently, but isn’t exactly groundbreaking
Developer Siruis has crafted a game with three distinct characters and story arcs to follow, tied together with a common theme: they’ve all been spared jail if they go undercover to bring down the criminal kingpins of the eponymous town. Nick Porter ? a dead ringer for Gregory Peck with a beard ? is a retired criminal, street-fighter Angel Vargas killed a prison inmate and Boris Chekov, a stereotypical Russian, abused his position as a crooked cop until he was asked to go undercover.
You’re introduced to these characters through a variety of training missions that also familiarise you with the basic gameplay mechanics. The city itself is split up into various neighbourhoods that you or your enemies control, and it’s up to you to gain power and influence. You do this by beating the local mob boss into submission and taking over his businesses, using your new-found power and influence to grow your empire to a respectable size.
Character progression is an important element of the game and will be familiar to anyone who’s played RPG’s. There’s the traditional health bar, and earning new character levels is done by beating up things and completing quests. Taking over new areas of the city also earns you skill points that you can use to unlock new abilities in your ‘trait tree’ and create a more potent gangster. There’s eight different paths to take on the trait tree, so you can pick and choose which skills ? they range from weapon handling to thug manipulation ? you want to concentrate on.
It’s well implemented and works intelligently, but isn’t exactly groundbreaking ? and this could also be said for the RTS-based combat and exploration. Typically, you control the main character and any goons you’ve hired to protect you and, by right clicking on NPC’s, attack or converse with them. It’s a simplistic system, but the binding of almost all the controls to the mouse buttons means it doesn’t take long to learn how to play. Other main controls are the binding of your various attacking skills and moves to the number keys ? and the camera.
Your viewpoint is the main problem with Escape from Paradise City. In theory, it should work: two camera positions are available, one hanging just over your shoulder ? like an action game ? and the other, suspended in the sky. The latter is free, allowing you to zoom in closely or get a decent view of your whole neighbour, whilst the former is more restricted.
It makes a game that begins with it’s tongue firmly slotted into cheek ? as your characters run around the city, they react to events with comedy catch-phrases and unsubtle mirth ? into a bit of a slog as you fight with the camera and try to wrestle it into behaving. The missions themselves, though, aren’t bad, consisting of the ‘whack the gangster’, ‘take over the neighbourhood’, ‘bribe the cop’ variety that have been seen before in games like Syndicate and, unsurprisingly, Gangsters. The further you go into the game, too, the more complex it gets, which does wonders for Escape from Paradise City’s longevity when it’s otherwise quite a repetitive experience.
Bribing the mayor, for instance, will make him turn a blind eye to your antics and grant you complete control over your neighbourhood ? so you can use hotels to generate revenue, visit local bars to hire your own personal army of thugs, or mobilise your troops to launch attacks on other gang leaders and bring them down. You can hire four types of ‘ganger’, as they’re called in-game: Gunmen protect you, Bouncers protect your neighbourhood, Healers protect everyone else and Scouts, well, scout. Each level you descend on the Trait Tree, too, unlocks various other skills that you have to buy from a local man who can teach you. Liberally scattered throughout the city are also various items that you can use to bolster your attacking prowess and heighten your various abilities.
Graphically, it’s an atmospheric world: the city is as dark, dank and imposing as you’d expect, with alleyways filled with urban detritus, walls covered with graffiti and streets that rumble with traffic. Citizens randomly walk around although they’re not always convincing when it comes to filling the city with life ? they don’t seem to do much unless it’s running away from one of your gunshots. Steam erupts from vents in the pavement and the dystopian paradise exudes the menace and intimidation that such a place should exude. The only complaint about the looks, potentially, is the slight blur when you zoom in. Sound, too, is decent: incidental music is suitably gangster-ish ? but not gangsta rap, thank god ? and the voices are all typically Mafia.
There’s no question about it: Escape from Paradise City is tremendously average. A decent ? if samey ? character progression system is backed up with solid ? if repetitive ? gameplay that wraps the typically gangster missions up in a functional but rudimentary RTS-lite engine. The graphics are atmospheric and attractive, but the camera really lets the game down. It’s fidgety and doesn’t lend itself to the game in any way at all ? as you’re always stopping to adjust it and get your bearing, rather than letting it manage itself. If you persevere, though, you’ll find an entertaining enough title behind the dodgy camera and the chance to land all the green grass, pretty girls, money and power you’ll ever need.
The Bad: A lack of innovation and cripplingly bad camera make it quite difficult to play and, eventually, tedious and repetitive.
