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Paraworld

Score: 7.0 / 10

It may be naive of me, but I get excited every time I get a game that I haven't heard anything about. To me, there is the promise and hope that the game will be a gem. When the game turns out to be a dud, it's always that bit of extra disappointment of having the promise of discovering something fun that leaves a bitter taste in my mouth about the game. Paraworld is wholly within that category of gaming experience for me. It's completely serviceable as a real-time strategy game, however it does nothing to push the boundaries of the genre. What it does offer feels plain and indicative of what the genre had to offer a few years ago. For those who play PC games on a regular basis, Paraworld is something that you will be able to skip without missing anything.

For those of you that don't play PC games very often, there are few compelling reasons as to why it would be recommended for you to play this game. The gameplay is wholly predictable in that if you've played an RTS game within the past 3 years, you will be able to identify all of the gameplay elements. You have builder units, battle units, and hero units. The builder units gather resources that are used to create the other units, to build and upgrade buildings and to research new technologies. Battle units are broken down into class 1 through 5 in terms of effectiveness and are comprised of vehicle units, melee units and ranged units. Hero units are more powerful battle units with special bonuses and abilities that can help your other battle units, or deal extra damage to enemy units. If all of this sounds familiar, it should, because you've probably played a game just like Paraworld.

 

- PC Game Reviews - Strategy Game Reviews

The game is set on a parallel world where dinosaurs still roam the earth and different tribes of human civilizations that have ceased to exist in our dimension still flourish. The actual gameplay is standard RTS fare but what separates this game from something like Age of Empires 3 which is also standard RTS fare is that the pacing of the game feels somehow 

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off. Using an attack strategy, where you would focus on battle unit production, imperialism and the attack of your enemies, you are kept at bay because your units are too weak to win any battles. If you hang back and try to upgrade your units, defenses and technology, you are forced to rely on the sometimes very scarce resources. This slows down the game significantly as you set up a base camp that you can defend and work to upgrade your units and heroes. I'm not sure if the unit balance isn't quite right, or I'm a crappier RTS gamer than I thought I was, or the developer's intended the game to be a crawling slow affair.

It seems as though Paraworld has attempted to distinguish itself from the pack by including a variety of units that you would not normally associate with a single RTS game. The inclusion of Vikings, dinosaurs and Amazons is strange, however the standard gameplay of Paraworld makes them seem normal and as if they should be in the same game. Normally, this would be a good thing as it would show that the implementation of such a varied cast of units was well thought out and well executed. However in this case, unfortunately they seem to fit together because the actual variation of the units isn't very convincing. When you have a cast of characters that include dinosaurs, Vikings and Amazons, you would expect that each unit animation would be exciting and that progressing through the technology tree of each would be rewarding. Unfortunately, playing each race in their slight differences isn't enough to push the game from ordinary to good.

The apparent decision to include a varied cast of units in an otherwise solid but ordinary RTS game in order to help the game differentiate itself from the pack isn't actually enough in this case. Progressing through the technology tree isn't rewarding because the technology upgrades that you create aren't visually exciting with your units and doesn't increase the effectiveness of your units enough at each level. Only once you get to the highest upgrades do your units start becoming noticeably more powerful. The same holds true for the dinosaur units. You would think that the dinosaurs units would be noticeably larger, both visually and in relation to their effectiveness in the game. Unfortunately this isn't the case as dinosaur units are easily created and destroyed at the lower levels. Visually, the dinosaur units are for the most part equally unimpressive. This is disappointing as the potential was there to have visually exciting units that played more of a focal role in the game. Likewise the hero units, which do have special abilities and bonuses, don't seem to have enough of an impact on the game. As resource expensive as they are to create, they seemed to be too easily destroyed and didn't have enough of an impact on their surrounding units with their bonuses.

The visuals in the game are quite good as the terrain is rich and colorful, and has a truly lush appearance. My only gripe is with the units and buildings themselves, as there is almost too much color with each unit. The individual unit detail is also lacking in that the units are somewhat difficult to tell apart from one another. Add these two points together and you often have a mish mash of color that is difficult on the eyes and that is difficult in large battles to point out specific units. I also had a hard time telling apart buildings from one another, not because they necessarily looked the same, but because it was difficult to tell which each building was for just from looking at it. I'm sure that there are some people that will love the visual style of Paraworld, but I will not be one of them.

With all of that said, Paraworld isn't a bad game. I found issues with the unit balance and the visual style of the units and buildings wasn't for me. The story line is campy and doesn't succeed at being engaging or funny in this style. For someone else that enjoys a slightly slower paced RTS game that is wholly familiar, Paraworld might be the bee’s knees. However, I like to be provided with a fresh gaming experience when I play an RTS and Paraworld didn't deliver in that regard for me.

- Mark Leung

(November 29, 2006)

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