Escape from Paradise City and Gangland are essentially on opposite sides of the law of Paradise City. Gangland had players competing with rival gangs to take over Paradise City for their own evil purposes, while Escape has players working as one of three criminals working under the guidance of an NSA agent called Kovacs, their aim being to clean up the city and make it safe for the everyman. Nick Porter is a professional thief who was found by Kovacs shortly after he had retired to a remote island, Angel Vargas is an underground fighter with a family to protect, and Boris Chekov is a corrupt undercover cop – Kovacs has promised all three a pardon for their previous criminal activities should they complete their goal.
Someone is going to need that cure for fourteen stab wounds to the back
As previously mentioned, Escape from Paradise City retains the RTS/RPG hybrid gameplay of Gangland, a unique premise in itself, but something that unfortunately comes across as less than ideal in the final product. Basic control over the player’s character and his goons is handled much like a typical RTS, while beating up hoodlums, taking over neighbourhoods and accomplishing minor tasks will earn experience points points and facilitate the purchase of new skills and increased attributes. The first mission of the game is meant to serve as a tutorial, but only really ends up confusing players more as it spends too much time on minor points and glides over the more important tasks. The problem with combining the RTS and RPG experiences within Escape from Paradise City is that neither aspect really ever feels like it has the necessary polish - it just never does either the RTS part or RPG part very well.
The single player side of Escape from Paradise City is made up of 16 missions across various neighbourhoods of the city. There is not a whole lot of variety in main mission goals – players will be overtaking territories, killing a specific person or retrieving an object that the NSA needs. A rather annoying thing about the mission structure is that the character controlled by the player in each mission is predetermined – one cannot simply decide to play as Boris through the whole game. This becomes really annoying as each character is distinctly different (Nick is a gun man, Angel a melee girl, and Boris prefers the company of hired goons), and some situations would be much easier diffused by a character that is not available in that mission. The game also imposes a cap on how quickly the player’s character can be levelled up – no early mission grinding here.
That's a knife sticking out of his pants, guys
There are two things that really hurt Escape from Paradise City; the interface and the gameplay balance. With the lousy tutorial, players will spend the first ten minutes or so of the game fumbling through the interface to find basic things such as the inventory or skill tree. The camera can be positioned either overhead or behind the character, but must constantly be babysat. There are a number of other little minor issues such as pathfinding and following; if the player is trying to chase a fleeing gang member, one must continuously click on said person, rather than just clicking once and letting the game handle the rest of the work. Gameplay balance is harmed by severely disadvantaged AI – no gang members pose any real threat to the players for most of the game, and thus playing Escape from Paradise City requires little strategy, and a whole lot of brute force.
Multiplayer proves to be something of a saving grace for Escape from Paradise City – if one can find the necessary opponents. Many of the issues concerning AI in the single player game are eliminated when playing with friends – the gang members on the streets are noticeably tougher, and human controlled opponents obviously present a very real threat. There are 13 maps and three different game modes, all of which do not really venture far out of familiar territory. The only problem is finding someone to play with – the game forced us onto the European servers, and there were only three people playing.
I'm sure someone is being shot in the face in that hotel, and not with bullets
Escape from Paradise City’s biggest strength is found in its visual presentation. Sirius Games has gone to a bit of effort in making Paradise City feel like a living, breathing metropolis – it may not be as well crafted as your typical Grand Theft Auto city, but it’s a darn sight better than many other games that try to do the same thing. The art style is better than one would have expected, but the game also succeeds on a technical level, with quality player models and animation. Escape from Paradise City was even running well on our modest hardware set up - with anisotropic filtering and anti-aliasing turned up. Voice work in the game is solid – we had expected a bunch of dodgy accents and silly one liners, but were surprised with the performances on offer. The same cannot be really said of the music and sound effects, which were merely passable.
We appreciate that Sirius Games is trying to do something different with the humble strategy game in Escape from Paradise City, even if it is not that much of a departure from 2004’s Gangland. However, there are a number of serious design issues that make enjoying the game something of a challenge – one feels like they have to constantly wrestle with the interface and camera in order to get the game to do what they want. We’d also have liked to be able to opt to play through the game as one character, rather than having to switch at the game’s discretion. With a tighter interface, better AI and more compelling gameplay, Escape from Paradise City could have been a surprise hit. As it stands, the game is more likely to be a niche favourite like its predecessor.
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