Escape from Paradise City

By Jess Nickelsen

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Welcome to Paradise City!

…Of course, it’s not actually anything like paradise, being so overrun with gangs and criminals that all sane and good people have taken to the hills. Luckily for the National Security Agency (NSA), they’ve got a handful of good bad guys available to blackmail into trying to take back the city – gangster style!

If you don’t like mindless violence, you might be inclined to give this game a miss. Before you leave, however, let me point out that Escape from Paradise City employs redemptive violence, i.e. violence for the good of the city! Every time you take a bat to a drug dealer’s face, you’re one step closer to peace, harmony, and general goodwill, as well as your own personal neighbourhood cartel.

You can play one of three different characters: Nicholas Porter, Boris Chekov and Angel Vargas, each of whom have a different fighting style, as well as a different approach to conquering territory. Nick’s into keeping his hands clean with long range rifle and grenade tactics, while Angel prefers the hands-on approach. Chekov’s a dirty cop with finesse in the bribery and henchmen arenas. As you make your way through the sixteen different chapters of the game, you’ll alternate between each of these characters (you do get a choice, however, of who you want to play as for the final chapter).

Your mission (no choice as to whether you accept or not, sorry) is to reclaim the city, which you do, neighbourhood by neighbourhood. This is achieved by taking on each of the different bosses who have staked out their territory. Once you gain control of different areas you gain access to the resources there – anything from hotels to weapons trainers, or just to territory that’s going to be useful strategically. As you gain experience your characters level up, and gain access to over fifty different skills and traits.

Combat has been described as World of Warcraft-like, where you can make use of a lot of different skills, as well as general shooting, punching, kicking and the like.

The only truly disappointing aspect to the game is its short single player game, which clocks in at a pretty measly ten to twelve hours. There is however considerable multiplayer support, with up to eight able to play the team-based mode. There’s also assassination mode, where you race to kill your opponents more than they kill you, and a RISK-like domination mode, where you fight for control of an entire map.

While the game’s not as open-ended as GTA, I suspect that’s not the true aim here. What Sirius Games has produced here is an interesting mix between a RTS and an RPG, with some real time strategy thrown in as well. While an extended, random single player mode would have enhanced replayability, if you can find some friends to beat up you should be OK for the extended multiplayer gaming once you’ve completed the single player scenario.

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