ParaWorld (PC)

GUI

The GUI is a primary concern for RTS games. If you have a cruddy GUI then control suffers and you need as much as you can get. Paraworld features the typical GUI features and has a great deal of finite control over your units thanks to a nifty little device known as:

The Army Controller:

A panel slides out from the left hand side of the screen and gives you an overlay with all your units. This feature allows you to quickly see who is in battle, what they are doing and so on. Tiny icons such as a builder’s saw or a lump of stone give a visual indication as to the job being performed by a worker, any worker with a Zzz by their name is obviously idle and needs to be given a job.

You can directly select units from the AC and make control groups by band selecting the icons, or clicking them with CTRL held down. There are a number of key modifiers to the AC that perform different interactions. A simple right click with ALT held down whilst a unit or group is selected will send that unit to the location of the others.

This is a great way to give orders to a support group to find a beleaguered unit or send a group to a transporter vehicle.

Paraworld has a professional and slick GUI that makes the game a joy to play.

Units

In a game as ambitious as Paraworld there needs to be a good variety of units, but there also need to be unique units. Now the game actually provides this by giving you the chance to build and armour up dinosaurs, these prehistoric nightmares come in several shapes and sizes all the way up to the fully armoured and battle ready T-rex. There’s a good mix of unit types with a dinos.

Human units also play a part and they provide an effective scout force as well as a first strike capability – each type of unit definitely needs a certain tactic to get the best out of.

There are also neutral animal units on the maps, which come from nests, as well as aggressive animals and dinosaurs. These can be left alone or wiped out if you can take down the nest, sometimes it is however best to leave the nest and use it to gain skulls for promotions and new Epochs (in the case of the Dust Riders).

Graphics

Paraworld has a nice solid graphics engine with colourful environments that live and breathe, the textures are gorgeous and there’s a soft bloom over everything that doesn’t wash out the palette or blur any of the detail. Each of the game’s maps has been lovingly crafted to take advantage of this style.

It has some nice water effects and the eyecandy from explosions and damaged buildings is pretty breathtaking when you make an effective assault. There are the usual shaders and dynamic light effects, especially through the day/night cycle where the various buildings are lit and the land is awash with dark shadows and shapes.

Without going into a lot of technical details, Paraworld is a gorgeous looking game.

Models and Animations

The models for Paraworld are great, the dinos have been realised and well made. The human units are also of an excellent design with a lot of feature detail in terms of different styles and so on for the differing factions. The same can be said for the 3 faction’s buildings, they all have a definite feel to them and my favourite design so far has to be the nomadic Dust Rider tribe, with their tents and wagons.

As for the animations, it’s here that there could have been some more unit interactions, especially with dino V. dino battles. Sadly though the animation in the battles is a little bit lacking, not to say it isn’t fun or engaging, but when you look at Relic’s: Dawn of War and their big unit animations, you realise what you’re missing.

It doesn’t spoil the game however but it is something that would have given it a more visceral feel. There are a few dino V. human interaction and finishing moves, but these are few and far between and are often lost in the chaos of battle.

The animations in the game however, on the whole, are all of good quality and especially fluid in the cinematic cut-scenes that drive the story.

AI

The game can be played against easy, medium or hard settings and the AI varies its tactics on all 3. But even on easy it can be a punishing opponent if you don’t get a good base defence set up early, it will constantly rush you looking for weaknesses in your defences until you or it are wiped out. It uses flanking moves and will take advantage of transporters across the water to surprise you. I was able to build several defensive walls around many of the beaches on a predominantly island based map, the AI kept on probing the walls unit it found places to slip in.

Overall I have no real complaints since it provides a good challenge and forces you to think tactically.

Physics

Bodies fly, walls crumble and buildings explode in a most satisfying way. The physics of Paraworld definitely play second fiddle to the game-world itself but they could have gone a little further with the large unit interactions. A good example of this would be the way such things are done in Rise of Nations: Rise of Legends which really does push the boundaries of large unit physics in RTS games.

Sound

The prehistoric world and creatures are brought to life along with the chaotic battles, by an excellent mix of sound effects. As one might expect there is a great variety of battle sounds as well as ambient spot effects and sounds that make up the superb audio package for the game.

Music

With an excellent orchestral score, Paraworld brings to mind the lost world in a perfect audio marriage of beautifully sweeping tunes and dynamic battle music. There are no complaints in this department, apart from the fact I would have loved to have an Mp3 folder on the disc with the music in.

Jurrasic Park eat your heart out.

Voice

I like the voice work in this game. It’s not going to win any Oscars but it’s fun and its engaging, the voice actors are not flat compared to some other games I could mention and I will be reviewing soon. They are having fun with their performances and the script isn’t as restrictive either, so they’re given a good deal of freedom in their dialogue.

Talking of the script, it’s not badly written and it certainly compliments the story.