Escape from Paradise City Demo

Whether the future is bound to be ruled by corruption and crime cannot be said for certain, yet, but the people from all over the world are making considerable efforts not to let that happen. There are, however, plenty of artistic renditions of how would such a future look like, mostly in the form of books and movies that tackle with the decline of humanity and its values.

Escape from Paradise City is a mix of RPG and RTS that enables you to be part of such a world, by trying to survive on the streets of a violent and extremely corrupt city. Ironically called Paradise City, this society is on the brink of destroying itself, due to the fact that the government is not actually doing anything to solve the issue and prefers to be part of the problem instead. There are some who take matters into their own hands, however, by slowly eliminating the gang members out on the street.

This happens to be your role as well throughout the game, since you actually play as three distinct characters over the course of the main campaign. Each one of them comes with different skills and abilities, as well as different stories that somehow connect toward the end to form a convoluted plot. A bit of mystery is also part of the mix, which aims to keep you interested until the final chapter of the game.

Although the perspective is a top-down one and the camera controls are a bit annoying in the beginning, you can rotate and zoom in whenever you want, in order to get a better look at what's happening on the screen. On the other hand, shooting is what goes on most of the time, which quickly gets repetitive, even if the gameplay mechanics work very much like in an MMO and you simply get to press the appropriate key in order to carry out an attack or use an ability.

Naturally, your character can gain experience and level up from time to time, which allows you to gain new skills and increase your attributes for extra hitpoints, focus points or various other bonuses. This might sound interesting and worthwhile, but the actual gameplay is very dull and repetitive, despite the loot you can pick up and the rather nicely designed landscapes throughout the city.

Escape from Paradise City started from a few very good ideas, but everything seems to have disintegrated along the way and barely anything worth playing made it into the final product. The story itself is full of cliches and lacking depth, not to mention the simplistic character development and the repetitive combat.