Paradise Lost

One of the things gamers often take for granted these days is world building. We spend so much time talking about the mind-blowing graphics and cool characters that the world they exist in can often be little more than an afterthought. But that's not the case when it comes to the new game Paradise Lost from first-time developer PolyAmorous. This is an alternate reality first-person narrative game that wants you to admire every bedroom, balcony and beautiful underground vista found in this grungy yet intriguing post-apocalyptic setting. Can paradise be found beneath the Earth's surface? Or has it been lost for good? Let's open up the hatch and find out.

This is the story of Szymon, a twelve-year-old boy who uses a tragic event to motivate himself to go on an epic journey of discovery. He lives in a hostile, snow-covered world where the remaining inhabitants have largely moved underground as a last-ditch effort for survival. He's on a mission to find the man in the photograph, who he suspects will be able to fill in a lot of the gaps in his memory and bring closure to the mysteries of his upbringing.

I'm not sure what Szymon was hoping to find when he opened up the hatch, but what he uncovers is a long-abandoned Nazi bunker in the middle of Poland. In the first of many nods to BioShock's Rapture, it's clear that something truly terrible happened just under the surface. The lavishly constructed underground world is now in complete disrepair and quickly starting to crumble. Apartments have been flooded, stores have been destroyed and the science-fiction technology that controls this subterranean city is unreliable, to say the least.

But wait, did I say that the bunker was abandoned? As it turns out, that's not entirely true. Much to Szymon's surprise, there's a girl stuck in the control room who desperately needs his help. What may have started out as a journey for answers quickly turns into a rescue mission, setting up an adventure that sees our pre-teen hero exploring every part of the Nazi stronghold. This sends us through the residential quarters, the shopping district, the food processing plant, the military base and the incredibly creepy medical facilities. All along the way, our pint-sized survivor and his new best-friend uncover the secret history of the bunker and where everybody went.

A lot of people dismiss these types of games and despairingly call them "walking simulators," but I disagree. This isn't a walking simulator, but rather a note reading simulator. With no enemies or puzzles, a lot of this game involves Szymon slowly walking through the environment and reading the notes and letters left behind. These go a long way to flesh out the alternate history and explain what happened before we showed up. You'll also find a number of taped diary recordings and computer memory modules that will speak directly to our hero's story. This is the type of adventure game that hopes you'll be invested enough in the setup to read and listen to every bit of the fiction, even if that means stopping every couple of minutes in order to pick up a discarded newspaper clipping.

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If any of this sounds familiar, then it's probably because you played the original BioShock. Between the abandoned underground world, the chatty voice in your ear and, yes, even the diary pages, Paradise Lost plays out like a non-violent take on Rapture. It even has the religious imagery and themes, which will likely come as no surprised to anybody who is familiar with the 17th century poem by John Milton that shares the same name.

The big difference between this and BioShock is that Paradise Lost's unique setting is linear to a fault. There's exploration in the sense of looking around, but the path you're on is so narrow that you might as well be stuck in a corridor or hallway. There's no backtracking or discovery, just you walking from A to B to C using a very obvious path. I would liken it to a roller coaster ride, but that's unfair. Roller coasters have steep slopes, tight turns and even loop-de-loops. Paradise Lost is like being on a roller coaster where the track is completely flat. It's like being in a traffic jam. There's only one way to go and you're inching along at the slowest speed possible.

Thankfully, the story is compelling enough to keep you invested for the four hours it takes to beat the game. What's more, the fully-realized environments are constantly changing and fun to investigate. There's a solid mystery at the center of Paradise Lost, and while you'll probably figure out the big twist early on, the conclusion still manages to feel satisfying by the end. The developers have created a subterranean world that I loved being in, and you can tell that a lot of time and effort went into making every detail perfect.

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That said, exploring the fascinating stage design is marred by a lot of small but frustrating technical problems. The most obvious one is the frame-rate, which was never very stable. I also ran into a lot of problems with the textures popping in. There are also a number of comical glitches, such as when our 12-year-old hero will interact with objects that aren't really there. There's an extended scene where Szymon is flipping through the pages of a book that didn't load, making what should have been a heartbreaking scene come across as surprisingly humorous. Oh, and before I forget, the game crashed on me a number of times. I'm hoping that the inconsistent frame-rate, disappearing items and rampant crashes are all things that can be resolved with a patch.

On a final note, it's worth mentioning that the chapters are split up using the five stages of grief as a jumping off point. I like this in theory, but I found that the writing undermines this approach. The problem is that the stages of grief don't really apply to Szymon or his friend. For example, he's not really all that angry during the "Anger" chapter, and you really have to stretch the definition of "Bargaining" to make it work in the context of the game. This isn't a big deal on its own, but does speak to the bigger problem with the writing. There's a lot about the story and the characters that would be a lot more memorable and impactful if somebody went through and tightened up the script. I love the idea of tying this boy's journey into the five stages of grief, but Paradise Lost doesn't do enough to pay off that unique idea. That's a shame.

If you love the mystery and world-building of BioShock but don't want any of the action or violence, then there's this bunker in Poland that you should probably visit. This is a compelling adventure where a young boy goes on a journey of discovery, all while exploring a fascinating underground setting full of surprises. This is a perfect example of how important a fully-realized world can be to a game, and it's likely thing you'll remember most about this four-hour game. Sure, it has some technical problems and it could use a rewrite, but Paradise Lost is a game worth finding.