Review for Paranoia: Happiness is Mandatory. Game for PC, PlayStation 4 and Xbox One, the video game was released on 31/12/2020
Imagine a future where human society is confined to a large city and everything is controlled by superior cyber intelligence. Every action, every movement and every thought is under the control of the Friend Computer, a virtual eye, which also controls your feelings including your happiness. This will be the game environment of Paranoia: Happiness is Mandatory, an RPG developed by Black Shamrock and Cyanide, which is inspired by the board game of the same name released in 1984 and created by Dan Gelber, Greg Costikyan and Eric Goldberg.
Paranoia: Happiness is Mandatory will put you in the shoes of a Troubleshooter - or Solver if you prefer - who lives in the so-called Alpha Complex managed solely by the Friend Computer, an artificial cybernetic organism, which will entrust you with various missions from time to time to fight the various factions intent on sabotaging this perfect mechanism and making human society free in all respects. After a short presentation that will show you the game environment you will be called to create your virtual character by distributing skill points based on your play style. Then you will be called by the Friend Computer who will assign you the first mission.
You can choose three other characters to take with you so as to compose a team of 4 Solvers each, possibly, with different characteristics in order to face the mission correctly. Each teammate will be your ally and your enemy at the same time. Do not trust your teammates too much as they will always be ready to report any illegal action against them to the Friend Computer. Yes, because Paranoia: Happiness is Mandatory is fundamentally based on the suspicion of everything and everyone. Taking actions such as hacking a soda machine will be deemed a form of betrayal that will raise the Friend Computer's level of suspicion of you.
The game is divided into several missions to complete, from defeating replicants intent on destroying your glorious community to discovering any subversive groups intent on liberating society from apparently fictitious and artificial happiness. After assembling your team you will have to go to a special section of the complex where you will be entrusted with the weapons useful to defeat any offensive enemies. You will also need to remember that the Alpha complex it will be divided, in turn, into sectors of various colors that will represent the various social classes. You will start from the lowest social class or the one marked by the color red.
Carrying out the various missions correctly will increase trust in you and consequently your social class. It won't be that simple because, as already mentioned, your every single action will be evaluated by artificial intelligence and, if deemed inadequate to the rules, could lead you to summary execution without any kind of process. For example, the crossing of areas of other colors than yours will also increase the level of suspicion so it will be necessary to carefully evaluate your movements within the Alpha complex.
The first missions that will be entrusted to you will be quite simple and will always be seasoned with a dark humor also typical of the board game. Investigating inside the Alpha complex will make you come across various types of enemies that you must, inevitably, eliminate using the armament you have available. From plasma rifles to pistols, from telekinesis to smoke bombs. The variety of weapons available, unfortunately, will not be so decisive in firefights. The fighting will take place in real time and when you enter a room with enemies you will be attacked. It will be possible, through the space bar, to pause the game so as to choose any cover for the members of your team or to obtain favorable positions to hit the opponents.
Unfortunately, and too often, the fights will not be based on tactics and will be reduced to simple shootings where even the use of one weapon rather than another will not make that much difference. Too bad because the introduction of a more demanding combat system, in addition to the tactical break, would certainly have increased the fun.
You will not always be called upon to solve missions through the use of weapons. In some missions you will have to use your detective instincts to perhaps find the culprit of a murder or an attempted sabotage. You will have to question the various characters present at the crime scene using various methods. You can use a subdued tone of voice or intimidate the interlocutors and, depending on your method, you will unlock various dialogue options.
This question and answer system is vaguely reminiscent of the one present in Disco Elysium even if we are absolutely not on the same levels of depth and development. However, even in this case, you will have to pay attention to the questions you ask the suspects who will always be ready to report to the Friend Computer any abuse of your authority and consequently to the increase in the level of suspicion towards you which, once the maximum , your mission will end prematurely.
In Paranoia: Happiness is Mandatory, gods will also be present from time to time mini games which in theory should increase the overall level of enjoyment but will soon reveal themselves too simple and repetitive. For example, the mini game that will allow you to find the codes to unlock an automatic door will be surprising from the point of view of uselessness and perhaps more suited to a mobile game rather than a PC. Even this aspect of Paranoia could have been - in our opinion - better developed and implemented but, evidently, the programmers' choice was to make the game quite simple and suitable for a not very demanding public. This aspect is unfortunately also reinforced by the fact that, despite being labeled as traitors by the Friend Computer and therefore killed practically instantly, you will have 5 clones of yourself with which to repeat the various missions, decreasing even more the palatability and longevity.
Even from a graphic point of view, Paranoia: Happiness is Mandatory, does not leave its mark. The isometric view cannot be rotated at will and the settings are often too similar to each other although full of colors and details. It should also be noted that the only possible resolution on PC is 1920 x 1080 therefore, in a certain sense, penalizing for those who have medium-high-end computers. Even the sound didn't seem up to par, limiting itself to effects and voices only on a few occasions.
Paranoia: Happiness is Mandatory makes loyalty to the board game of the same name its strong point, but the idea of the game, although innovative 35 years ago, does not bring anything new to the gaming scene today. The game style, intriguing and based on suspicion, could have been better exploited especially in terms of gameplay which is very often too repetitive. The combat system is immediately revealed too simple and repetitive as well as the management of the dialogues. Even the presence of mini games does not increase its appeal and consequently make it, on the whole, a mediocre RPG like many others. Even from a graphic point of view Paranoia: Happiness is Mandatory does not convince by proposing settings that are sometimes too similar to each other. Overall, we would like to recommend it to a very young and novice audience of the genre while veterans will certainly find other more noteworthy products on the market.
► Paranoia: Happiness is Mandatory is an RPG-Tactical game developed and published by Bigben Interactive for PC, PlayStation 4 and Xbox One, the video game was released on 31/12/2020
