Paradise City First Impressions

Despite sharing its name with a popular Guns N' Roses song, Paradise City has nothing to do with a town where the grass is green and the girls are pretty. Instead, this blend of action, role-playing, and strategy from CDV and developer Sirius Games is about an American city gone terribly down the drain, with crime and corruption rampant. In fact, it's so bad that the National Security Agency has entered the fray.

In Paradise City, you'll play as one of three characters, each of whom has been coerced into working for the NSA to find out what's going on in the corrupt, eastern seaboard city. All attempts at restoring law and order have failed, so now the new plan is to try and infiltrate the gangs from the inside. You'll have to pass yourself off as a gang leader and earn street cred by doing criminal deeds and taking over neighborhoods, with the hopes that you'll uncover the crime bosses who run the city.

Each of the three characters has a different style of play. There's the corrupt FBI agent who can manipulate others into working for him. Then there's a female hand-to-hand expert. And there's an ex-military man who specializes in armed combat skills. You'll alternate between characters throughout the story, until the end, where you'll be able to select which one you wish to use to finish the game.

There are two styles of play in Paradise City. The action mode has you controlling your character from a third-person perspective as you run around the city, blasting enemies and pursuing missions. This is obviously inspired by such games as Grand Theft Auto. Then there's a light real-time strategy element, where you'll look down at the city from a bird's-eye view. You'll be able to hire henchmen and build rudimentary defenses to defend your territory. Or, you can send henchmen to take over a building or neighborhood. There isn't any traditional real-time strategy resource gathering or base building, though, so this mode is mainly for controlling your troops.

You won't be blasting everyone you see, because you'll need to interact with various characters for new quests. As your criminal empire gets larger and you gain more experience, you'll unlock new skills and weapons to improve your character. Some of these unlockables are only available if you take over certain districts of the city, as well.

The single-player story is estimated to last between 10 and 12 hours, though it will have a fair amount of replayability. In addition to the single-player mode, Paradise City will feature a multiplayer game with up to eight players divided into two teams. Paradise City is scheduled to ship sometime this summer.