Paranoia: Happiness is Mandatory

They massacred my boy. You'd think three years of litigation would have been ample opportunity to fix things. The project feels barebones. My character did not seem to have a sitting animation for the insertion of the cerebral coretech so he stood there while the robot and furniture clipped through him. This is within 5 minutes of starting the game. Let's back up. Paranoia: Happiness is Mandatory appeared for a glorious month as an epic game store exclusive before promptly vanishing in a storm of legal filings. The developers were unhappy because the distributor published a blatantly unfinished product, the rights holders were unhappy because it was a blatantly unfinished product. Suddenly, without warning, it appears on Steam. I bought it not wanting it to vanish just as quickly and with the vain hope that maybe they'd fixed it. It does not appear that they have. The Alpha Complex of the game is bright and colorful. The aesthetic is right. But it feels empty. The partial voice acting really drives home how incomplete the game feels. It's missing several features that were standard to the kind of game it's trying to be: holding tab to highlight interactable objects, being able to save anywhere and run multiple saves etc. Combat is dull. You point and click. There doesn't seem to be any point to cover as it hinders you as much as the opposition. It's a game of attrition: Who will run out of HP first? An isometric CRPG is also just the worst possible choice for Paranoia. I'm a huge fan of the Paranoia TTRPG. More than most, it relies on player interactions and fast-paced hijinks. Paranoia would have made a great basis for a zany arena shooter. It's just not good for a CRPG. It also doesn't give you the obvious options. In the tutorial your team leader hands you a mini and tells you to hide in your safe storage. Why are you not able to immediately go and report him for this clear contraband? And worst of all? The game's boring. The music is lifeless. The combat is dull. The jokes need life support. It's appalling for a TTRPG that frequently tells you to 'Entertain or Die.' Because it's a single player RPG you're also kinda stuck playing in a boring manner. I pick boring dialog options because I don't want treason points. I can't be funny. It's a comedy game that actively steers you away from the funny! Make it make sense. It hurts because it's not like the developers didn't care. There is some genuine love that bleeds through in what was released and it's a shame they don't seem to have been able to massage this in to something playable. Update: Got in to the second mission. The hacking minigame is absurd. There is essentially a zero-tolerance for any mistakes making it nearly impossible to pull off. The worst is if you die. It takes you back to the tutorial room, where the game begins. It doesn't make you replay the tutorial but getting back to the mission is going to take several minutes as you have to manually run back to the location site. This is something the TTRPG solves handily. New clones are deposited with the party pretty quickly after the old one falls. You have to keep things moving. And I just can't. I think I'm going to request a refund. Maybe I'll buy the game again if it goes on sale for $5 but it is simply not worth its current asking price.

Overall, I had fun with this. I went in with really low expectations after knowing it got shut down years ago, hearing that there were bad bugs, hearing it was a poor game from when people originally played it, and just knowing that Paranoia is not overly popular as a TTRPG. If you're a big time Paranoia fan, I do recommend giving it a try. My playthrough took a total of 9 and a half hours to beat the game in its entirety, and that was on top of doing any optional objectives I was presented as well. So, it may be worth waiting for a sale just because the shortness of the game may not feel worth the price. During my playthrough, I only experienced one major bug, where I was told to report to Friend Computer for debriefing and when arriving, the debriefing wouldn't start and I was unable to continue the mission. I was able to fix the bug by self terminating at a termination booth, which sucked because it meant losing a clone, but I was doing well enough in the game and was able to purchase extra clones that it didn't bother me too much. One thing that did turn me off a bit was towards the end it became mostly long missions of going room to room dealing with combat after combat. It reminded me of playing Vampire: the Masquerade - Bloodlines, where the developers were rushed towards the end and so just made a bunch of combat to extend time and wrap the game up. That being said, I went in with low expectations and was surprised at the amount of personality and interactions your teammates are given within missions. Where bringing certain teammates can activate unique interactions and even side missions. I'm considering another playthrough to switch around which teammates I bring along to see what I may have missed. As far I noticed, I only saw two secret societies you can join within my playthrough, unless joining a secret society locks you out of seeing more, as I joined the second one that asked me. I didn't find the two that I saw overly exciting, but it was cool that they approached me for a mission along with the members of the secret society and being part of them unlocked a unique ending. Tl;dr - while a rather short game that could definitely use a lot more, was pleasantly surprised and enjoyed it. Buy on sale if you're interested and like Paranoia.

Not worth $30 USD in this state. I finished this game. It's pretty buggy and some of the bugs are really frustrating. I ran into one several times were the game somehow forgot what crafting options are supposed to be available and I could only craft the very low tier gear most of the time. Because of it's checkered past, I doubt any patches are forthcoming. The opening was good. Some youtuber playing the first mission is what got me interested in the first place. The mid game section [spoiler]the underplex[/spoiler] was mostly just a big tedious dungeon crawl. It's bad. A lot of the core things that make the setting good are just totally absent here. The system of infractions, backstabbing NPCs, vending machines, and experimental gadgets and all that. It's just go from room to room and shoot things. The combat system just isn't really the game's strength. The last mission was better, but not super great. It's another shoot-em up but there's some more amusing bits and it's not as massively long as the mid game was and some of game's flavor returned. The endgame, in terms of gameplay, was terrible. Just completely terrible. There's a super easy one [spoiler]involving the nuclear grenade[/spoiler] but the rest are total BS. You go into the computer in a sort of tron like virtual reality and you have to do this big puzzle fight. It's easy enough to cheese to a large degree, but even doing that there's still a metric tonne of RNG to deal with here and it's very easy to lose through no fault of your own. Repeatedly. Once you finish this big BS combat puzzle, you're presented with a set of options that determine what ending you get. Some will only be available if you joined the right secret society or whatever. The ending cinematics were amusing though. The text is so dang fast it's hard to read it all. As far as I can tell, there's 5 or maybe 6 endings. Possibly a few more. [spoiler] Nuke the computer. Reboot the computer normally. Just shut down the computer. Special reboot option if you joined the anti-reptiliods. Special reboot option if you joined the followship. (unconfirmed, I didn't join them) Maybe an option involving replacing the computer with PAL? Potentially there are some other secret societies you can join that would give you more ending options. [/spoiler] Overall, I would say it's a C-. Potentially a B- if they ever do fix some of the bugs. I really don't think it's worth the current asking price. Maybe $10 USD would be fair in its current state.

The [b] "ha-ha" [/b] treason of the tabletop was short and punchy allowing for everyone at the table to laugh. This is all snapped away when you find out how limited you are on clones. Being punished for things outside of your control no longer makes you laugh but makes you want to go "Why? This isn't funny. This is just mean/unfair." Case in point when [spoiler] you have to solve a set of murders and come to the conclusion that something is wrong with the venting machines. [/spoiler] You are punished for 13 points of treason at the mission debriefing cause [spoiler] the guy that filed his report just didn't like you. [/spoiler] . If you argue that is unfair, you punished with more treason (which IS in line with the humor/theme of Paranoia but the amount is just mean). I laughed as my clone yelled FREEDOM before being zapped on the spot. One screen later, I see a clone count and all that "I can do silly treason things for fun" went right out the window. Now the game changes into [b]"how can I win?"[/b] instead of [b] "how can I have fun?".[/b] The UI's font/size/tootips are all lackluster as the font is too small. There is a lot of unused UI space that could allow for easier to read font/size. Right-clicking items doesn't always brings up a menu in the inventory menu. No Map (Only mini-map). No UI resize. Limited screen sizes. No Borderless Window. The hacking mini-game is... [b] [i] painful. [/i] [/b] Limited by time, you have to swiftly click the letter when it appears in the box at the right time. If it passes by you have to wait till it comes around, costing you more time. Sound is alright, nothing to really write much about. My only complaint is that all audio stops when the game is defocused. Which feels very archaic and out of place with modern game streaming. Over all, I feel very disappointed in a game that could be very fun and funny that punishes you for the very reason it is fun and funny. The substandard UI, setting, and lack of gaming standards is just saddening. I will be waiting for patches to help clean up this game before I return to it.

The core of the Paranoia experience is there, but the presentation is very bland. I'd say it would be acceptable if you buy it on sale but I experienced a game breaking bug that has stopped me playing so I cannot recommend: I was doing a mission and used a terminal to open a door. Then I died. The game has returned me to the mission but the door is now closed again and I can no longer interact with the terminal to open it so I'm stuck and cannot progress. Because this game doesn't allow multiple saves I have no way to load back to before the bug so I'd have to start all over again. I don't recommend buying this in its current buggy state.

Отрицательных отзывов тут и так хватает, так что оставлю положительный, т.к. сейчас её уценили аж на 90% и это реально неплохой вариант познакомиться с игрой. С другой стороны нет ни карточек, ни ачивок- то есть я вообще не вижу смысла покупать её тут, она была в Эпик Сторе изначально и там вероятно её бесплатно раздадут равно или поздно. Негатив же в основном от иностранцев, для которых это реально "культовая" настолка, о которой у нас очень мало кто вообще слышал. Просто оставлю тут описание редакций настолки, а кому любопытно- поищите подробную инфу уже сами. "Первоначальная версия Паранойи была выпущена West End Games в 1984 году и заслужила Origins Award как лучшие правила этого года. Вторая редакция, предлагающая больший набор опций и улучшение правил была выпущена в 1987. «Пятая редакция» (на деле третья) была выпущена в 1995 (внутри книги содержались шутки, что третья и четвёртая редакции были «стёрты» и объявлены «не-продуктами» в духе «1984»). Эта редакция была прохладнее принята игроками из-за отхода от линии чёрного юмора в сторону юмористического обыгрывания клише из других ролевых игр" (с) Ролевикипедия

Sadly, it's pretty bad for a modern game. 20 years ago it would have been an OK game but not great. It's a railroad with very little replay-ability.

Could be a great game, but it's just not finished. Incomplete and unpolished.

This game is not playable due to crashes and the impossible hacking minigame.

Paranoia is one of my favorite games and I was excited to see a CRPG version, even if only single-player. I gave this a thumbs-up mainly for that. If you are, like me, a super fan of the game.. pick it up and enjoy. If not, but a fan of isometric CRPG, wait for a sale. Otherwise, don't waste your money. The initial mission is from the quick-start and matched exactly as I remember it. However, HareBrained Schemes released ShadowRun Returns in 2012, a CRPG adaption that set the bar for isometric game play and character interaction. In comparison to that decade old game, this one looks to be a quick cash grab. Game play isn't horrible, I did the best Troubleshooter approach and didn't use any tutorials. There is no voice acting, lots of 'continue' bar on the narration, and each clone is a completely new character. {reskill, new mutant ability, etc..}, very little in the way of communication options { only one mission in...} , and treasonous people just hanging out in the cafe. What is horrible, your clone is decanted in the same place with the same non-skippable cut-scene ..*and you have to walk back to the mission after re-equiping* Also, you are recanted in /shudder/ a white jumpsuit. At least the marketing is spot on. This is the first official adaptation of the cult-classic, not a faithful adaptation.