Warpath Review

Introduction

Some people say that your first love is the strongest. My first gaming love was Unreal Tournament which meant that Warpath was up against it right from the first loading page. Read on to find out how if faired.

Expectations

I believe that expectation and previous experience account for most of our feelings and opinions of something. It’s impossible to shed biases and prejudices. And that’s how I approached Warpath. I was expecting some new and different and just got something the same.

Unfortunately if I had to write a one word review of Warpath it would be ”Samey”

Warpath is a multiplayer game at its heart and I am a single player gamer, so we are struggling to find common ground already.

Some Basic Information

You can find the basic spiel about features and advantages here Warpath on PlanetPhillip, which claims to have a unique SP mode. This leads you to think you are in for a surprise but in reality all that happens is each of the three competing races chooses the next arena and game mode.
Different - yes, interesting – not really.

Overview

You create a profile and then chose one of the three races. Each race has access to a different set of initial weapons. The basic idea is to take control of all your enemies’ zones. If you do this then you will eventually gain access to their weapons.

You start by choosing your first arena, but you really only have a few choices. You play the level and receive C.A.M.s. (Combat Augmentation Modules) These allow you to upgrade your weapons. You receive varying amounts of C.A.M.s for each level, depending whether you are attacking or defending.

I personally didn’t notice any difference between the movement and strengths of each race, just the initial starting weapons.

Movement and Gameplay

As with all offline SP games, the AI can be predictable and easy to combat, but again you can’t really complain when the SP game mode has probably only been added for practice.

Unlike some other recent games, movement is clean and sure – nothing worse than feeling your character is not doing what you expect and need at the most crucial times.

Weapons

Weapons are generally underrated and can easily change a mediocre game into something much more. Unfortunately the weapons in Warpath left me wanting more.

The names all sound interesting; Violator, Tyrant, Wolverine, Vanguard, Javelin and Judge. Unfortunately I would have trouble describing their respective strengths without resorting to the printed manual. Of course that could be a reflection of my memory rather than the weapons themselves, although I don’t think so.

Vehicles

There are three available vehicles in the game, and as with the weapons they have names that conjour images and emotions that are not reflected in the actuality! Razorback, Hornet and Maverick could be out of almost any MP FPS game.

Physics and Graphics

Ragdoll physics throw your opponents into the air with the grace one has come to expect of the Havok physics engine and the graphics are as smooth and clean as any Unreal engine. I have nothing else to say because it is such a tried and tested combination that it should be taken as a given that it works well.

An Editor

There is an editor included with the game, which is very important and perhaps once the game has been released to the modding community it may find itself a dedicated following.

Screenshots

Normally I would try and include plenty of screenshots and even some movies but I couldn’t get Warpath to work with GameCam. Sorry about that. There are plenty of images available from their website: PlayWarpath.

Things I Disliked

The fact that I couldn’t skip the marketing loading screens. Those things drive me crazy.

Also, the fact that each species didn’t seem to have different strengths and weaknesses. That would have added to the tactical feel of the game and certainly added to the replayability.

Maybe the developers should have even made only one species available to begin with, and have the others unlocked after each successful completion. Who knows, perhaps they tried that in beta testing and it was rejected.

Things I Liked

It loaded fast and was easy to just jump into playing. Some of the arenas had a good atmosphere and I kept wishing that it was part of a Story-Driven game with objectives etc.

Not many things I liked, I know, but I’m hard to please!

Conclusion

Warpath was always going to struggle for a good review on PlanetPhillip because the site is about true single player games.

However, it is more fun to play than some other true single player games and ultimately gaming is about having fun.

It was never going to be a UT3 killer and as long as you approach the game with realistic expectations then you should have some fun.

What this game needs is somebody to take the basic ideas and convert it into a story-driven SP mod. It may stand out more that way than as a multiplayer game.

The idea of three races may prove to be a hit with online play but unless there is an interesting difference between each race then it’s almost pointless.

The weapons are definitely the weakest part about the game, and that’s a shame because in a few months if somebody asks me about the game I will probably say ”Oh yeah, I played that, weapons weren’t very good though!”

What you should do now is try the Demo.