Review: Warp

Warp doesn’t explore its abilities to the fullest extent it feels. It is a collection of interesting sounding abilities without focus. The little alien turned science-experiment-gone-wrong can warp into objects or through walls; it can send out hollow images of itself and eventually it can swap with these “echos”; it can use more variant abilities to manipulate the objects in the environment.

Warp (Xbox 360)
Developer: Trapdoor
Publisher: Electronic Arts
Release Date: February 15, 2012 (PlayStation 3, Windows: March 13, 2012)

Never did the game build up to some kind of penultimate puzzle or challenge with the singular abilities before combining it with another. They all just come and act as keys to get through the locked gates—yet without providing an interesting progression to the gates like a non-linear platform-adventure does. The abilities are then used for the most basic purposes: Warp from object to object to get through a room; Echo through the too-thick-to-warp-through wall and swap with the object; Throw this barrel into the switch to change its state. It has a breadth of tools to use, but the meaningfulness of each is reduced because of it. The mechanics just skim the surface.

The appeal to the senses is just as weak as the appeal to the intellect: the character movement and aiming of the abilities feels imprecise and frictionless. The little alien slides too much. Too frequently will the warping cause the character to land in some inadvertent place. The warping aiming reticle will get caught on environmental features, like on the wrong side of a safety railing, when it is trying to estimate where one wants to aim. Objects and the player character will snag on the environment too. It is especially atrocious in the final level: The environment tilts from side to side (at a stuttering frame rate), causing the character to constantly be sliding along with it.

Even in the more typical levels before it, the enemies, the soldiers in this scientific research complex, are too frequently just out of view. Something like Metal Gear Solid worked as a stealth game in an isometric view (mostly) because of the mini map, which Warp notably lacks. It attempts to instead allow one to use the right stick to slide the camera but limits how far it can slide. Unconscious of this limitation, the game has situations where the room is too big--one cannot see the entire room and thus can’t properly hide or identify threats before it is too late.

When killed by the soldiers in particular, the juxtaposition between the pleasantly simple look and the gratuitous tone, set by the abundant blood, is exacerbated: the soldiers will call out “Fuck yeah,” or “Suck it” with accompanying gestures. It points to the core problem: the notes of Warp are in discord, if not altogether wrong.

Score: 33%