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WarPath (Xbox)

• Developer:
• Publisher: Groove Games
• Genre:
• Official Website: http://www.playwarpath.com
• Score: 1 of 5: Save Your Cash

Given the massive appeal of the Unreal Tournament series, it's no surprise that game developers often try to emulate the success into one of their games. This is where Warpath for the Xbox comes in, and ultimately, where it fails. Sure, Warpath does have a similar build to Unreal Tournament, and almost everything you see in the game is reminiscent of the series it is inspired by. That is its biggest flaw, that it simply doesn't have much to offer that hasn't been done already. What hurts the game more is that games like Unreal Championship, released years ago but have ultimately the same premise, have long been in the bargain bin. The budget pricing of Warpath may interest some people, and it doesn't do anything wrong, but it just doesn't do anything different or interesting.

The premise behind Warpath seems about as predictable as the game itself. Three races are at war with one another, fighting over the system of Kaladi, a virtual utopia filled with resources waiting for the taking. These three races are known as the Ohm, the House of Kovos, and The Human Coalition. For the most part, that's all the background that you get, and while there are some "cut scenes" to help further expand the story, they consist of a slideshow of still images and text. To make things worse, the three races aren't exactly that different from one another, save for visual appearances and selectable guns (all of which can be unlocked from the opposing races).

Let's get this out of the way early. Warpath is solely a multiplayer game, and if you happen to be getting this for the single player experience, then think again. The single player campaign consists of you choosing one of the three races and then being assigned an area of a grid map. Conquering the other two opposing races consists of attacking their territories on the map, initiating either a team deathmatch battle, a capture the flag match, or an assault round. In essence, Warpath tries to blend in turn-based strategy into a first person shooter. The problem is that there doesn't seem to be a whole lot of strategy to this part other than picking where you want to attack, and it's not like you can weaken a territory before you can attack it. The biggest amount of strategy seems to be attacking certain areas to gain access to new weapons, but that seems to be it.

That's far from the only problem, though. The bigger issue is that the A.I. is terrible when playing the game. On the lower difficulties, your enemies and teammates simply run around the map in a pre-determined path, and this makes for incredibly boring CTF and assault matches, as most of the time, the A.I. will continue to attack the flag in the same linear path, making the same actions. What's worse is that the enemy doesn't even try to kill you at times, even if three of them are staring right at you and you're firing away, they just sit there, crouching while you kill them off. Turning the difficulty up to the highest level makes the A.I. a little more competent, but not by much.

As far as the weapons go, there are six guns, one blade weapon, and two support items. Most of the firearms are unremarkable, and more often than not, you'll probably end up relying on the rocket launcher or the sniper rifle to get kills, as most of the other weapons don't seem as effective. The weapons also feel as generic as the game itself, and until you unlock the other four guns, the faction you begin with is stuck with only two guns to choose from. The seemingly sparse weapons selection is made up somewhat by the C.A.M. device, which allows you to upgrade weapons to give them more functions and power, and it is a novel idea. It just doesn't save the average weapon selection in Warpath. In addition, there are also vehicles, but the maps with vehicles on them are so small that the vehicles really have no place being there.

All of these factors make the single player pretty forgettable. Warpath is saved, at least somewhat, by the online multiplayer. With online multiplayer, the annoying inadequacies of the A.I. are gone, and to Warpath's credit, the fairly well designed maps can make for some fun multiplayer. The only problem is that there doesn't seem to be that many people willing to play the game, and if you do find a few people, chances are that you'll have to fill up empty spots in a game with the under performing bot A.I. It seems a little unfair to criticize Warpath for this, seeing as how the developers really have no control over the amount of people playing the game. However, it's also hard to overlook the problem, because if you can't play multiplayer against other people, then you've pretty much lost any reason to play the game.

Warpath looks decent, and it is by no means an ugly game. Many of the maps actually look very good, with a few standing out with some strong visuals. I actually enjoyed playing on a few maps that had some nice things going on in the background, at least until I found the broken A.I. wandering the map. As far as the controls go, they get the job done, although they do seem to be a little bit sensitive when looking around, making for some difficult aiming. The audio department is in about the same position, getting the work done but not exactly excelling at anything.

Warpath is what it is: an unremarkable Unreal Tournament clone. Little is new, and the few somewhat novel ideas that may sound good on paper aren't executed very well. To its credit, Warpath doesn't exactly cost a whole lot, with the PC version costing 19.99 USD while the Xbox version is slightly more expensive at 29.99 USD. Still, you could probably find both Unreal Championship and Unreal Championship 2 for less in the bargain bins, both of which have the same if not more appealing game play. Warpath just doesn't have a lot to offer, and what it does have is hindered by the lack of widespread interest in the online multiplayer. You could do worse than Warpath, but you could certainly do a whole lot better.

Aug 31, 2006 | 0 comments
Chris Massey