Video game review by ERIK LEIJON

Warpath (Xbox/PC, Digital Extremes/Groove) is to video games as porn is to the rest of the film industry. It’s blunt, to the point and provides exactly what you want and nothing more. Warpath is a bare-bones FPS. There is really no story to speak of here, no reason for the violence, no cutscenes explaining the characters and little explanation as to why anyone should care. Warpath even does away with a separate single-player mode altogether (the one-player is multiplayer missions with AI-controlled friends and foes), but what it does provide in spades is highly simplistic gameplay and cartoonish violence reminiscent of other FPSs.

Is Warpath even necessary? Clearly it won’t be as good as Halo 2 or Unreal Championship 2, but as a budget title the game’s utter lack of pretensions about what it is will ensure that no one thinks this is the second coming of GoldenEye. Warpath is an extremely bush-league FPS, by design. The main story is explained in a short text before you start, and the missions are as specific as they are simple.

Deathmatch, capture the flag and assault (team killing) are as complicated as things get. All that’s left for the player to do is to enter the war zones as one of three sides in this civil war for some planet and shoot anybody who doesn’t sport your colours.

Warpath also flagrantly wears its influences. The character designs are taken straight out of the Halo book. The levels are a dumbed-down version of the Unreal games. The dash looks like Far Cry’s feral mode, and the guns are the standard issue. This game really has no original elements, but its blatant lifting has made for a more enjoyable mish-mash, since there are no half-hearted elements being tossed in just for the sake of originality (Project: Snowblind being a good example of that).

To elaborate on the bush-league remark, this game is so amateurish that the one-player mode is just the multiplayer mode with a different menu screen. It’s almost laughable that they didn’t even bother to create an engrossing world, but remember this is gaming porn. You basically turn on the game, shoot your load (guns, what did you think I was talking about?) and repeat if desired. The single-player is turn-based, where three teams compete to take over a board with a series of hexagons. The levels are often repeated since you’ll attack one square on your turn, and the next turn your enemy will try to win it back.

So despite being a complete and utter retread of every high-octane FPS of the Xbox generation, Warpath doesn’t suck as much as you’d think. If anything, I think Warpath may be the start of a new type of game, one that simply does away with big-budget elements and concentrates on refining the gameplay. It could be a template for smaller studios that can’t afford to create kick-ass CGI cutscenes. I would prefer a small-budget game concentrate on gameplay than on presentation. Kick back, turn your brain off and watch some bodies fly.

Cyber Games COMETH

I’ve mentioned the upcoming World Cyber Games Canadian Championships before, but we’re nearing the Sept. 1–3 date, so I thought it was worth bringing up again. The Web site, www.worldcybergames.ca, has been totally redesigned and is chockfull of information on the event.

The official schedule will be coming soon, but there is info on how to qualify and what games are being played. This event will not only show how passionate Canadian gamers are, but how great a gaming event in Montreal can be [/cheerleading].