Warp (2012 video game)

Warp is a video game developed by Trapdoor and published by EA Partners on Microsoft Windows, PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 . The game allows the player to warp through doors and objects to explode creatures in the game world. It was released on February 15, 2012 on Xbox Live Arcade as part of the second "Xbox Live Arcade House Party", with PlayStation Network and Microsoft Windows releases to follow on March 13, 2012.
==Plot==
The game opens from a first person view of the player being pulled out of what appears to be an underground cave by a group of scientists. The player's character, "Zero", is confused and dazed as they take him to a military-grade secure facility. Zero keeps phasing in and out of consciousness, and eventually awakes to see two scientists performing surgery on him and extracting a disk shaped object.
Soon after a fellow alien contacts Zero through telepathy and says that it can sense others aliens in the facility and they should escape together. The scientists then put Zero through an obstacle course where Zero is reunited with the disk they extracted, giving him back his power to teleport. After reabsorbing the disk, the player's goal is to escape the facility and help any fellow aliens on the way out.
==Gameplay==
Despite being a 3D game, the gameplay remains similar to a top-down 2D game that features puzzle solving and stealth.
The first power Zero acquires is the ability to teleport short distances, also known as the titular Warp. Zero is able to warp through open spaces, through objects, into objects, and into living things. The speed between warps is dependent of whether or not Zero moves into an object or into open space. Moving into open space gives Zero a slight timed penalty before it can warp again. From inside an object (or person) Zero can move around vigorously and eventually make it explode, this is known as a Frag.
Guards, scientists, and turrets attempt to stop Zero's escape. Upon sight of Zero both turrets and guards will attempt to shoot, while scientists will cower and run away. Once spotted by one human they will most likely alert other humans of Zero's presence. Alarms that are activated can be turned of by destroying the alarm coil or moving it off the alarm pad.
Sound and sight also play a large part of the game. Zero is about half the size of the average human and so is able to hide behind many objects that are scattered across the map without being seen. Sound will also alert the guards to Zero's presence. Footsteps, knocking into objects, and Zero's powers will create sounds audible to the human ears prompting an investigation. Though many of these sounds can be made inaudible through upgrades.
Upgrades can be brought at stations throughout the game. Upgrades cost grub energy that have been collected throughout Zero's journey. Grubs are small parasite-like creatures that cling to objects and give off a purple glow. This glow makes them easier to spot although many of these grubs are located in hard to reach places and require extra skill or more powers to reach. Once a grub is found Zero consumes it and absorbs it's energy.
Zero will come across puddles of water early on in the game and discovers that being exposed to small amounts of water will nullify his powers temporally. This is indicated by Zero having a sudden loss of color and a different walking animation. Unfortunately for Zero, the scientists also discover this weakness. They exploit this weakness by creating a moldable water substance that they primarily use as shields. Zero can't walk, warp, echo, or use a hologram to get past these shields. When exposed to large quantities of water Zero will die. The facility is also located underwater.
Throughout the game Zero will find remains of other aliens and will be able to absorb their old powers in order to aid his escape. The second power Zero unlocks is a solid hologram, known as Echo. Zero's echo ghost will move independently from him, but Zero is unable to move when this power is activated. All forms of enemies can see Zero's echo but they can't tell it apart from the real Zero. If Zero's echo is killed it will dissipate. The hologram can pass through all objects and move across gaps but will also dissipate when it comes into contact with water. The echo is also restricted to move within a certain radius around Zero's position. When Zero activates this power inside an object the hologram will be of the object itself. The hologram will take the properties of the object. Guards, scientists, and turrets will only notice the object if it is not stationary and realize something is wrong when it moves. When Zero activates this power inside a person, whether the human is alive or dead, the echo will be of that person walking and enemies won't notice anything wrong.
The third power is known as Swap. This power is an extension of the echo which allows Zero's echo to swap places with an object of it's choice. The swap power can be used as an extended warp in many situations. The power will only work when the end destination is an object. If already inside an object and swap is used then the destination object will be placed inside of the original object causing the internal object to destroy the external object and take its place. This technique can be used to destroy objects/humans and create distractions.
The fourth power is known as Launch. Launch allows Zero to fire an object at a high velocity, the launched object won't be affected by gravity during this time. Launch will only launch an object when Zero is already warped inside of it and will leave Zero in the position of where the object was launched from. This power is primarily used to destroy power generators to access different levels of the map. It can also be used to place objects strategically so Zero can use echo to cross large spaces that where previous unreachable.
==Gamemodes==
There are two gamemodes featured in Warp. The first is the story mode where you spend you time trying your best to solve puzzles and ultimately escape the facility. During the story you can discover challenge orbs which can be activated by warping into them. Once they are warped into they are unlocked and accessible through the main menu.
The challenge mode places you in a training room and gives you one objective. The rewards for completing these objectives are tiered; a bronze grub, a silver grub, and a gold grub. The bronze grub is always given for completing the objective and is the lowest tier of reward. The silver and gold grub is often given out in reward for completing the objective in shorter times respectively. These challenges are often placed in the story mode to help train you up for a new type of challenge/puzzle that is coming you. They often required advanced thinking or advanced skill in order to achieve the silver grub. The times that you complete the challenges are recorded and put up on a leader board to see how you compare to others.
==Links==
*Warp EA Website
*"EA Partners brings sci-fi/stealth/actioner Warp to PC, PSN, XBLA".
Category:2012 video games
Category:Pc Games