Warpgate

[NineSwords]

So Warpgate is finally out.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zwr-DQNcA9c&feature=player_embedded

I was looking for a good Space-Trade-Sim for a long time, and even thoug this played from a top down 2d plane perspective this might just give me the fix I need unti Wing Commander: Privateer gets a reboot.

I'll get it as soon as I get home. Anyone else in for some Space action?

[shigzeo]

I am in: just let me go to bed first. Tomorrow, if my credit card holds out, I'll be hitting this game for sure. Nine, I am waiting two things: 1. your rise in TMA's forum ranking system; and 2. Privateer, or a very very good clone to debut at the App Store.

Palm Heroes's (http://www.touchmyapps.com/2009/08/25/palm-heroes-in-review-heroes-of-might-magic-in-the-palm-of-your-hand/) got me for strategy/RPG's, but the trader/fighter/thinker in me wants a real space sim for the X/Privateer lover.

[NineSwords]

Now you have me curious. What happens when I rise in the rankings?

[shigzeo]

Haha, nothing really other than the sinking pillars of democracy. I'll see you there.

[NineSwords]

Pah, democracy is something for sissies.

It's late and I have to sleep but I wanted to give a quick update on Warpgate. It's full of woot! It pushed PvZ to the second page and resides now as the only game on my home screen. Very, very nice. I was longing for that kind of game and it certainly delivers.

[louis]

So you're "Kissing" Warpgate eh Nine? The feedback has been real good so far and I'm certain shigs will enjoy the game (there was a time when all he ever wanted to talk about was X2 - The Threat).

Anyway, for those interested, Chiffan will be doing a review for the game shortly.

[shigzeo]

Don't know... I'm kinda waiting for a face off between Nine and ChiffaN. Who can beat it to the punch? Official TMA versus user review... woohoo!

[NineSwords]

I can try to review the little bit I played so far and what has struck me.

The first thing you see is that the game has a overall polish that I have never seen taken so far in any other game. They have given every single UI element it's own Sci-Fi shine. This goes so far that they have even designed a own UI design for the iPod controls. (more on that later). The only time that I have encountered a UI element was when you wan't to send postcards to twitter/facebook/tumblr/email (http://twitter.com/NineSwords/status/12122702419). Then you get to see a little bit of standart iPhone UI element, probably due to the fact that it's a implementation of their Postman App. To be honest with you I was kind of surprised to see that there since everything else has the SciFi UI. It feels like they put it in there at last minute.

http://i226.photobucket.com/albums/dd203/GCNnine/24101192.jpg

But the postcards are a good example of how freeverse did got the extra mile to make this a really standout title. On every single planet you land you can send such a postcard (http://twitter.com/NineSwords/status/12122702419) to your social media of choice (see above). Every single planet has his own postcard and you get tempted to spam your friends every time you enter a new planet. They have put so many content into this game on top of all the regular gameplay content. Another great example would be the news. When you land on a planet you can open a news panel where galactic news ticker in over time. As far as I could see you can sometimes distill some gameplay relevant infos out of it, but most of the time those are just Sci-Fi jokes: "Todays classic movie is Godzilla. Lizards be adiviced that it contains heavy nudity". I sure hope they have gathered enough oneliners to keep me coming back the entire game.

http://i226.photobucket.com/albums/dd203/GCNnine/07066758.jpg

The OST of the game has a really epic feel to it, though they "borrow" heavily on works from componists a la Zimmer or Mansell. Since I have a "thing" for movie/game OST's I might to recognise this where others doesn't and as long as they "borrow" from the good ones I shouldn't complain. Overall this is like I said a score that's above the crop of the iPhone games and wouldn't be misplaced in a full blown pc/console game (but not a trippe A one, to be fair).

The graphics are a double edged sword as far as I am concerned. They really look extremely detailed but this results at the same time in a flickering of pixels when there is too much detail to be displayed on the screen. I guess this wouldn't be as visible on the iPad. But don't get me wrong. This game looks beautiful, but the flickering is something you notice.

http://i226.photobucket.com/albums/dd203/GCNnine/5ec0ce7b.jpg

When I imagined my perfect Space Sim on the iPhone I had something more like Privateer in mind and I wasn't completely sold on the top down on a 2d plane premise of Warpgate but I have to say that this really works well. In fact this allows even for smoother gameplay as you would have on a 1st person Space Sim. But I would have loved to be at least in the dogfights be able to jump into the cockpit of my spaceship and have some action. As it is now, you switch into a battle mode upon entering combat, but this isn't as different than the normal map. In fact you seem to loose control over your ship and just have to tap the weapon buttons. This is somethign of a letdown for me. I would have loved to get at least more control over what I'm doing. I guess Freeverse had to keep it simple for a mobile device.


The trading part of the game is maybe the best. Every planet has a little backstory and the stuff you can buy/sell is affected by it. One of the very first planets you encounter is a planet that is only used for agriculture, so you can buy food really cheap. If you fly to a desolate planet that is ravaged by plasmastorms so only the most resistant lifeforms can survive you can sell your food for a nice profit. The game allows for comodities that are hunted down by other factions. I encountered so far only one time something like that in a story mission but since the code is already in there I wouldn't be surprised to see later in the game situations when it's getting risky to trade some "special" comodities. At least I hope this is the fact.

http://i226.photobucket.com/albums/dd203/GCNnine/8829422e.jpg

I'm a great fan of factions in games, and as you can see on the galactic map there are quite some available in the game. Only a few minutes into the game you get the mission to deliver some intel on one of the alien factions to a human agent and you get a mesage from the aliens that they will hunt you down if you try to deliver it but that they would show grateful if you return it instead to them. So you can right at the beginning choose to work for one or the other factions. I'm sure the other faction will come into play sooner or later. This is a very cool aspect of the game that I'm really looking forward to.

http://i226.photobucket.com/albums/dd203/GCNnine/b09cc61e.jpg

The story drives you forward and seem to develop over the time. At the beginning you are thrown into a basic movement tutorial and after that right into the game without even a explanation of the background story. But from the point were I am in the game now, it seems a big galactic conflict is brewing. I'm looking forward to learn more about the galaxy. I'm just wondering of there will be some backstory to your own character? Right now I know absolutely nothing about him/her/it.

I guess that's it so far from me. The more general review stuff will most likely be covered in ChiffaN's review so I don't go into that.

tl;dr: Get it it's awesome!


Ps.: I was thinking about the game while drifting to sleep last night and wondered what would be a good playlist for the game. I think a good exploration game should always start with the Morrowind Main theme. Then I thought about Babylon Zoos Spaceman, and OMDs Walking on the Milky Way. Then Shooting Star by Bad Company.

Any suggestions?

[ChiffaN]

Ahhh, Freeverse has actually sent over a code for the HD version :( Waiting for a new one. Nine, you beat me to the first punch :)

[NineSwords]

Ahhh, Freeverse has actually sent over a code for the HD version :( Waiting for a new one. Nine, you beat me to the first punch :)

It doesn't count when you haven't even the code yet...

[shigzeo]

Haha! Wow, thanks Nine! Looks great. When my internet is sorted, I'll be playing this. Oh yes, and I finally got to use the iPad yesterday. Devsisters and I had lunch and they had one. Amazing, but heavy. I want one badly. The lock rotation button is great!

[NineSwords]

There is one problerm I have enchountered with the save system. When you're die you respawn at the last point you visit. That's okay if it was a planet, but if you get killed after you got barely through a warpgate you are pretty pickled. You respawn and have to strong enemies on one side, and you escape through the gate and have another group of enemies on the other side.

What starts then is a series of deaths in hope you get lucky and can outrun the enemies. I seriously needed about 20 minutes yesterday to get away from a single warpgate because there were enemies I couldn't handle on both sides. After that I hadn't any enthusiasm to play more for the day.

I think this is a little lack of thought on part of the devs. The main storyline commands you to enter the main system of a enemy faction to rescue some agents, but since it's so early in the game you have almost no chance to get there. And the quest before that was to buy your first new ship, so this isn't because I'm too bad equiped. When one quest says go buy here a new ship in this system and the very next quest says I should take this new bought ship and rescue the agents, I expect the mission to be designed to be achieveable with the new bought ship.

That was a bit of a downer because it's so frustrating.

[ChiffaN]

Just started playing around with the game. The combat is indeed a dissapointment, don't understand why they decided to do it this way. I would feel much better either if it was completely automated or you had control over the ships movement. The in-between is just plain strange. On a sidenote - I don't know why but I was kind of expecting a more MMO type game rather than a singleplayer one.

[NineSwords]

Wait for iEve Online :)

[ChiffaN]

I wish it was coming :)

[Nullroar]

This game looks as close as I am going to get to EVE on the iphone without having to deal with the million-and-one bugs of outer empires.

[ChiffaN]

Crap, I'm getting more and more into this game - I simply love it! And what's looks even more promising is they already updated the HD (iPad) version with combat controls! I'm thinking about holding of the review until they do the same for the iphone version.

What's new

Brand New Combat System
Control your ship via the Accelerometer to make tactical decisions. Move in for the kill, or keep to out outside as you outrun enemy nukes.
New ability to divert all weapon power to the shields. Use the "Shield Boost" button in combat to dump the power normally found in your weapons back into your shield.

Bug Fixes
- Fixed a bug with saving
- Fixed a bug where some shield upgrades did not give full shield upgrade
- Fixed a bug with the Mjolnir Battle Cruiser
- Fixed a few typos
- Fixed an orientation bug with the Mission Log screen
- Fixed a bug when purchasing In App Purchases

[NineSwords]

I'd also say that you should hold on with your review until the changes take effect since this change would greatly change the outcome of the review.

[shigzeo]

Hmm... am I ever excited for this bad boy. I hate ChiffaN reviews though as I tend to buy a GRAB or KISS. Fortunately, my CC is out of print now. But EVE is killer and if this delivers a fraction of the gameplay... I'm in (as soon as my internet is sorted).

Nine - thanks for everything but the f-word. Please try to keep anything which might offend Sunday school teachers out of the forums. Damn is one thing, but...

Anyway, iPad version must rock; I might be able to early purchase one since I got a shady character under the sheets...

[ChiffaN]

Watch for the review tmr - the update came to the iPhojne late last night. Today I'm working on another treat for you all :)

[NineSwords]

I haven't had time to play 1.1 yet, but I plan to get some spacetime this evening between How I Met Your Mother, Castle and Splinter Cell.

I'm looking forward to your review ChiffaN

[ChiffaN]

Shiggs, get prepared to spend your dough on this one :)