Warp Drive

Genre: Futuristic Racing

Players: 1-4 Competitive (Local Split-Screen)

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Review:

Warp Drive is a Futuristic Racing game released on PC and mobile devices in 2020, then ported to PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and Nintendo Switch in 2022. This game has players racing in drone-like hovercraft machines, which they can upgrade and customize piece by piece as the game progresses.

When it comes to the presentation, I’m of two minds. This game uses an extremely colorful and distinct art style for its cel-shaded 3D visuals, like the entire world is painted with neon lights, and this goes into overdrive on a regular basis, with the entire screen flashing in pinks, blues, purples, and so on. As striking as this is, it makes it hard to track the action onscreen, and makes everything seem kinda’ samey, because if every level floods your eyeballs with a flashing rainbow of colors, they all kinda’ blend together. And while there’s a good sense of speed here, this is undermined by some unfortunate framerate drops on Nintendo Switch. All of this is backed by energetic synthesized music that fits the game’s futuristic setting and high-speed gameplay quite well.

Speaking of that gameplay, while it is a Futuristic Racing game, Warp Drive has a lot in common with Kart Racing games, with frequent power-ups and a drift-boost system. One of the smart features of this game is that power-ups are not specific to your vehicle nor are they randomized. Instead, when you pick up the energy crystals to power your abilities, you can choose what to use it for – a speed boost, a heat-seeking missile, a mine you drop behind you, or a grapple to use at specific points on the course to latch onto a different anti-gravity path.

While there’s certainly creativity here, I felt like my control over my vehicle wasn’t as good as I would have liked, and the timing for drifting was tricky in a way I never quite managed to get down. But the big problem here is the nasty rubber-banding. No matter how well I drove, I never seemed to be able to maintain a first-place spot for very long, and no matter how poorly I did, I always seemed to be able to work my way back to the third place position, where I ended up every time in the lowest difficulty mode, without fail. I can only guess that in order to even compete I’ll need to unlock upgrades with repeated playthroughs of the game. And I’ve gotta’ say… I just don’t have the desire to do that.

Between the insanely distracting colors on display, the poor framerates on Nintendo Switch, and the nasty rubber-banding, my joy at playing Warp Drive quickly turned to frustration. There were a lot of good ideas here that could have made this an interesting entry into the Futuristic Racer genre, but the poor execution just makes it feel lacking to me.

tl;dr – Warp Drive is a Futuristic Racing game where players race upgradeable drone-like hovercrafts. This game has some good gameplay ideas, but the overwhelming display of color, the poor framerates on Nintendo Switch, and the nasty rubber-banding all add up to a game that’s just more frustrating than fun.

Grade: C

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