WarpSpeed (Genesis/Mega Drive)

This one was a request, which could either mean it's a hidden gem, or a steaming pile of shite someone wants to inflict on me for a laugh. I've already got a feeling I know which way it's going to go, but I'll give it a fair shot to prove me wrong.

I'm reasonably sure the game has nothing to do with Star Trek, the developers must have just thought that 'Warp Speed' sounded cool. It gives the impression that the game's going to be like Star Fox... in fast forward!

I wouldn't have thought an F/A-18 would be the ideal shape for a space fighter, but I guess that shows what I know about space aeronautics. You can tell the thing's a brand new top of the line model, as they haven't taken the cellophane off yet.

Their Star Bases stand defenceless? Wow, everyone who's ever seen a sci-fi show knows you should always put guns on your space stations, that's just common sense. And then a few seasons later you put even bigger guns on it, and have a big budget special effects showcase episode to show them off.

Well I guess seeing as I'm in the area and I apparently do have guns on my ship, I should drop by and help out. Or raid the place and plunder their booty for myself, as they apparently can't do a damn thing to stop me.

But first, some training would probably be a good idea. This isn't the first time I've jumped into the cockpit of a space fighter to save humanity, but I've learned it's good idea to get the 'request docking clearance' and 'fire all weapons' buttons straight in my head before I end up accidentally pissing people off.

It's always nice to see the classic 'green grid' computer display showing up in a game, especially when it's supposed to be set in the far future. For this mission I'll be flying a Stinger Class fighter, 25 meters long, 15 meters wide, and weighing 10,000.

'10,000 what?' you might wonder. 10,000 units of nothing, because weight is a measurement of force due to gravity, and we're in deep space. They call it weightlessness for a reason.

Well, okay they do have artificial gravity in here so I guess now they have a weight... maybe I should stop being a pedantic asshole and go out and kill some space villains. Time to blast off onto a hypervelocity thrill ride.

This isn't really a good start. Turns out that the defenceless star base with no guns is in the middle of an asteroid field. Thousands of rocks, hurtling through space, guaranteed to give anyone in their path a bad day unless they shoot them or get out of the way. I've only been out here 10 seconds and they've already smashed up my engines.

Hey I got an email from one of the drones from Sector 7G. How does he know I'm a rookie? Anyway, this could be a great opportunity to end this invasion before it's begun. If I can just meet with this guy and have a chat, perhaps we can come to a compromise and create a peaceful resolution to these hostilities.

First though I've got to figure out how to get to Sector 7G. I think I've just managed to automatically dock back at the star base instead.

Dammit, now all hope for peace between humanity and the meatball-head race is lost! I've still gotta find my way to Sector 7G though to blow him up.

Okay, it seems that I can hold Start then drag this blue cursor around on this map screen to choose the sector I want to WarpSpeed over to. Or I could just point my ship in the right direction and take the slow route at normal speed if I really want to.

At last I've engaged the enemy, or at least I'm trying to. I feel like I'm standing on a hill trying to throw rocks at a jet plane flying overhead. It does matter how good my aim is, my shots just don't seem to make it over to the target.

SNES

Except for the missing cockpit, the Super Nintendo version seems basically identical, with the same Wing Commander style scaled sprites and the same terrible music. Did I mention the music yet? It's terrible.

Wing Commander (Sega CD)

Speaking of Wing Commander, here's a shot from the Sega CD version to give WarpSpeed some context, as the games hit consoles within a year or so of each other. To the game's credit, you can see more out of the window in WarpSpeed, though Wing Commander lets you actually kill the things you see out there.

Yes! I've finally blown up an enemy. It can be done! Now I've got to go fly around the quadrant and blow up nine more of them.

Why aren't these bullets hitting you? I fire at him, below him, above him. I fire at where it looks like he's going to be. I fire at where he may be at some point after that. Nothing hits. It's like no matter how far my bullets go, he's just a little bit further away.

I even tried slowing down to turn faster, then speeding up try to close in, and it's almost like nothing happened. Seriously, it's like my speed has absolutely no effect on the enemies outside the window. There's absolutely no sense that there's a 3D world out there I'm interacting with.

There you go, got him at last. Look at the direction of my bullets, and look at my speed. Yep, the winning strategy in the end was stop moving, stop turning, and just tap the fire button. Eventually he flew directly into my line of fire, and hung around long enough to explode.


LATER.

I did it, I killed all ten enemies without falling into a coma! Plus they even gave me a promotion and a medal for my trouble. My training is now complete, time to...

...watch the end credits?

I guess I've won, and I can stop playing now! I'm off the hook.

But I might as well check out the Campaign to see if it's any different to training. I'm supposed to be giving this a fair chance after all.

Shame they couldn't have added a 3D model of the ship spinning around as well. Or maybe some little Snatcher style animated charts. I'm not saying they should have it's just... I like little animated charts is all.

Surprisingly it turns out that the main game is a lot like the training mode. A new ship means a new cockpit, though the only other difference I've noticed that it's got four missiles and seems to fire Cheeto dust instead of energy balls.

Oh hang on, getting another call.

My courage does allow! I'll be there as fast as my warp drive can take me.

Uh, he said Sector 2D, right? There's nothing there though, it's just an empty space. Hang on I'll check again (lucky I took a screenshot or else I'd be screwed).

Oh right, he said 'Quadrant DELTA, Sector 2D', and I'm in Quadrant ALPHA. So I either need to find a way to increase my WarpSpeed range, or I need to use a jump gate or wormhole. Sector 1D looks a bit swirly to me, so I'll give that a shot.

I've played enough space shooters to know that is definitely a wormhole.

Of course the wormhole actually led to Quadrant BETA, so I had to find two more wormholes before I finally made it to my challenge. Unfortunately it's turning out exactly like all my other fights, though even slowing to a stop isn't helping much this time.

Come on, at least one of these bullets has to hit you.


LATER.

Eventually I started getting calls from Prof. Einstein on the Hyperwave receiver sending me to scan certain sectors as well. Science missions work a lot like the enemy challenges, except I don't have to fight anyone when I'm there, and sometimes I even get something for my trouble, like this force shield.

My shields have never been a problem up to now though, it's my guns that need upgrading. I can sit still in space and barely get scratched.


EVEN LATER STILL.

That's it, I give up. I can't take this any more. I thought I could last until at least to the end of this mission, but I just don't have the willpower to take on four entire quadrants worth of enemy ships. I'm just going to leave the game running with the fire button held down and see what happens.

You know, usually I complain when a game has limited continues, but in this it seems cruel to give the player any at all.


This really is one of the worst games I've played in the 20 or so months I've been writing for this site, and I'm usually a big fan of the genre. It's like they got Wing Commander, then took out the charm, the dramatic dynamic music, the characters, the cutscenes and the storyline, and then broke the gameplay as well. Without good dogfighting everything else about the game is pointless, but below average graphics and piss-poor music exacerbates the tedium.