EDITOR'S NOTE: At the time of writing, this US game has not yet been released in Europe.

With the next generation of gaming consoles steamrolling toward us even faster these days, it's easy to get swept away by pure visual flash while completely forgetting that the game experience itself is going to remain pretty much unchanged in many genres. For me, it's just always cool to play current generation titles that break things down to the core elements of gaming and deliver the goods at a reasonable price. An otherwise solid game like Digital Extremes' latest first-person shooter, WarPath (Xbox and PC) might be far too easy to overlook for the more jaded gamers out there who swear by bigger hyped releases. However, the straightforward approach to multiplayer-centric action coupled with an interesting strategic twist to its single player game equals an intriguing enough entry in an extremely overcrowded genre.

If some visual elements of the game look mighty familiar, that's because WarPath actually started life as a sequel to Pariah, 2004's Unreal-powered FPS that introduced some solid concepts to the genre. The developer has addressed the issues with that game's slightly sluggish frame rate by making the action in WarPath wickedly fast, fluid and non-stop, even when playing with multiple bots. There are a couple of shortcomings here, but what the game does right, it does well enough to warrant a look. The single player campaign introduces three races (The Ohm, House of Kovos and Coalition) having at it on an alien world in a series of battles over up to 25 maps that range from Deathmatch, Team Deathmatch, Capture the Flag or Frontline Assault maps with a big boss battle awaiting the winning faction in the final map.

Once you set up a profile and choose a faction, you're sent to the game's first cool idea; a hexagon-based map that allows you to select a starting point when your turn comes. The actual 'strategy' isn't incredibly deep - you're simply picking a match type and difficulty level. On the other hand, the fun begins as you blast your way through, winning matches. Weapon upgrades become available as you gain spaces on the map and applying these upgrades makes taking down enemies easier as things progress. The controls are excellent and, like Pariah, you get a sprint button and can use a blade for close-up attacks. The objective for each faction is to blast its way toward each enemy fortress, capture their weapons and destroy their main generator. You'll want to grab as many C.A.M (Combat Augmentation Module) upgrades as possible, which get added to your inventory. You can choose to play through the game without adding any upgrades, but passing up the chance to use more powerful versions of the weapons is a bit foolhardy, unless you want to make the game harder intentionally.

Like Pariah, you get that cool rocket launcher that switches to a guided rocket slayer, a homing laser with seeking shots, a multi-blast shotgun and more. You also get the same vehicles, renamed here as Razorback, Hornet and Maverick. You only get to use these rides in the larger Frontline Assault maps and they control quite well, with powerful guns and ramming capability. As you get closer to each enemy base, the difficulty increases, but there are a couple of maps where you'll be picking off AI enemies while your bot-mates do the flag stealing or generator destroying. On the easier difficulty the game is pretty much a cakewalk, so FPS vets playing solo will want to crank it all the way up for best results. The fifteen-minute time limit per match is rarely exceeded, save for in a few Assault maps where ground can be gained and lost quickly.

The final boss battle is a bit of a shock for a number of reasons; first, it takes place in a crazy maze of corridors leading into a huge vertical room where panicking means falling to your death time and again if you miss a jump or back off a walkway. Secondly, the gigantic, cheap boss, er, bosses you face off against have a particularly funny walking animation and sound like a bag of wind-up toys gone haywire. It's unintentionally funny, yet freaky simultaneously to hear the clank-clank-clanking coming from two sides and have one pop in through a doorway you were headed for while the other gets the drop on you from behind. Your health gets whittled down in milliseconds here, so prepare to retry until you pick the proper weapons and techniques needed to survive. My suggestions: upgrade weapons as soon as the match begins, keep moving, grab as much armor as you can carry and pray.

As for multiplayer, you can play alone with or without bots in Practice mode, jump online via Xbox Live and play any map or hoof it over to a buddy's pad with your Xbox for some System Link love. Unfortunately, you can't play the grid-based campaign online at all, a feature that would have added a point to the overall score of the game. Given that the single player campaign with bots takes about three to four hours per race (depending on the difficulty), I can sort of see the reasoning for leaving it out - not enough maps and skilled teams would blow through the game in possibly a third of the time it takes a single player to finish. Still, I'd love to see this idea built upon in the future. The PC version of the game has Unreal 2.0 Editor functions, but the Xbox version doesn't contain a map editor at all. While this omission is too bad, I'd imagine DE could create maps for download at some point in the future if the game does well enough.

The big shock for non-Xbox Live players or fans of System Link is that there's no split screen at all (you can gasp and faint now). While it was actually omitted due to time constraints and the developer wanting to keep the frame rate stable in multiplayer matches, I actually applaud Digital Extremes for omitting this feature for a few reasons. Firstly, if you've never played a multiplayer FPS with a full screen to yourself, playing WarPath over System Link or Live is a liberating experience. With a full screen you're not distracted and you'll notice that the level of detail here is the same as is found within the single player game. In split screen games a system's processor has to draw the same detail per window, which can result in reduced performance in some areas. Here your only issue will be the connection speed of the other players (and their skill level, of course). Secondly, I'm hoping more developers adopt this in the future, as in a crazy way it'll sure help Microsoft increase its System Link and Xbox Live user base somewhat if an A-title omits split screen.

Granted, the opposition to this will be extreme, but every revolution needs to start somewhere, right? The main issue with the online version of WarPath is finding more players who aren't driven by the "How come this isn't Halo 2?" mentality. With the proper folks, matches are fast and fun, with the addition of the sprint ability making for a nice strategic twist that's missing from most shooters. The majority of the people I've chatted with like the game, but seem to want some sort of level editor, flying vehicles for the big stages and more stuff that blows up in the environments. Of course, some instant haters out there love to bash any game that's not as polished as their personal favorite; however, that brand of online Neanderthal is the sort of person who possibly spends less time playing games and more looking for trouble.

Presentation-wise, WarPath goes for the simpler is better approach in terms of menus, but the game is quite polished in other areas. The in-game graphics are great, with exaggerated Havok physics in places, although not enough destructible objects in the various environments. You'll find a higher level of detail than in Pariah and some impressive maps that scream "sequel, please!" The weapon effects are explosive and screen-warping, while the cut scenes feature brief nice-looking CG work. My only real graphical gripe is with the ending cinematics that replicate the same shot but with the different faction skins. In terms of character models, I'm pretty sure those Kovos troops are modeled on the Cylons from the original Battlestar Galactica series. The visual similarity is too great, but this actually adds a nifty homage into the game that I like a lot. The Ohm all look like Unreal Tournament castoffs in their hooded armor and android-like accessories - given the Unreal background of this game this is another fun touch. Finally, the human Coalition forces have a nice military look, but their blue gear and mirrored helmets make them look like little more than a futuristic police force.

There are nice mixes of vertical and horizontal levels that feature a mostly industrial look and feel, but there are plenty of nice effects to go around too. In terms of the best stuff here, those maps that take place in what looks like a floating airbase absolutely beg for the aforementioned flying vehicles to zip over and around the bases in the distance. In fact, some of the structures you're on feel as if there are multiple levels that were closed off once the game took on its more multiplayer-geared formula. I'd kill to get my paws on early debug code and see what was originally planned, that's for sure! The sound design is decent, with the music doing a good job of carrying you through the levels; I do wish the win and lose themes were a bit more varied and dynamic, but there are some nice thematic snippets here and there. One particular stage, a snow-swept floating air platform, has a haunting tune that's a little too Halo-esque, but it actually sells the level during the pre-match fly-through.

Speaking of Bungie, the bottom line here is simple - if you come into WarPath expecting the second coming of Halo 2, you'll be more disappointed than someone who's looking for a few hours worth of shooting stuff on nice-looking alien worlds for fun. With Pariah, Digital Extremes introduced some cool ideas to the FPS genre; WarPath takes these and runs with them remarkably well. The fact that they're still getting mileage out of the awesome Unreal engine makes me smile quite a bit. While some may not appreciate the overall no-frills approach, the game should still be seen as a very entertaining run & gun experience, as well as the potential beginning to a future FPS franchise. That you're not barreled over with a thousand new maps or hit over the head with pompous hype-driven styling makes it a more accessible experience because you know what you're getting right out of the box. That sort of truth in advertising is a bit refreshing, in my humble opinion.

Reviewed by Greg Wilcox for AceGamez (All Rights Reserved).