![]() With this, what starts as a fairly linear game gradually opens up more and more, with the way the story unfolds being affected in turn and numerous different endings. Puzzles often have multiple solutions, too, depending on the choices you’ve made earlier in the game and what items you have on you at any given time. The catch here is that your inventory can get very unwieldy, and the interface for navigating it can be a hassle on Switch. Combining items with other items is common feature, and Warp Frontier goes a step further by occasionally using “items” to represent ideas-you’re not literally carrying a giant mining droid on your person, but an “item” representing it is an efficient way of building it into puzzles. It never goes full moon-logic, though solutions can sometimes be obscure, and it relishes in those layered puzzles where you think you’ve finally hit on a solution, only to try enact it and find another obstacle in your way. In the style of the genre’s classics, seemingly straightforward tasks (opening an apartment door) often require elaborate solutions (using garbage to lay a trap to catch a rat to send through a vent to distract the cat who’s preventing your robot companion from hacking the door controls). This all unfolds through a point-and-click adventure, with plenty of puzzles revolving around items and the information you gather. And then on top of that, it manages to squeeze in some more human drama-a grizzled police officer who struggles to balance work and home life isn’t the most original concept, but it’s one that Warp Frontier traverses with nuance and intricacy. Through all this, Warp Frontier blends a gritty sci-fi aesthetic with noir and dystopian influences, layering thoughtful reflections on everything from body augmentation and surveillance to existential questions about identity and the nature of work in a civilisation that treats bodies as disposable. It’s a riveting journey that’s full of surprises, but one that also knows when to take a breather and let its most shocking moments sink in. That tone backs an intriguing story, gradually growing from a routine inspection on the galaxy’s outskirts to a top-secret investigation into a deadly conspiracy. Backed up by some fantastic voice acting from local talents, Warp Frontier is authentic in its Australian-ness like few other games are. It’s not “Strewth mate, that bloody drongo nicked off with my slab!”, but it has a certain candour and bluntness that you don’t often see, underpinned by a sarcastic streak that’s not necessarily humorous in intent but ties everything together. The script and voice acting all bring a uniquely Aussie feel to a story that has no particular geographical ties. There’s nothing inherently Australian about that premise, and yet it’s a decidedly Australian game. At the same time, he’s trying to manage the responsibilities of family and carrying the scars of his own time in the war. In the year 2215, a jaded police captain investigating a hit-and-run stumbles upon a lead that sets him on a journey to unearth a covered-up war crime that lead to the deaths of thousands of innocent civilians. As much fun as those characters are, though, there’s a gap in more serious depictions of Australian life, and it’s a gap that Warp Frontier does a good job of filling.ĭeveloped by Melbourne-based studio Brawsome, Warp Frontier is a sci-fi adventure game that, at first glance, seems to draw little from its creators’ backyard. ![]() Indeed, the best examples come right out of Australia itself, as local devs jump at the chance to poke fun of themselves, and few things bring as much joy to an Australian gamer as seeing a parody of themselves in a game. And fair enough, too-for a culture where sarcasm is the standard way of talking, where the most severe swears are used as everyday greetings, and where laughing at oneself is so ingrained, is the such comically stereotyped depictions tend to be benign at worst and hilarious at best. From Dingodile to Roadhog, from Saxton Hale to the inhabitants of Pandora’s moon in Borderlands: The Pre-Sequel, Australian characters in videogames often lean heavily into caricature.
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