Perilous Warp is a retro-style sci-fi First-Person Shooter made by Crystice Softworks, inspired by old-timey sci-fi FPS games, notably Half-Life and Doom (albeit an equal mix of each). Aesthetically, the game is very much a homage to Chasm: The Rift.
In the future, mankind discovered a new mineral called Crysterite, after a meteorite filled with the substance crashes on earth. When processed, the Crysterite shards can facilitate faster-than-light space travel and create portals for teleportation to other worlds; intrigue, mankind then establishes bases to mine for Crysterite.
When contact with a Crysterite mining facility is lost, you, an elite space Marine, have to investigate. As it turns out, the Crysterite portal have unexpectedly allowed alien monsters from a distant world to enter.
Mind the portal - it's an alien hive on the other side:
- Arm Cannon: Used by all the humanoid-looking alien enemies to fire plasma bursts at your direction.
- Blackout Basement: Most of the game happens in a darkened space station, with a few areas set in corridors and large rooms with the lights out, your only source of light being the torch mounted on your shoulder. Alien monsters have a nasty habit of popping out of these darkened areas to ambush you.
- Camera Abuse: Expect the camera lens to be splattered with blood when you gun down an enemy from point-blank. Especially if you're armed with the shotgun that literally blasts them into geysers of red.
- Deadly Disc: One of your weapons allows you to fire deadly, circular discs at enemies. Upon being upgraded it turns into a bouncing disc that reflects when hitting a surface (ergo, NOT an enemy) and embeds itself into the nearest enemy.
- Downer Ending: You do manage to escape the mining planet through the Crysterite portal, but unfortunately you left the portal open behind you. Cue hordes and hordes of alien creatures following you through the portal into earth...
- Equipment Upgrade: ALL your firearms - the machine-gun, shotgun, disc launcher, etc. - can be upgraded mid-game, when you access a correct terminal to have your new weapon installed in. The upgraded firearms will have faster firing rates, hold more bullets, and in certain cases have additional features (like the disc launcher having projectiles bouncing off surfaces).
- Fiendish Fish: Fish-like monsters appears in the flooded stages, where they'll take potshots trying to bite you until you either slash them in two or swim as quickly as possible to avoid them.
- Gatling Good: The second-to-last firearm upgrade you collect (before the Railgun), allowing you to blast alien monsters with More Dakka and graphically blow them into shreds.
- Gorn: Expect slain enemies to leave behind chunks and chunks of bloodied corpses. In wide-open areas where enemies start appearing left and right where you're required to gun down waves and waves of them until they stop respawning, you can expect the floor to be painted red once you're through.
- Grenade Launcher: One of the equipment you can obtain, very early in the second level. It turns enemies into a bloody smear when hit from point-blank, before being upgraded.
- King Mook: The game's sole boss enemy in the final level is... an enlarged version of the recurring humanoid alien enemies. It can take far more punishment than the lesser mooks, expectedly, besides using an arm-mounted rocket launcher none of the mooks have.
- Railgun: The last firearm upgrade, which can vaporize enemies instantly.
- Respawning Enemies: Owing to the malfunctioning Crysterite, there are multiple areas where portals will suddenly and unexpectedly teleport alien monsters into the place (in a few areas, literally a few inches before you).
- Scary Scorpions: The most recurring, non-humanoid alien monsters; scorpion-like creatures who tunnels from underground and attempts to sting you.
- Super Not-Drowning Skills: A few stages are set underwater thanks to the facility's lower corridors getting unexpectedly flooded to the brim, where you can remain below the water's surface for several minutes and even kick ass using your knife.
- Thinking Up Portals: Crysterite can generate enough energy for creating portals leading in-between planets. You used a portal-machine powered by Crysterite to reach the mining outpost, and travels between levels using similar portal machines.
- Title Drop:"Remember to seal the Perilous Warp behind you. Otherwise, the alien hordes will immediately invade Earth, running amok among the unsuspecting public..."
[guess what happens] - Unexpectedly Realistic Gameplay: In the underwater stages, your armament is limited to your combat knife, owing to the fact that none of your firearms (despite being high-tech, futuristic weapons) can work when underwater.
- Unobtainium: The Crysterite shards, a newly-discovered alien mineral which can generate trans-dimensional portal energy, opening portals capable of covering large distances between galaxies and traversing different worlds. Mankind's attempts at harvesting more Crysterite kicks off the plot, but as it turns out the portal-creating crystals accidentally sends alien monsters into a Crysterite mining outpost.
