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Rockstar Games strikes again. No stranger to controversy, Rockstar Games’ titles have always been in the front page of mainstream publications. Very little companies get the publicity that Rockstar Games got in a two-week span after the Hot Coffee debacle. The Warriors continues the company’s risqué way of doings things by taking on gang battles in New York City. Though the Rockstar Games label assures all games some level of success, it’s good to know that the actual game works very well.
The Warriors is based on the 1979 film of the same game. The game begins by mirroring the opening scene of the movie. In that scene, we see that The Warriors (one of the many gangs whose cumulative person count reached to 60,000) are going to a meeting where Cyrus, leader of Gramercy Riffs (one of the biggest gangs) proposes that all of the gangs unite and take over New York City. After this speech, a gunshot is heard and Cyrus lays dead. The crowd scatters as the police enter the area.
Though the movie focuses on The Warriors’ journey back home after they are wrongfully blamed for killing Cyrys, the game has a flashback, showing how The Warriors gained their current notoriety. Throughout the game, you’ll play as nine characters—Ajax, Cleon, Cochese, Cowboy, Fox, Rembrandt, Snow, Swan, and Vermin—and get to know them better, which makes the movie-based missions all the more important since you learn to care for these characters. The game does a very good job of tying together the game and film. A lot of the stuff that goes in the film is naturally expanded upon in the game. Some of the minor characters are given more screen time, though it never feels unnatural. It’s sort of ironic that you care for these street thugs who fight, rob, and vandalize without thinking twice about it.
The actual gameplay is purely brawling. Though you’ll play as a number of characters, they are all pretty much identical. They share the same moves like jumping, ground moves, grabs, throws, and weak and strong attacks. There are a number of weapons included like bottles and bricks, though guns are interestingly absent. The combat is pretty enjoyable if a bit simplistic though the interactivity of the environments and the utter amount of characters onscreen at the same time keep things interesting. The game includes some commands that are pretty helpful, for instance telling to attack everything or following you if you need to retreat. Most of the enemies are pretty easy to beat though they are somewhat intelligent, particularly the cop characters. There are a few other tasks in the game like stealing stuff, bulling business owners, or running away (or chasing) some gang members. There is some stealth in the game though these portions are definitely underwhelming. The Warriors is a combat game and smartly remains as one for the majority of the game.
The game includes a multiplayer mode as well. One of the major modes is a two player cooperative mode for any of the story missions. The second player can jump in at any time, which is a nice touch. There are also others including king of the hills, capture-the-girl (which plays like capture-the-flag but with a girl), and quick rumbles. There are a few minigames included, counting a Double Dragon-esque side scroller that features the entire first series of that game.
The game’s visuals are decidedly meager. The character models are pretty poor in quality and animation, showing a level of detail comparable to early PlayStation 2 games. Though the game succeeds in throwing a large number of characters onscreen at the same time without a drop in framerate, it would have been nice to have some decent looking characters to look at. The environments are equally mediocre though they don’t stand out as much since the environments of the movie were drab to begin with. It is sort of fitting that they look as they do. Rockstar Games titles are never lookers though so this is somewhat expected. Both the PlayStation 2 and Xbox versions of the game look pretty similar, even when running the Xbox in high-definition.
The game’s audio is splendid though. The soundtrack is compromised from the same licensed 70s music that the movie was made up of. The original score from the music is also perfectly included in the game. The sound effects are especially vicious, recreating the onscreen mayhem with great veracity. The voice acting is equally great since the actors have replayed their role. This is a bit weird since some of the lines are directly from the film, and the actors sound considerably older than the 20 year old characters they play in the film.
The Warriors surprised me with its quality. Rockstar Toronto demonstrated tons of attention to detail, bridging the game and film together. The action is fierce and very enjoyable. The only thing keeping the game from eminence is the poor visuals, which can be forgiven since there is so much going on at the same time. Rockstar Games definitely has another hit on their hands. -- Jose Liz, PGNx Media
---- Oct 24, 2005
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