Warrrrriors come out to playy eyyyyyyy……
Now when you think of movie tie-ins you usually think of average, generic games with modern movie material slapped on (cough *EA* cough). But The Warriors isn’t based on a recent movie and is no way average.
Of course The Warriors is based on the 1979 cult classic of the same name. Set in New York the story is about the Warriors gang trying to make it back to their own turf across the city in Coney Island, but with one problem; every gang in the city are looking for them after being framed for the murder of the city’s biggest gang leader. One of the great points about this game is how it’s set before (and during) the above mentioned story of the movie, so you’ll get to find out how The Warriors built up their rep and got an invite to the meeting.
The missions involve general gang type activities; spraying your ‘burner’ or tag around the city, smashing up the streets, protecting your turf and attacking other gangs. The first few missions are very handy tutorials that teach you how to do everything. The most important of which is the fighting. You’ll have to wreck many crews on your way and it’s very satisfying. You’ll rarely be fighting 1v1 and Rockstar Toronto have come up with a very good multi-person fighting system, you can throw people into a crowd of people knocking them down, you can grapple them to the floor, kick them while they’re down, smash heads into walls and all sorts of brutal fighting. Double team moves are also thrown in so if you see a fellow Warrior holding someone up, run over and knee the person in the face in painful-looking slow motion. The world is also very interactive; bottles, bricks, bins, chairs, cars and shop windows are all smashable, or can be used as a weapon, it’s very cool smashing a guy in the head with a bottle then throwing him through a shop window or into the side of a car!
The tutorial will also teach you how to do spray painting, lock picking and stealing, which are kinda like mini games. For spraying you have to trace a W shape with the left analog stick. With stealing you have to rotate the right analog stick (to simulate undoing the screws) and lock picking is achieved by stopping the rotating locks in a certain place. What makes the missions and fighting even better is the co-operative play. You and a friend can go in and wreck any gang or cover each other when one is spray painting or lock picking. It’s not limited to one screen either, if you decided to split up or the action splits you up the screen splits into 2!
As well as the story missions there are a few other things to keep you busy for a while. There are bonus ‘flashback’ missions that go even further back in time, showing you how the members joined The Warriors. Also there is a ‘rumble mode’ which lets you create a gang and fight in all sorts of differently styled fights with content you’ve unlocked by doing bonus objectives in story mode.
If you’ve seen the movie you’ll notice how true to the source material the game is. From the old-school-style Paramount logo to the very first shot of the intro. All of the gangs you’ll remember from the movie are in the game and more have been added, so you’ll get to come across the Baseball Furies, Orphans, AC Turnbulls, Punks, Rouges and more. New gangs or gangs with a bigger roll are the Destroyers and Hi-Hats. Of course all of The Warriors are here, Cleon, Ajax, Snow, Cowboy, Rembrandt, Swan, Fox, Cochise and Vermin.
The Warriors is a very decent looking game, looking a lot like a more open version of its stablemate Manhunt. Everything is crisp and the character models look a lot like their real counterparts, and they receive damage during fights as well, so your character’ll be covered in cuts and bruises in no time. Everything takes place at night so it’s very dark and dingy, but captures the look and feel of the film greatly. Levels are big and fights can be huge featuring loads of gang members with hardly any slowdown at all.
The sound has also been a very strong point in Rockstar games for a while now, no matter which studio produces the game. From the very first music you hear you know the rest will be quality. The soundtrack is excellent and so is the voice work. Many of the film cast return to lend their voices. The things you hear on the streets or while fighting add so much to the atmosphere and feel of the game. You’ll hear people talking on the pay phone, shouting from their apartment windows if you’re making a racket, and you’ll hear the other gangs telling you what they think of you too (not holding anything back, all the ‘F’ words included).
Overall The Warriors is not only true to the film but is also an excellent game in its own right. The fighting is brutal yet varied and satisfying, the sound and graphics are great, there’s a 2 player co-op and loads to do. Rockstar always impress me with the overall quality of their games, so keep ‘em coming guys.
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