Publisher: Rockstar
Ages: Teens
Parental
Advisory:
Violence, gang
behavior, language
Violence
Rating:
It's amazing that a somewhat
obscure, twenty-five-old movie could possibly have relevance today as a video
game. But Rockstar's excellent
The Warriors, based on the movie of the same name, serves a violent
and entertaining experience. The movie provides the gritty, other world setting,
and the able designers at Rockstar built a first rate game.
As in the movie, a gang that's known as The Warriors is wrongly accused of killing a rival gang leader and must make their way from one end of New York to their turf on the other side of the city in Coney Island. What stands between The Warriors and their survival are 20 miles and thousands of gang members that have declared open season on them.
With this simple premise, the action begins, and there's a lot of it. The game is a fighting, beat-‘em up style game that serves brawls in gritty street settings with destructible environments and various weapons. Throughout, the game manages to capture the edgy feel of the movie. It even features voices of some of the original actors from the film.
The game serves lots of missions and beyond fighting, allows players to learn about the Warriors-its leaders and its history-something that the movie didn't delve into. While players control the game's main characters, these guys are rough, street-wise hooligans who behave like the appalling criminals that they are-looting, extorting, robbing and more. It's all part of the game.
There's a decent cooperative mode and other multi-player activities that extend the fun. But it's the main story mode and its all-out brawling that makes the game. The Warriors is not family fare, but neither was the original movie. As such, The Warriors is one of the best action games to come along in some time, and its ability to convey characters as well as a story make it a fresh standout.
-Wayne N. Kawamoto
