"Real mean, and real heavy"

As much as I like games to give me an intellectual challenge, at times I feel like just beating some sorry mother's brains out. It used to be you couldn't swing your dead cat in an arcade or Toys R Us without hitting half a dozen games that were all about that, from Final Fight to Knights of the Round, but the fields of beat 'em up games have become fallow in recent years. Then, in October 2005, word reaches my ears of supposedly great new offering based on a 70's cult movie.

Story-7/10
I can't say the story is anything brilliant, being heavily based on a movie that doesn't exactly have an amazing premise. There's this guy named Cyrus who wants to unify all the gangs in New York City, but at the meeting where he unveils his plans to the city's gangs, a sociopath named Luther shoots him and frames the members of the Warriors, who have to get past every gang in the city to get to their home turf.

Better than the old school "beat up every gang member in the city to save your girlfriend" plot (wait until you beat it, though), but still, not a plot that makes me weep in awe. What gives the story a decent score is that the events of the movie only account for the last third of the game. It starts a couple of months before the meeting, with the main Warriors coming together, interacting with other gangs and building their rep to the point that they're included in Cyrus's grand vision. This, to me, gave the setting and the characters a depth that the movie didn't. I got attached to the characters, and I felt something when I realized not all the Warriors were going to make it back to Coney. When I watched the movie...I didn't.

Graphics-7/10
They get the job done, but I can't say I was overly impressed. The game is really dark, since almost everything happens in the middle of the night, and sometimes when there's fifteen guys beating the juice out of each other around you it can be easy to mistake a fellow Warrior as someone you want to feed his own teeth if you're not fighting those guys in the bright yellow jackets. Most everything else is easy to identify, though.

Audio-8/10
The voices in the game aren't bad at all, with several supplied by the original actors (I bet Michael Beck and James Remar were glad to give people something to remind them they were actually in a decent movie once). During cinemas you can choose to have the dialogue subtitled, which I never found to be necessary. The game also shares the movie's soundtrack, playing on menu screens on when your character is near a radio, with a couple of memorable songs in it. Even better, different Warriors have different "battle phrases" that they spout off when they slug it out with enemies, and they're never annoying (as they were in the PS2 TMNT game). Pretty good performance here.

Gameplay-7/10
As a basic beat 'em up game, The Warriors delivers a solid experience, giving you the ability to combine light and heavy attacks, grapple and throw enemies, and use just about anything smaller than a phone booth as a weapon. There's also extra points to be had for attacking an enemy grappled by another Warrior, and a "rage mode" that makes you temporarily invincible after you deal out enough hurt. The stronger your Warrior, the longer it lasts.

I've never been a huge fan of Rockstar's Grand Theft Auto series, but I did like the freedom the game afforded you to go wherever you wanted and take on missions at your own convenience. The Warriors, on the other hand, is extremely rigid in how you progress through the game, and limiting your activities outside the main experience to an area within two or three blocks of your hideout. Me, I would've enjoyed some optional missions that let you explore other areas of the city.

Moreover, you get to control almost all of the Warriors from the movie over the course of the game, but the focus of the next level decides who you get to be at any given time, so if the emphasis is on piecing (laying down graffiti), then Rembrandt, who's a wuss but has no equal at picking locks or spraying the gang's mark, will be your man. If the focus is on pounding anything that moves, you'll probably control a Warrior with all brawn and no brains like Ajax. You don't even get to choose who to be if you go on side missions to unlock extra features in the main game, so if you decide to go on the mission where you hve to save a bunch of arrested dealers and aren't in control of one who's good at uncuffing, you're either forced to take several tries to unlock one guy, or wait until you get control of a Warrior who's better at it without the benefit of your prize for completing the side mission while you wait. Let's just say you're gonna be so glad for cuff keys when you play the second Orphans level.

There are bonus goals in each level, which allow you to unlock new characters to use in "Rumble Mode," which finally let you stage the dream matches of the Warriors vs. the rich couples from the train or the Boppers vs. that girl from the candy store. I'm not kidding, either. There are even optional flashback levels that show how the main Warriors got together, but all they're good for besides that is unlocking more Rumble Mode features and letting you play Armies of the Night after you beat the regular game.

Nicely, there's a great implementing of cooperative play which lets a second player enter and leave the game whenever he wants, instead of forcing you to start over if someone else wants to join in or decides they don't want to play anymore. Why did it take so long for anybody to think of that?

The gameplay is solid, endearing the Warriors to me in a way the movie couldn't have, and is a breath of fresh air for fans of games like Double Dragon who've been thirsting for a fresh entry in the genre. On the downside, the rigid progression takes away replay value, and at least for me damages the appeal to go on side missions if you aren't in control of an appropriate Warrior.

Overall-8/10 (not averaged)
The Warriors, when it all comes down to it, is a good game that manages to inject some life into a genre that's gone stale and, in my humble opinion, is a lot more fun than the movie it was based on. It has some things that could have been done a little better, but I haven't had as much fun wrecking a bunch of stupid fools in a long time.

Pros
+Innovative two player system
++Solid fighting experience
+Diverse selection of characters

Cons
-No control over choice of characters
-Low incentive to replay
-What kind of test of skill is pushing one button really fast to run away from something?

Reviewer's Score: 8/10, Originally Posted: 02/27/06, Updated 04/18/06