Anyone with a passing familiarity with The Warriors knows that it’s prime fodder for conversion into a decent video game. The cult movie centers on a rough and tumble Brooklyn street gang that’s framed for the murder of Cyrus, the most gangsta of gangstas, who holds an uptown meeting in Van Cortland Park in an attempt to solidify the various toughs into one monster gang that would pwn New York City. So our band of (fairly) good-hearted hoods must make it back home to Coney Island while being pursued by some of the oddest gangs that has ever appeared on film. It’s all about fighting from Point A to Point B in the concrete jungle – - a perfect beat ‘em up backdrop.
I first took a look at Paramount Digital Entertainment’s The Warriors: Street Brawl during the front end of the summer, and liked what appeared in the handful of screenshots. Well, the game is now available on XBLA , but is it worth the 800 MSP? That, friends, is a question answered for our full review (coming shortly), but I’ll share my initial impressions of this promising side-scrolling brawler.
I’ll be frank, I was surprised at The Warriors: Street Brawl‘s depth. No, it doesn’t follow my game plan on how a developer can resurrect beat ‘em ups, but it can be slightly more than a simple button masher if that’s what you fancy. Here’s how the control scheme breaks down:
Y = kick
X = punch/pick up weapon
A =jump
B = grab/drop weapon
LT = dash
LB = special
RT = block
RB = rage
Most of these buttons are fairly straight-forward in their descriptions save for Rage, which is a souped-up mode that your character enters when you manage to string together at least 10 hits in a row. When enraged your blows become more powerful, which is good, but when you’re dealing with swarms and swarms of enemies (and there are A LOT), racking up the required number of blows can be difficult to come by. When used strategically, baseball bats, knives, and other weapons help even the odds, as they serve up big damage.
The dark and grimy environments accurately portray the look and feel of the movie, but they become visually oppressive after extended play. Still, the character models are well-crafted representations of the movie characters, and they sport all of the outlandishly awesome costumes that has made the flick a cult classic. The music, however, is remarkably bland.
The Warriors: Street Brawl is shaping up to be a fairly entertaining brawler, at least in our brief time with the game thusfar. Check back soon for a full, detailed review.
