The Warriors

Written by Nick Doukas  on June 29, 2005

First Impressions: Can you dig it??!!

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ФSomewhere out on that horizon, Out beyond the neon lights.
I know there must be somethin' better, but there's nowhere else in sight.
It's survival in the city, when you live from day to day.
City streets don't have much pity, when you're down, that's where you'll stay.Ф Ц Joe Walsh, 1979

The Warriors, director Walter Hill's take on the novel by Sol Yurick, which itself is an inspired retelling of Xenophon's Anabasis, remains to this day a pop culture classic, a film whose cult status has been well cemented over the last 20 years. The original story tells the tale of the 10,000 under Cyrus Ц Greek warriors who, in the year 401 BC, found themselves deep behind enemy lines, cut off from reinforcements and alone, faced with an incredibly dangerous journey back to their homeland. In the film, it's late 70's New York City that stands in for ancient Asia Minor, and the Greek soldiers are now members of an inner city gang from Coney Island. As the movie opens, representatives from The Warriors are on their way up to the Bronx to attend a peaceful meeting of all the gangs in New York. The gathering is initiated by Cyrus, the charismatic leader of the Gramercy Riffs, who's impassioned УCan you dig it?!Ф speech invokes the film poster's tagline - "These are the armies of the night. They are 100,000 strong. They outnumber the cops five to one. They could run New York City." In other words, Cyrus attempts to convince the gangs to unite. The meeting goes smoothly until Luther, leader of The Rogues, blows Cyrus off the podium with a hand cannon. Spying The Warrior's leader Cleon amidst the ensuing chaos, Luther points and utters the now famous line Ц УThe Warrior's did it. The Warriors shot Cyrus!Ф From that point on, it's a race against time and every gang in the city to get back to Brooklyn with their livesЕ

The strength of the story, and the underground popularity of the film, are the primary reasons you're reading about a Rockstar licensed game that's based on a 25 year old film that was only a moderate box-office success. Fortunately, it's a perfect fit for the folks that brought you the GTA games and Manhunt. If anyone truly УgetsФ pop culture icons, it's Rockstar. At its core, The Warriors is an open ended brawler that features plenty of hard-hitting action and mission based craziness. Since the entire film takes place in one night, the game world of The Warriors will feature a hub, located in The Warriors hangout and represented by a NYC subway map, that will allow players to freely take on tasks that occur in the months leading up to the events depicted in the movie. The first half of the game will feature the УsandboxФ style of gameplay popularized by the GTA franchise Ц until you work your way up to the infamous meeting in the Bronx, after which the remainder of the adventure will play out in a more linear fashion that follows the narrative of the film. Which means you'll have to deal with the many colorful gangs from the movie, including The Orphans, the baseball bat wielding Furies, and the all girl gang The Lizzies. Plus you'll likely have to drag that nasty skank Deborah Van Valkenburgh along as well.

As for gameplay, Rockstar Toronto has envisioned a brutal brawler that more than lives up to its license. Creating a modern beat-em-up with hardcore gang-fighting elements is the goal, and to that end, a deceptively simple yet extremely complex battle system is in place here. Utilizing face buttons, players will have access to a light attack, as well as a heavy one. Obviously, alternately tapping these buttons will string together impressive combos that mix up both approaches. As well, you'll be able to call on Уsnap attacksФ to take on multiple enemies at once since, as in the film, you'll be outnumbered ten to one every time. A location-based auto-targeting system will focus on your main opponent, but with a flick of the analog stick, you'll be able to perform a quick countermove on an enemy coming up behind you, something along the lines of an elbow strike to the face or possibly a backfist. You'll also engage in ground-fighting and grappling, as you'll be able to grab and throw opponents to the concrete. You can also toss them through crates or other environmental objects, and drag them along the ground to boot. You can be grabbed as well, but the combat system includes a defensive breaker that can free you from a rival gang member's grasp with proper timing.

The Warriors will feature three distinct fighting styles: street fighter, brawler, and kung fu. Street fighter is a balanced style based on western boxing techniques that's both dominant and wildly unpredictable. Kung fu fighters use smooth, carefully orchestrated blows and chops to whittle away an opponent's strength. Finally, brawler will be an all out brutality seminar, with face-stomps, head-butts, and other wincingly painful assaults that showcase the hand-to-hand violence prevalent in a gang era before guns were widespread. The Warriors also sports a УrageФ mode that comes into play as you perfect and perform more elaborate combos. Once engaged, you'll have no trouble taking out multiple opponents with a few powerful blows. The rage mode will reward players who take the time to learn the combos instead of just button mashing, as the latter will make it more difficult to obtain the necessary prerequisites needed to activate it. Not content with mere fisticuffs you say? Well, you'll be able to scavenge items from the environments to use as weapons too. You'll have - at your disposal - baseball bats, wooden planks, broken bottles, iron pipes and more, including the possibility of Molotov cocktails and perhaps even the incorporation of firearms into gameplay.

At its heart, The Warriors is a game about the camaraderie of gang members, and as expected the developers have established that as a major element of play. As War Chief, you'll be able to issue simple commands to your troops, such as Hold Up, Let's Go, and Trash. Respectively, your guys will stay put, follow behind you, or destroy a designation of your choosing. As well, the teamwork aspect comes into play during battle, and you'll find that your boys will grab and hold opponents for you to pummel, and vice versa.

In addition, an exploration component takes up a sizeable chunk of the gameplay, and you'll be able to fully investigate the world of The Warriors. Things like climbing fences, running and jumping across rooftops, clambering up fire escapes and ladders, and generally poking your nose into most everything you encounter will be par for the course here. Running from the cops and using the environment to escape looks to capture the gritty feeling of gang life as a Warrior nicely. Additional free-roaming activities include mugging unsuspecting citizens, boosting car stereos, and relieving local businesses of any and all of their surplus cash to help afford УFlashФ, the street drug which acts as a health power-up in the game.

Visually, The Warriors is shaping up nicely, with the game's engine capturing the raw flavor of Hill's film quite well. The character models of the gang members look exactly like their on-screen counterparts, and wherever possible, Rockstar is tapping the original actors to do voice work. The environments look great, with sharp textures and nicely detailed buildings, cars and storefronts, as well as realistic lighting and shadow effects. Expect many of the original songs from the movie's soundtrack to show up here also, and the usual Rockstar attention to detail seems to permeate the sound work for the game thus far.