The Warriors: Street Brawl Comic-Con Preview
Don’t we just love games based on movie franchises? More often than not, titles are rushed out the door of any given studio in order to coincide with the release of said movie and the time and effort given to the project shows, often reaching “utter crap” status. There are exceptions of course. In the case of Paramount’s upcoming The Warriors: Street Brawl, the game is more of an homage, helping to celebrate the film’s 30th anniversary. We had a chance to speak with Paramount at Comic-Con 09.
For those who are unfamiliar with the 1979 film, based on the 1965 novel of the same name, The Warriors tells the underworld story of a New York street gang called, surprise The Warriors. Cyrus, leader of a rival gang, considered the most powerful in the city, calls for a truce among all gangs in order to better control the city. During the conclave meeting to arrange it, Cyrus is shot and killed and blame is placed on a member of the Warriors causing a rift in the chain of command and every gang in the city out for Warriors blood to avenge his death or collect the bounty placed on their heads. The film follows these anti-heroes as they try to clear their names and survive long enough to get back to their home territory.
Which is exactly where the game goes. Using well rendered comic-style interstitials, the story is told in-between the brawling game play. Up to four players can take on the gang hordes in local or online co-op, as well as each other in versus mode. It plays like a classic side scrolling fighter a la Double Dragon or Final Fight. Punch and kick through 7 levels of story, but pick up the occasional 2×4, knife, baseball or molotov cocktail to clear a path through subway cars and platforms, a cemetery, under train tresses and back home to the beaches of Coney Island. Enlist a friend or two to help with combo moves and grapples to make things more interesting.
Our preview was pretty straight forward. Like most brawl games, The Warriors is basically a button masher. The preview build we played felt a little sluggish control wise, but that’s not uncommon for this kind of game play. What I did like was the dingy, dark city-underbelly look and the very 70’s feel of the costume and prop design, accurate to the movie.
The Warriors: Street Brawl has a lot of potential, particularly because the core gaming audience will likely have fond memories of the pic from their childhood, not to mention the growing cult-status it has earned in the past decade or so.
The Warriors: Street Brawl is set to smash its way onto Xbox Live in late September, followed by a PS3 release shortly thereafter and come in at around $10.
Bonus: For the ultra fans out there, there was talk of wanting to make customizable avatar items (how about a Warriors jacket?) available. Just leave leg-warmers out of the picture, those should NEVER come back.
