The Warriors : Street Brawl Review

The Warriors: Street Brawl


The story of The Warriors stretches back all the way to 1965
when Sol Yurick released his novel detailing gang life in New York City.
Fourteen years later, with his help, the book was turned into a movie which
immediately garnered cult status. Then, in 2005, a video game adaptation was
released, covering the events leading up to and including the movie. The game,
like its source material, was praised by critics for its deep combat and
control and breathing life back into the long forgotten brawler genre.


And now we find ourselves in 2009 and a new “Warriors” game,
complete with original story.


The general look of this game feels like a graphic novel. There
is an interesting mix between action and still screen – complete with speech
bubbles I might add - set pieces and you feel as though you are a spotty 13
year old, generously pumping 10p’s into the arcade machine. It really does
conjure memories of playing Double Dragon in the local chip-shop. Graphically
things are far more advanced than the days of the sprites, and the environments
and character models are nicely realised, staying true to the gritty and sombre
source material, just in a more cartoony way.


The nostalgia doesn’t end there either. Taking its cues from
classics such as the aforementioned Double Dragon, Final Fight and Streets of
Rage, The Warriors: Street Brawl is a sideways scrolling beat-em-up. For those
too young to remember, your character walks from left to right across the
screen, doling out beatings to multiple groups of enemies as you progress.


There are several game modes on offer too. Needless to say,
there is a story mode to work your way through featuring level after level of
button mashing. There is also an arcade mode, which is for all intents and
purposes exactly the same as story mode. Once you have finished the story, a
boss battle mode unlocks too. And to top it all off, a multiplayer mode, which
is the arcade mode but with up to four people. I’m seeing a pattern here.


“So what is it like?” I hear you ask. Well, in a nutshell, dull.
Sure, it all looks very nice, and is accompanied by a not too bad soundtrack,
but the actual game-play is marginally less fun than hacking off your hand with
a blunt instrument. Yes, there is nostalgia by the bucket full, but the game
adds nothing new to the genre. The side-scrolling beat-em-up has been
invigorated by such games as Castle Crashers in recent years, along with
countless online flash games, and in this basis, TW:SB looks very dated.


It really doesn’t
help either that it is so damn hard. Now, don’t get me wrong, I know
beat-em-ups of this nature are meant to be. They always were. But this is
ridiculous. The fights themselves are unbalanced, and whilst there is a block
feature, it is rendered pointless when, immediately after a block, you are
punched or kicked again. This means that the act of blocking is just something
to fend off the inevitable rather than gain an advantage. The bad guys are also
over-powered. Often I found myself surrounded by three or four guys with far
too much health in comparison to myself. Needless to say, four lives had been
used by around half way through the first level.


The game also has its share of glitches. One example being
the big bad guy that got himself punched behind the scenery. I’m sure he was
happy, as it meant he couldn’t be touched, but for me and my online compadres,
it meant we couldn’t progress and the game was aborted.


It is a shame really. The reference material has been
examined closely, and lovingly recreated to a point, but the end product is
unimaginative and overly hard. There is still a market out there for this kind
of game, although smaller, and they do still love the challenge. But for the
mass market, and for those with a fondness for the original book or movie, this
just doesn’t cut the mustard. It is a good effort, and you can tell it hasn’t
been thrown together in somebody’s lunch break. It does have its merits, but
these are few and far between I’m afraid.


5/10

the trial was absolute pants immediately deleted