The Warriors First Trailer Impressions

It seems like every gritty, big-name crime drama from the '70s and early '80s is on its way to consoles in some form, from The Godfather and Scarface to Taxi Driver and even Clint Eastwood's own Dirty Harry. Rockstar's upcoming video game rendition of The Warriors is the unlikeliest of the bunch. The rest of these movies are award winners and revered in mainstream critical circles, while Walter Hill's 1979 tale of New York gang warfare is most fondly remembered by a less academic, more streetwise crowd.

Rockstar has finally released the first footage of the game, giving us a taste of what to expect when The Warriors hits this fall. This will clearly be a game with strong cinematic elements, given that the action scenes in the trailer are intercut with a CG version of the early scene in the film where Cyrus preaches to all of the gangs of New York in an attempt to unify them. You can bet that all of the gangs from the movie, from the Rogues to the Baseball Furies to the Lizzies, will be making appearances--in some violent scene or another--in the game.

The game action in the trailer is as hard-hitting as you'd expect from a game based on The Warriors, with scenes of bloody hand-to-hand fighting, a car being torched with a Molotov cocktail, and another car getting trashed by The Warriors, who are wielding bats and pipes--you know, typical gang stuff. The characters mirror their real-life counterparts, and you'll see Ajax, Cleon, Swan, Cowboy, and Rembrandt, all looking as heavy as ever. As all the real-time action is presented cinematically, it's hard to say exactly how the game itself will play in final form. But from what's on display in the trailer, it looks like fans will be getting all the down and dirty action that they'd want from the movie.

The Warriors is slated to hit PS2s and Xboxes at Coney Island and everywhere else this October. Stay tuned for more.