Nevertheless, I wonder if everyone who plays The Warriors will respond that way. The sheer gratuity of the game’s violence left me detached and disinterested in proceeding any further. Perhaps 20 minutes into administering this mindless, pointless beating to homeless men, I thought, This is entertainment? As I kept playing, that initial (and upon reflection, justified) revulsion slowly morphed into something I’m positive the game’s designers didn’t intend: boredom. Still, zombie-like, he kept getting up for more. At one point, I concentrated all my blows on a single, dim-witted soul, hitting him over and over and over-what seemed like hundreds of times. But The Warriors‘ game mechanics made it difficult to discern how close I was to dispatching these combatants. Most games include some kind of life-bar that indicates how close an enemy is to death. Even after it seemed I’d learned these basic offensive moves, the drunks kept coming and coming … and coming. In the first level, for example, Rembrandt relentlessly throttles bums with his hands and then bludgeons them with a baseball bat. On a more subjective level, however, I found the intense hand-to-hand combat in The Warriors more dehumanizing than games that deal death via automatic weapons. The Warriors‘ includes the phrase “intense violence.” What’s the difference between mere “violence” and viciousness that warrants the modifier “intense”? On a purely technical level, it means a lot of bloodshed-sadly, no big surprise for those familiar with this genre. The back cover of just about every video game sold in America includes a content-descriptor box. It goes without saying-but needs to be said-that the police are sworn enemies. To restore their health, characters need to buy “flash,” a snorted drug similar to cocaine. After that gang initiation, Rembrandt goes on a crime spree with another Warrior who coaches him on how to steal car stereos, mug innocent pedestrians and break into stores to pocket cash (all necessary activities throughout the game). The first level, for example, is a training exercise in which a young tough named Rembrandt learns to fight by mercilessly pounding drunken vagabonds. In keeping with this urban-warfare theme, virtually every activity characters engage in is illegal. Incredibly, the brutality depicted-and required-in this game makes the Grand Theft Auto series almost look tame by comparison. That list begins with your own body parts (fists, elbows, feet and knees), but also includes baseball bats, wrenches, crowbars, broomsticks, sledge hammers, meat cleavers … even frying pans. The Warriors game-playing logic is decidedly Neanderthal: Beat every enemy in your path into bloody submission using any blunt-or sharp-implement at hand. The “only” thing that stands between the Warriors and safety is 20 miles of hostile inner-city territory. Now, they’re all after the Warriors, bent on impeding your gang’s progress … permanently. Not incidentally, that rival leader had been trying to rally New York’s 60,000 gangbangers into an army to take on the city’s 20,000 police. It puts you in the shoes of nine characters in the Warriors gang, which has been wrongly accused of assassinating a rival leader. When the hero’s a big blank, no amount of slickly staged fight scenes can compensate.The Warriors-the latest urban turf-war offering from Grand Theft Auto publisher Rockstar Games-takes its title, setting and plotline from the 1979 movie of the same name. Aside from the amusingly grumpy Bautista, no one here develops much personality - not even Jack. Think “The Princess Bride” meets “The Last Starfighter.”īut while Bresson’s presence as a writer-producer assures a certain baseline level of competence, this movie ultimately lacks the characters and imagination to make it anything more than a passable entertainment. “Enter the Warriors Gate” mashes up an old-fashioned, family-friendly fantasy quest - more concerned with magic and high-flying stunts than blood-and-guts - with the tale of an idle youngster who discovers how to put his years of playing adventure games to good use. Uriah Shelton stars as Jack, a high school geek who comes into the possession of a mysterious box, which turns out to be a portal to a fantastical version of medieval Asia where a barbarian warrior (Dave Bautista) has abducted a princess (Ni Ni), leaving Jack and the royal’s protector (Mark Chao) to track her down. Zombies”) and co-screenwriter Robert Kamen (who previously worked with Besson on his “Transporter” and “Taken” series), the French impresario tells a story that encompasses ancient Chinese sword-and-sorcery, teen romance, hip-hop and video games. Working with director Matthias Hoene (best known for the cult hit “Cockneys vs. Like a lot of Luc Besson productions, the international martial arts extravaganza “Enter the Warriors Gate” mostly just assembles multiple salable elements into a shiny package.
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