The Warriors
Genre: 3D Brawler / Adventure
Platform: PS2, XBox
Developer: Rockstar Games

The Warriors is one of those movies so goddamned steeped in “cult cred” that you can’t help but wonder how many of its legion purportedly die-hard fans have actually loved it for as long as they say and how many are on Netflix right now trying to cover up for years of fudging. Fortunately for everyone sick to shit of the claim game and all its attendant tudery, the guys at Rockstar (real fans, if you care) have spent the past six years creating an adaptation that basically blows all present and future questions of authentic enjoyment out of the water. To call their treatment of the film “meticulous” or “reverent” would be like saying that Westminster Abbey is a thing that’s in a place: it is borderline impossible to properly convey the degree of unyielding dedication to every aspect of the movie evidenced in the game without resorting to awkward cognates like “much much thorough” or “labor of loveveve.” The fighting actually resembles real human fighting; your AI gang members actually do things real gang members would do, like not get themselves killed; performing skills like picking locks or mugging people requires key combos that actually approximate the real thing you’re doing; people say cornball 70s shit like “youngblood” and “warchief” but it actually comes from their character instead of just being some bullshit “retro” joke.

And speaking of characters, the big Pelham Park meeting that opens the movie doesn’t happen until more than halfway through the game. Know why? Because Rockstar wanted to allow players as much time as possible to invest themselves in each of the Warriors so that getting them back to Coney wouldn’t just be a matter of course, but an inborn drive.

The ONLY drawback is that other than the standard repertoire of multiplayer modes, the gameplay is strictly mission-based, and the missions are pretty strictly area-based, so you can’t just tromp up to that place in Bensonhurst where all those ginos called you a “geey” and go to town on their surrogates’ cars. But whatever, you really shouldn’t let shit like that get you bent out of shape. Kids are dicks, you know?

BABY BALLS


Tony Hawk’s American Wasteland
Neversoft / Activision
Genre: Skateboarding

My brother asked me to review this game because he says he is too old for games like these. He is 28. I am nine years old and I like playing this game because you get to have fun changing your man’s outfit and his hairstyle all the time. Also there are lots of different places to bust your tricks on. My favourite programme is Viva La Bam so I like skateboarding a lot. This game is like Viva La Bam but a video game version. I don’t have my own deck yet but I sometimes borrow my brother’s.

SYRUP DAVIES’ NINE-YEAR-OLD SISTER HAYLEY


Gun
Neversoft / Activision
PS2
Genre: Western

This is pretty similar to Rockstar’s under-rated Red Dead Revolver game that came out last year. Difference here is that Neversoft have taken the game to a whole new level of political incorrectness. For the training level you have to slaughter wolves, bears and elks. Later on you have to defend a bridge from a gang of whooping Native American Indians by blowing their heads off. There’s also a hundred whores running around the game through the ghost towns of the gaming environment at all times.

GOREY MELTMAN