Grand Theft Auto may be Rockstar's bread and butter franchise but it doesn't stop the publisher from developing other games, in particular the underappreciated Manhunt, Red Dead Revolver, and most recently The Warriors, a 3D beat-em-up based on the 1979 film. Whether it'll turn out to be a huge success or a colossal flop is certainly up for debate, but based on what I've seen the developers appear to be on the right track.

Walter Hill's classic film chronicles the lives of The Warriors, a NYC gang that's about to experience the worst night of their lives. The Big Apple has become gang central, a "retched hive of scum and villainy". It's so bad that gang members outnumber the police by a whopping 5 to 1 margin. With those types of numbers they could take over the entire city, but because they're not the sharpest blades in the power saw they've been murdering one another for control of territory as well as to show off how tough they are.

Cyrus, a powerful gang leader who has some serious pull in NY decides to hold a meeting to announce his plan to join forces, thus uniting all of the rival factions (in a Voltron sort of way) and house them under one roof. That seemed like a great idea until somebody shot Cyrus and pinned his death on The Warriors. Now, with over 100,000 pissed off gang members out to tear them a new @$$, The Warriors (all nine of them) must make it from the Bronx to the other side of the city without losing any appendages.

So that's the jist of what's going on. All you've got to do is make it back home without getting killed. That shouldn't be too much of a problem since the city is easy to navigate around, especially since it's just a $#&%^&$ grid. However, your primary mode of transport is the subway, and if you've never been down there it's actually pretty scary, so scratch that. You'll probably get the $#$% beaten out of you.

Since this is a beat-em-up, and unless you plan on becoming a punching bag, you'll be able to dazzle your opponents with punches, kicks, throws, and special maneuvers as well as strike fear into their sorry behinds by attacking them with all sorts of weapons, though guns aren't in your future. Electing to keep things up close and personal, the developers ditched firearms, though melee weapons such as meat cleavers, knives, bottles, baseball bats, and bricks can be just as fun to use.

While you'll be able to play as all of the characters (Rembrandt, Swan, Cowboy, Vermin, Snow, Cochise, Cleon, Ajax, and Fox) throughout the course of the game, your adventure won't always be a solo affair. Not only will your comrades fight along side you, but you'll be able to issue War Chief commands to them. None of these commands are particularly sophisticated (you just tell them to stay, follow, or attack), but it makes the game a little more than just a mindless button masher.

There is a HUD in the game located at the lower right hand corner of the screen. Not only does it display your surroundings, but it also lets you know how healthy your character is, so if it's in the green you're doing fine, but if it's orange or red you should fix yourself, the only way being to pump him or her full of an illegal substance known as Flash. Naturally, the only way to score some drugs is to pony up some dough, and the only way to acquire the cash is to perform gang-related activities. These include stealing car stereos and mugging people, and the developers have made things interesting by crafting mini games for each. The stereo game, for example, requires you to rotate the analog sticks, which is supposed to simulate unscrewing the device, while the mugging game also involves some skilled analog stick manipulation (because the owner of that wallet doesn't exactly want to give to you). It's not complicated stuff, but like the War Chief commands it helps to add some necessary variety to the gameplay.

Visually, The Warriors has more personality than most of the urban-themed titles coming out this year. Rockstar's done an excellent job capturing the likenesses of the film's characters, and the game bleeds 1970's style. However, the best part is the engine's ability to handle more than 10 characters on the screen at once, so these decently sized skirmishes may turn out to be one of the game's better features. I'm also impressed at the varying levels of change someone's body can go through. The cuts, scrapes, and gashes that appear after getting beaten up is a cool graphical feature.

As for the game's environments, I'm not sure if Rockstar is accurately modeling NYC, but the environments are varied and well detailed. Being able to romp about Coney Island should be fun times indeed.

I'm always happy to see companies exploring new avenues so I'm looking forward to checking out The Warriors when it's released on October 17. Rockstar's certainly proven that it's capable of making decent games that don't have the letters G-T-A in the titles, and if the fighting mechanics are solid there's no reason why the publisher's latest brawler will fail. However, it's up against some stiff competition, and unless the game's developers have captured the spirit of the movie, it may wind up being just another fighting game to toss onto the pile.