|  Take2 interactive is offering
something new to the PSX market-- games that cost ten bucks. This is a pretty cool idea in
and of itself, but to offer a bare bone, no frills, crappy graphics, gaming experience is
to walk a fine line between a great bargain and a bad game at any price. One thing,
straight forward; I believe that games that sell for ten bucks shouldn’t be judged on
the same rigorous scale as a game that goes for forty or fifty dollars. That said, Grudge
Warriors offers a questionable gaming experience that is difficult to recommend even at
such a remarkably cheap price.
 Grudge Warriors is
a vehicular combat game along the lines of the Twisted Metal and Vigilante 8 series. You
choose from eleven different gangs each sporting a theme vehicle that comes equipped with
its own special weapon, and four conventional weapons which all vehicles have in common.
During the course of the battle you will be able to fill a sixth weapon slot with items
such as invisibility and invulnerability. Each level contains a number of power generators
that must be destroyed. Enemy vehicles and other defenses like wall mounted cannons will
attempt to bar your way.
 Graphically speaking,
Grudge Warriors looks like a very early first generation PlayStation game. This is a nice
way of saying that they are ugly. The textures are poor and pixilated, and the pop up is
horrendous. Objects will phase in and out of existence right before your eyes, and
you’ll just have to get used to it. I wasn’t expecting a graphical juggernaut
from such a low budget game, so the graphics were really no surprise, but if you’re
going to play it at all you will first have to look past the visual famine.
 Although there are
eleven selectable vehicles, this moderately impressive number is a bit misleading since
all of the vehicles function in basically the same way. There are only a couple of
slightly different designs, so all the vehicles are basically cookie cutter reproductions
that offer only minor aesthetic differences and virtually no variety. The special weapons
have a little more variety in that they look a little different, but there is little
difference in their function.
 As far as control goes,
anyone who’s gone a few rounds with another car combat game will recognize the
control scheme immediately. An auto aim is included, which is very fortunate because the
manual aim is very difficult and impossible to do if you’re moving. Grudge Warriors
could have been improved with more emphasis on the D pad, but as it stands you must use
the accelerate button to move forward and the reverse button to move backward. The D pad
functions only to turn the vehicle, while the up and down directions have no function,
making the control much more awkward than other games in the genre. The biggest problem
with the control, and with the game itself, is that it moves so blasted slow. While
slugging it out in a death-match should be fast and furious, Grudge Warriors is very
methodical as the vehicles plod along in a combat that grows tedious after a couple of
games.
 My position on Grudge
Warriors can be summed up pretty simply. It’s essentially a Catch 22 that leaves
little room to recommend the game at any price. If you’re a long time fan of car
combat games, than you probably own at least some of the Twisted Metal and Vigilante 8
games, in which case you will find the switch to a game of dramatically inferior quality
difficult to adjust to, and will be longing for the pulse pounding speed and eye candy
that these better games offer. If you’re new to the car combat genre and/or on a
limited gaming budget then you’re better off grabbing any number of the Twisted Metal
games or Vigilante 8 which are now offered as PlayStation’s greatest hits and run
around twenty bucks. Alternatively you can look into used games, or even better you might
find used games from the greatest hits line up that will probably be comparably priced to
Grudge Warriors. At best, Grudge Warriors will give you a few hours of relatively mindless
multi-player action, in which case renting a game is also a suitable alternative. After
all, if you don’t have fun while playing the game, then ten dollars is really no
value at all.
--Jeff Luther |
