"Oh, please, no! Not another Atari retro title!" Those were the likely sentiments of gamers when finding out Warlords was coming to XBox Live Arcade. True enough, Atari does not exactly have a good reputation when it comes to retro titles on XBLA, but something is definitely different this time around, with Warlords.
The game on hand is a four-player mash-up of Pong and Breakout. Each player has a two-wall castle in one of the four corners of the screen. Each controls a shield hovering around the front of the walls, blocking them from fireballs. Each time you fail to block one, a chunk of your castle wall breaks away; slowly allowing access to your 'king' behind the wall. Players can also 'catch' the fireball. So long as you hold the button down, the ball gains power. It turns the ball into a 'powerball', adding speed and damage ability to the ball. Charging the ball does have its own risks, as the sparks from the ball do minor damage to your own wall behind your shield. It gives the game a little bit of strategy underneath all the hectic gameplay. As the round goes on, the game releases more balls, adding to the manic action. When a fireball hits a player's king, they are out of the game. The player with the last king standing is the winner.
At first glance, it appears that Atari is up to its old tricks, offering a 'classic' and 'evolved' version of the game, with 'normal' and 'throttle monkey' difficulties for each. Jumping into the 'classic' game, you will notice a handful of glaring issues that will leave you questioning your sanity for purchasing the title. Being such an early game, produced originally in 1980, there is no soundtrack to speak up; leaving only the dull thud of the balls hitting shields or walls to fill the vacant air. The original console game used the classic paddle controllers, which worked fine for sliding around your shield from one wall to the next. Using the left-stick to do the same can be extremely frustrating, thanks to the tiny size of your shield. The 360 controls make for jittery movements that can make you easily miss the fireball.
Making matters worse, the balls themselves never quite bounce off the walls or the shields the way you expect them to. When releasing a charged ball along directly at the bottom of your opponent's wall, you would expect it to fly straight back at you. Unfortunately, that almost never happens. Instead, the ball frequently takes a fast upward angle over your shield, doing the same damage to your own wall before you can react. It makes the game as much about luck as it does skill. How much of the wall that breaks apart with each hit is also strange on the retro version. Since the wall is all one big glob of pixels, sometimes the ball will hit a super sized chunk of wall and sometimes you will hardly notice anything missing at all. There is also the occasional slowdown, which seems oddly authentic, and A.I. issues. The old school gameplay seems to focus all three computer players against only you at all times, making it difficult to win even a single round.
With all these issues, why should you care about this title? Well, because the developers seem to have left the classic game in tact as a way of showing off just how much they fixed in the 'evolved' version. Too many previous Atari 'evolved' versions slapped on some slightly upgraded graphics and left the gameplay alone, for better or worse. It gets the same old graphical upgrade that you are used to seeing, with slick HD graphics giving a metallic gleam to your shiny new castles and a sparking trail to the fireballs, but they did not stop with the visuals this time. The shields are much larger, and more manageable with the left-stick controls. A paddle control set would probably still work best, but the more responsive shields are definitely just fine with the 360 controller. They also replace the naked sound of the original with a fiery electronic-industrial rock blend serving as the backdrop to the upgraded sound effects.
The slowdown is also gone, as gone, as are the awkward ball bounces. The fireballs bounce true in the evolved version, leaving you with more control over what is happening on the board. More clearly defined bricks guarding your 'king' leave no guesswork as to how much wall disappears with each hit. Developers also took the time to balance the A.I. for computer players. The other three computer opponents are no longer out to get only you, and will perform catch and charged powerball throws aimed at each other to keep things balanced. The frantic, harried nature of the game remains the same, leaving it a challenge to get to round three on evolved, instead of round two on classic. They also added the ability to 'tilt' the table to a forty-five degree angle, but the game is hard enough, with the top-down view, without adding a new perspective to the mix.
With the issues plaguing the classic game resolved, the evolved version of the game becomes a challenging, addictive gaming experience, thanks to its simplistic design and quickly ramping difficulty. Somehow the great retro games were a blast regardless of how good you are at them, with many even becoming more fun the worse you were at them. The same remains true here, with the game compelling you to keep at it, despite rarely making it very far in. With the ability to play with up to four players either on the same console or over Live, the only real issue with the shiny new version is the general public shunning this title most likely due to Atari's past sins. It is unfortunately difficult to get a game going online with two players, let alone four. Still, the option is there, should gamers choose to open their hearts and wallets to Atari again. They have earned it with this one.
Warlords is a surprisingly good value at the 400 MS Point price. By correcting the glaring issues with the classic, Atari has delivered the kind of product gamers have wanted from them all along. The quality of Warlords fuels excitement for the other damaged gems they could find and polish in their vault.
