Joystiq

Rockstar has launched the website for The Warriors, their beat-'em-up street brawler in the style of classics like Double Dragon and Streets of Rage. In the game, players control a gang of brawlers and must fight their way through 20 miles of dangerous 1970s New York City territory infested with street gangs.

Since we can't review the game (yet), we'll give a quick review of the site. It's fantastic. First, it does us the basic decency of not loading sound on the default landing page.

The mood and art on the official flash site have a nice, dark style that evokes New York City on a summer night in the 1970s. The flash interactivity is not so newfangled that it's difficult to get to the screenshots (hey Microsoft, take a hint). The screenshots themselves aren't that impressive— the game looks like another reskinning of the GTA3 engine. Still, if the gameplay is there, we'll play it.

Navigation is easy. Click a subway station on the map and the site loads a medley of images depicting the gang turf surrounding that station, screenshots, and a movie for that area. The active stations right now are Coney Island, SoHo, Chinatown and Spanish Harlem, but it looks like other stations might be a part of the game.

And clowns. There are clowns in this game, and they like to ride in subway cars and fight. That's earning this game a spot on some wishlists right there.

The Warriors is due in October for the Playstation 2 and Xbox.