#0021 Warlords

Tell me if this game sounds familiar to you. It's a game where you play as a paddle and your goal is to hit a ball at a series of blocks, the goal being to break through those blocks at the top of the screen. Sound familiar? Well what about a game where you play as a paddle, the goal being to hit a ball back at your opponent while avoiding missing the ball yourself. If the games you were thinking of were Breakout and Pong... You'd be right. But if you were thinking of Warlords, a game developed by Atari four to eight years later because you read the title of today's review... Yeah, you'd still be right. Yep, it took 'em four years and dozens of clones by other companies, but Atari finally did it. They combined Pong and Breakout into one game and called it Warlords.

In this game you play as one of four “warlords” in one of the four corners of the screen. You're guarded by what looks like, maybe, a brick wall? Topped with... You know I'm not even sure what those six things sticking out are supposed to be. I know what they're NOT they're NOT battlements because there's a big hole in the middle of each that would defeat point of using them as cover. Your goal is to defend this big square from an onslaught of fireballs by deflecting them with only one shield. Your goal is to deflect the fireball back at the darth vaders, whittling down their walls to get to the soft creamy warlord center. Once you hit a darth vader directly, it explodes and is out of the game. You do this with all the others and if you're the last one standing at the end of the game, you win!

Yeah, this is a pong/breakout clone. Like, Atari doesn't even seem to have any shame about it. The graphics are sub par, the “music” is about as good as Boot Hill, the AI's are assholes who all try and gang up on you, the Color choice is headache inducing, the physics are wonky and are even a step down from Pong... And it's probably one of the funnest games I've played so far.

I mean it. This game is addicting, while yes, it's a pong/breakout clone, I think Atari realizes that and doesn't try to be anything else. Once that fireball really gets going and more than one fireball enters the field, the game just turns into all out chaos as you try desperately to deflect the fireball at the enemies exposed area, and it actually gets kind of tense when you realize that you're almost completely exposed and one more hit would be the end. I actually wish I could play this with others as I honestly think it would make a great party game. So yeah, I recommend it. If you want to play a more updated version, there's an XBLA version that came out in 2008 and 2012, but I've never played either version so I couldn't vouch for it. Oh, and it's also worth mentioning that this game was ported to the Atari 2600, and is often regarded as one of the best games for that console.

Up next: Centipede