Released 1981
I have to admit, Warlords is a pretty exciting concept, and would be a hell of a party game if it were revamped for today's consoles and released for digital download.
The manual explains some madness about how there were four crazy warlords who loved to kill each other, and now they are trapped in the game, and you have to help them kill each other with "lightning balls" or some nonsense. None of this matters.
There are 4 bases on screen. Each is surrounded by rows of blocks, and outside of those blocks is a shield the player controls. The goal is to strategically bounce a ball around the screen so that it gets past your opponents shield and smacks away at some blocks protecting the base. Once the base is hit by the ball, that player is out until the end of the round. Holding the button allows you to catch the ball and plan your next attack, otherwise the shield simply bounces the ball off of it. It's fundamentally similar to Breakout, but the simultaneous play makes it far more exciting.
It's theoretically a perfect game for 4 friends to sit down and play together. The AI that fills in when there are no other players varies radically from fiendishly hard, and mouth-breathing stupid, but after a few rounds, you can easily learn the weakness of each AI. Unfortunately it's also somewhat frustrating to try predicting the trajectory the ball will take when you let go. In fact, it's not uncommon to accidentally bounce the ball off your shield directly back into the blocks or base that you're trying to defend. It's definitely a game that's hampered by it's technology.
So here's a suggestion to any XBox Live Arcade, Playstation Network, or WiiWare developers. Get the rights to this game, give it some more realistic physics and a new coat of paint, and release it for $5. I, for one, would download a copy.
----EDIT----
It would appear that they did exactly what I suggested. Warlords can now be purchased on XBLA for 400ms points.
Woo!
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