Spawn Armageddon Gamecube Review

Spawn Armageddon GameCube Review

Armageddon is a 3D action/adventure game that borrows heavily from the Devil May Cry series, but is more driven by item collecting. The game itself is very short, and can typically be beaten in under five hours.Based on a predictably hokey plot derived from comic megastar Todd MacFarlane’s popular comic book, Spawn Armageddon sees his friend of the devil hero with a tormented soul trudging around under populated levels dispensing pain with a large axe and chains that leap from his belt buckle. You must guide the slow moving Spawn through a series of unchallenging linear levels filled with simple minded tasks tackling enemies that display close to zero artificial intelligence. The collection of ghouls sent against you also seem to be unable to do you any real damage and you soon have loss the fear in wading into them to dispatch them without any finesse or skill. They are also severely under strength, even the boss characters have ridiculously short health meters and encounters with them are simple-minded affairs devoid of tension.

As you progress through the game you gain access to ever-larger weaponry but it is rendered useless when just about every foe you encounter can be dispatched using the axe and chain combination you initially set out with. The only use for the bigger guns seems to be to speed up what would normally be yet another tedious encounter with your brainless adversaries.

As well as weapon power-ups Spawn must collect the floating green orbs in order to keep his levels of a substance called Necroplasm which gives him access to a wide range of powers including a shield, energy bolts and high speed.

While this power is an interesting addition to the weaponry it isn’t essential to beating the game and ends up being used as much to relieve the boredom of axe slashing than to clinch an uncertain victory.Added to these failings is the most heinous crime of all in a computer game, a terribly orientated camera system. Perhaps there is some kind of vanity issue with Spawn but the camera seems to be programmed to try and centre itself looking back into his face. This hampers the game, as you must leap gaps toward the camera that is blindly and encounter enemies that can attack you from off screen. Heaven forbid you go anywhere near a wall during combat as you find yourself staring down from a nauseating angle while the camera twitches wildly making it almost impossible to direct attacks or in fact see what is happening. At some points the camera even positions itself at the other side of a solid wall during combat seemingly leaving you to rely on the power of ESP to continue effectively with the fight.

All these flaws would be acceptable (apart from the camera) in a game aimed at a younger audience but with a rating of 17 it is hard to see what kind of challenge the game hopes to set for its target audience.

4 out of 10