Constantine

Game:

A third-person action shooter based on the movie. In it, you play the role of John Constantine; sooty, angst-ridden loser. Did I mention that he’s the only thing that stands between us and the apocalypse? Yeah.

Comments:

When 'Constantine' came out last year, it quickly became just another poorly received film-to-game knock off. However, this dismissal may have been premature. Unlike most requisite marketing tie-ins, it's actually fun to play; unfortunately like most, it needed a lot more polish.
The controls are just peachy; mechanics are quite similar to Midway's phenomenally good 'Suffering' series. The worst that could be said about the gameplay is that it lacks a certain panache, but it's tight, responsive, and gets the job done. The game is rather linear, which might annoy fans of sandbox style excursions; this more or less however follows the standard model for third-person horror/adventure action games. (I.e. 'Bloodrayne', 'The Suffering', etc.) Like said shooters, there are a few puzzles and special abilities to detract from the monotony of battle and add a little variety to your travails. Also like in aforementioned diversions, your powers are fueled by the happy shiny life-juice of defeated adversaries. In this case, it's spell casting that adds quite a fun little wrinkle to the proceedings. As he progresses in the game, Constantine gains the ability to summon lighting, exorcise possessed corpses, and even turn demons to stone.

Another cute touch is your arsenal of religious weapons. The holy water bombs, crucifixion-nail machine gun, and Celtic crossbow are cool enough, but essentially no different than any other arsenal of long-range, short range, repeating firearms. (And not to kvetch, but the holy shotgun is insufferably weak. Gads, it can take three to four shots to down a simple scavenger solider! It really needed a few upgrades.)

Focusing more on production values, we find a things a bit more troublesome. The repetitive design of demonic foes was a major downer for me. While you theoretically face a myriad of foes; scavenger soldiers, workers, whatevers, they're for the most part all just gray, bony, twisty things missing the side of their skull. (What's up with that anyway? Is it a symbol of mindless hatred, or did someone just think it looked cool?)

Environments are well realized from a technical point of view, but again, lack diversity. A smart gimmick incorporated by the game is the concept of a mirror Hell. That is to say that Hell is not another place, merely a different dimension of this universe; our world, but a decayed ruin thereof. This is delightful from a philosophical point of view, but it terms of gameplay, it means that the nether realm is basically just a rusted out fiery industrial complex. It's brown, it's bleak, it's bland as well, hell. (Sort of like New Bedford, only with flying demons instead of puking junkies.) Doom presented a much more detailed and haunting vision of despair, and than game was released over a decade ago.
Voice acting is a mixed bag. Whoever does the voice of Constantine, presents a polished impression of Keanu Reeves, which is to say he mumbles unconvincingly with the best of them. Other bit players however are typically lousy. I'll cut the game a little slack as its makers did try to incorporate the real actors from the film whenever budget constraints would allow them. Somehow, someone, somewhere, talked Tilda Swinton into doing this game, which alone has to add a full point to the production values.

Character models however are wedged so far into the deepest crack of the uncanny valley as to be troubling to look at. Constantine himself is ok, (I've noticed most developers spend a little extra time polishing up the primary player model) but most of the others are just awful. In the opening cutscene, the possessed girl still looks eerily demonic even after being exorcised and Constantine's love interest Angela (not that you'd know from this slapdash story) looks more like a Thai transsexual than Rachel Weiss.

If you'd like to take some extra initiative whilst trying not to be killed by demons, hunting tarot cards hidden in wee nooks and crannies will allow you to unlock extra content. You'd think this might add some replay value, but to be honest, the unlockables are all a bunch of crap. (Ugly storyboards for a story that wasn't any good in the first place, production photos too small to spot any detail, etc.)

The biggest pulsating sore spots with me here would be in the sister realms of plot and atmosphere. Despite its apocalyptic theme, the film itself was more of an action flick with heavy supernatural elements than anything resembling horror. That being said, you'd think a game that had you repeatedly traipsing around hell all willy-nilly and combating the occupants thereof, might manage to be a wee bit ooky! It's the year 2000 and change; running across a few bloody corpses and big monsters is just no longer scary, or even really gripping. There are some nice touches; the game comes closest to being frightening when you face the "Bile-Riz", demons that possess human corpses, and can skitter from one to another all day unless stopped. Likewise, the vermin demon, a monster constructed from a squiggling mass of roaches, rats and snakes is suitably unsettling. (Even if he is a big pushover.)

While the ambience is no big shakes, plotting is where the game really takes a nosedive. For those of us who saw the movie this story is an anemic puppet show, poorly recapping random scenes from the film while delving into absolutely none of the deeper themes. (To be fair, I believe it is- or at least was- policy of Sony corp. that no mention of suicide could be made in any game narrative. However other games such as 'SH2' found creative ways to tiptoe around this.) There is no attempt made on the part of this game's creators to craft a coherent stand-alone narrative. Previous knowledge of the film is essential, for those who haven't seen it, what's going on in this game would be purely incomprehensible. (For example, the scene where John threatens to read the last rights over Baltahazar isn't set up in any way. If you didn't know he was extorting the demon by threatening to send him to heaven, the scene would play out as one big WTF? moment.) Frankly this whole story is a big snooze. The entirety of plot contained in this game could be summed up in a handful of lines one might find on the back of the film's rental box. (Antichrist wants to come to earth, only John can stop him, and only the spear of Longinus can kill him, good thing you get it in the first level or two. Whee for tension.) It's a bit troubling when the stories of relics contained in the instructional manual are more interesting than anything going on in the game. (If Moses had a shroud, I guess that would go against traditions that he was assumed into heaven like Elijah. Also, why would a crossbow forged by Crom Cruac be lethal to demons? No offense to my neo-druid friends, but isn't he considered a demon himself by the church? Pffft! Demand a few decapitation sacrifices and suddenly everyone says you're "difficult". I remember Patricus and him having that little go-round over it. God, I feel old.)
Hey kids, pedantic tangents are fun!

When the game actually branches out to try something a little different then film, it fares terribly. Take fer' instance the ending; In case you haven't seen the film's conclusion, I'll hide the spoilers, highlight to read, you know the drill:
Ok, so if you saw the film you know that Gabriel (Swinton) was working hand in hand (wing in claw?) along side Mammon in order to bring him to earth. (Poor Gabriel; first 'The Prophecy', now this. Here is an angel so honored by God as to have been chosen to deliver the news of Jesus' birth to Mary. Now every time some pink monkey needs an angelic villain in a movie, they take of all two seconds to slander his name. I mean c'mon, how would you feel? I'm rambling again...)
Anyway, at the end of the film, Gabe loses her angelic-ness and the Devil winds up curing Constantine's terminal lung cancer to stop him from going to heaven. (He was damned for trying to commit suicide once, but redeemed himself by rescuing an innocent soul from Hell as a final selfless act.)

Ok, now I'm going to spoil the end of the game for you. You know what happens at the end of the game?
Nothing!
Gabriel walks away with a smirk as if God was in on the whole scheme, was distracted by something, or just didn't give a damn. John isn't cured, and hasn't redeemed himself, so he's still going to drop dead any day now, and burn. This is capped with some little Scarlet O' Hara "tomorrow" bullsh*t that serves as a pointless setup for a sequel that will never come.
(Is it just me, or does that niggling "and then what happens" dimension of even a total train wreck of a story drive anyone else nuts? I'm still wondering what the thing I'm not gonna believe is at end of the 'Super Mario Bros' movie.)

Pointless I said? Yeah, that's the word; sums it up quite nicely.
Perhaps the worst (and most succinct) thing that can be said about this game is that it was based on a forgettable if still interesting film, and fails to do it justice on any level. It has the engine of a good action game, but lacking any effort at narrative depth, it just leaves one feeling hollow.

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