| The Spawn license seems to have developed serious identity crisis, or at least a loss of vision and direction. After the somewhat-okay movie and excellent HBO animated series, the Hellspawn himself has seen his image suffer through a number of lackluster video games, only to be elevated once again by his cameo appearance in the excellent Soul Caliber II. Unfortunately, for the most part, Spawn Armageddon doesn't do much to improve the license's image as being the next product for continuous milking.
Armageddon puts you in the persona of Spawn, once a man, now a general in Hell's army. For those familiar with the series, or to anyone who has seen the aforementioned movie and animated series, or read the comic books by Todd McFarlane, the back story of the character is already known. As an assassin, Al Simmons was double crossed by his boss and burned alive, only to make a deal with Malebolgia to lead his army in exchange for seeing Wanda (Al's wife) again. In the game you assume the role of Spawn after a beam hits Earth from the heavens; could this be the final battle between Heaven and Hell? It's up to you to investigate.
The game takes place in the third-person perspective, similar to Tomb Raider or any of its many clones. As Spawn you have access to a number of weapons including his "living" suit of chains, cape and axe. Along the way you will find different weapons including varying types of guns that you can use to dispatch your enemies. The problem is that won't take much.
After about an hour's worth of play you will find out that the enemy AI is either incredibly cheap or incredibly stupid. It could even be a combination of both. The repetitive nature of third-person action games such as this one doesn't help the fact all that much. You will soon discover that the clunky battle system can be avoided by simply impaling everything in sight with your chains, which do far too much damage to just about everything. When you do get up close and personal battles become nothing more than button mashing as enemies swarm around you.
Fans of enemy respawning will be proud of Point of View's decision to have enemies appear out of nowhere for minutes at a time. In games like KISS: Psycho Circus, which had the most flagrant overuse of respawning enemies ever imagined, the developers of that game would at least give you the chance to destroy the respawning beacon. In Armageddon there is no beacon to speak of. Enemies will keep coming and coming until a predetermined number has been reached, but you never know what that number is. Granted, some might call that a challenge, but others might just call it sloppy.
Once again, platforming elements have been introduced into a third-person action game, and while very few of Spawn's jumping moments will lead to an instant death, the amount of ground you will have to traverse once again can get quite annoying. Frankly the platforming elements wouldn't be so bad if the mechanisms that controlled them worked correctly all the time. Certain jumps will require you to latch on to a ledge with your chains, but you can't do so until the correct icon appears. At times it will appear and you can make it through a stretch of jumps flawlessly, but when four or five are linked together and you miss the last one, the frustration begins as you have to do them all over again. The jumps are anything but consistent as some will be easy-gimmies, while others will be difficult beyond all means.
The game looks good for the most part. Spawn's character model stands out with a healthy dose of polygons and good animation. Little effects, like the blood dripping off of Spawn's axe after plastering enemies and holstering it on his back. The best part of the game is the very well done FMV sequences which bring the personality of the character to life wonderfully. The voice acting is also well done, for its limited use in the game, as story really isn't a driving element, as the voice actors sound very comparable to the HBO series.
Sound is highlighted by a track from Marilyn Manson, but other than that, the music and sound effects are nothing special. Only the voice acting stands out with obvious high production values.
Spawn Armageddon continues the lackluster fare for the comic book character. As an added bonus to fans of the game you have the ability to find the covers to Spawn comic books and create a makeshift gallery, but it seems as though only hardcore fans will find anything to like about this game to justify the purchase. If you are a rabid fan, you might find pleasure in some parts, especially the boss battles, but for passing and non-fans of the series there isn't a whole lot of new material that we haven't all seen before. | 
