PlayStation 2

Constantine

Constantine the video game is overall nothing special or outstanding. If you enjoyed the movie, it will probably be worth it to play through the game. However, if you didn't really like the movie, or have never seen it, there are better action games available. The game has no multiplayer modes, so after playing through the game, the only other choice you have is to play it again to try and get your money's worth.

It felt at first like I'd just played this game not two weeks before, when I gave Punisher a go. A license twice removed from movies and comics built around third-person Max Payne-style action ... I wasn't expecting much, even as I noted the nice red-hot particle effects blowing around the hellish version of Los Angeles in the training level. On the other hand, as a fan of the Hellblazer comics, I wasn't expecting much from the movie either -- Keanu Reeves playing Constantine? In Los Angeles? -- but as it happens, both the film and the game were better than I had hoped.

Computerspiel-Helden für die ein warmes Plätzchen in der Hölle reserviert ist, und die sich einen Aufenthalt für alle Ewigkeit im Himmel durch die Dienste an Gott „erkaufen“ wollen... Mittlerweile schon so oft gesehen und gehört, dass man beim Zählen nicht nur Finger, sondern auch Zehen zur Hilfe ziehen muss. Ebenso verhält es sich mit Filmumsetzungen, die strikt an das Kinovorbild angelehnt sind, und die dann leider an Qualität vermissen lassen. Ganz anders angeblich: Constantine von den Bits Studios.

Constantine is a difficult game to explain because it’s sort of like what happens when you play a game of ‘Telephone.’ For those of you unfamiliar with the game, it basically involves setting up a group of people in a line and having one person at one end whisper a secret into the ear of the person beside them. That person in turn passes it on to the person next to them and so on and so forth until the secret is passed to the end of the line. As anyone who’s ever studied gossip knows, the end result is virtually nothing like the beginning secret.

From blackness we fade in. Light. A city. Humans. An apartment. Cigarettes... A youthful dark-haired man, lean and smoothly cut, smokes casually in a hall. The worried glances of onlookers crammed in the dingy apartment before him do not phase our mysterious focus, nor does the girl tied to the bed -- the one with bulging veins that stress to contain the demonic presence infecting her fragile body. The man sets his smoke down, its cherry dangling off the edge of a dresser. He'll want it back soon.

Move over, Pat Benatar. Hell isn't just for children anymore. Now it's for children and...Keanu Reeves. The new movie Constantine casts Keanu in the lead role of John Constantine, a line-walking demon hunter who occasionally has to cross over into hell to get things done. The game is based on the movie, turning the experience into a very basic third-person shooter with a little spellcasting to mix things up. It might be good enough for fans of the film looking to walk in Constantine's shoes, but if you're simply looking for a good action game, you can do better.

With mediocre sound, graphics and variety, Constantine could make the Devil himself happy to know the torment it will bring to us. Fans of the comic line or movie may be intrigued enough to buy Constantine but everyone else would be advised to stick to a simple rental. If your looking for demonic action games for your PS2, look for titles such as The Suffering, or even the excellent Onimusha or Devil May Cry series with more of an Oriental flare to them.

Despite a trench coat in the starring role, shaky-leg strafing for the main character, and an abundance of rock music-inspired killing sprees, Constantine isn't the Max Payne clone it appears to be at first glance. It certainly has elements from that game, but they are mixed in with puzzle solving and a demon-infested world, giving the whole thing a vibe similar to The Collective's Buffy the Vampire Slayer game from a few years back. That is to say, it's a good game with a few missing pieces.

Within a matter of weeks Constantine the game will be reduced in price to where it should have been retailed at originally. For $19.99 I can see fans of the original source material or the movie losing themselves in that reality for awhile. Until then you're ordered to either rent it or ignore it altogether. Your call.

Now for the game. Between the aforementioned cutscenes, a bit of standard action-based gameplay is to be had. And you know what? These work out fairly well for most of the game. The game switches between Hell and Earth realms, both of which affect each other in one way or another – akin to something like, say, Metroid Prime: Echoes, albeit not as fully-realized of a concept. Mostly, you’ll be moving objects around so you can jump gaps and climb ladders... which is completely mundane, but at least it’s all functional.

Constantine n'a pas beaucoup de chance. Dépourvu d'ambiance tout autant que d'intérêt, l'adaptation du film est, sans surprise, bâclée et bonne à oublier. Je ne sais pas ce que vaut le film mais ça donne pas envie d'aller le voir. Ceci dit si vous êtes fan de Keanu Reeves, il livre ici une de ses meilleures prestations d'acteur. Merci à la technologie qui nous offre là un véritable simulateur de Keanu Reeves (dixit Dexter).

When you acquire the rights to make a game based on a movie, you also acquire a long, storied history of unoriginal games to emulate. It's like there's a template for these things - just replace the names of the characters, change a few guns and whammo, instant movie-game (come to think of it, that might be an easy way for me to review games in the future.)

In the early days of the PS2, Constantine would've been cutting-edge; a fun action romp. But this is 2005, not 2001. We demand that games look, sound, and play better than this.