Let me just start off by saying that Constantine stays true to the movie to game adaptation legacy, its just another weak game, which is unfortunate. While assuming the role of John Constantine, players will exorcise demons with a large variety of weaponry and spells, cross between the realms of earth and hell, and follow through the concepts of the film. Constantine could have been a decent action game, all of the right elements are present, but they're just poorly executed.

  Constantine is essentially a pretty straight forward third person shooter. The player will advance through each level by unleashing some holy weapons on some pesky demons. There is nothing really wrong with that aspect of the game, and adding some spells Constantine can cast when prompted to complete the proper button sequences has some pretty decent effects. The problem with Constantine lies within the action itself. Enemies are ridiculously slow, even on a harder difficulty doesn't really represent much of a challenge. The possibility of having some addicting game play was constantly being undermined by the game's poor animations, and lack of excitement. In the end, the only way to sum up the game play is just boring. Players also have the option of using melee attacks in the game, but they are completely useless. Also, trying to pull off a 180 turn by pressing and holding in the left thumb stick is yet again painfully slow to respond. By the time the turn registers, the player will already have taken damage that could have been avoided otherwise.

  Graphically, Constantine is a mess. With flat textures, and poor animations Constantine is painful to look at. Besides some of the cut scenes, Constantine looked like a late Playstation 1 game instead of a late Xbox release. Areas in the game that could have been something interesting to see, like the hell stages of the game, are simply vacant and void of distinguishable texture. Constantine's animations are incredibly blocky, and lack any imagination.

  Possibly the worst aspect to the game as a whole is sound. Constantine's sound, especially when it comes to the voice work, is just terrible. The never ending raising and lowering of the televisions volume to compensate for the varying sound quality through out the game was down right annoying. While playing through a level, sound is more reliable and doesn't vary as often, but the voice work is frequently hard to hear and sounds like the actors are miles away from the microphone. This was a poor attempt to capture the mediocre monotone presentation from the film, and just fails entirely.

  Unless you're a huge fan of Constantine, whether it be the graphic novels or the film, Constantine really doesn't have much to offer. If you're looking for a fun action game, this definitely isn't it. With a little more effort, Constantine could have been something better. I can guarantee this game is going to be exorcised from my gaming collection.

Written by RB

Over and Out

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