Mediocre DMC clone
Spawn: Armageddon starts off well enough. The CG cutscenes look good and the presentation is quite nice.
The combat is mixed. It’s not without good ideas, but it fails to push the player to engage with its systems in a dynamic way most of the time. There’s a technique bonus for killing enemies a certain way. Getting this bonus will reward extra souls for powering up Spawn and help achieve a higher ranking. While most of the time going for the technique bonus is also the most effective way to kill enemies, sometimes it’s completely impractical to go for. Enemies like the Angelic Warriors, require a counter attack when undoubtedly the most effective strategy is ranged attacks. But the system works rather well overall. The game does a good job of throwing multiple types of foes at the same time, causing the player to focus down the more threatening enemies.
There’s some technical issues with the combat as well. Inputs constantly get eaten. There seems to be no input buffer. Much like DMC, jumping is your best defensive option. Jumping after attacking doesn’t work most of the time. This makes boss fights painful. The camera is a constant hindrance. It gets stuck on the walls and trapped underneath platforms obscuring the action completely.
The level design is bad. Bland open environments similar to Devil May Cry 2. There’s awesome mechanics such as the double jump, gliding, wall jumping, and grappling, but the levels hardly take advantage of this. There’s a few levels that do, but Spawn: Armageddon ultimately fails to combine its platforming mechanics into level structures.
Spawn: Armageddon isn’t a good game, but it isn’t a bad one either. If you’re a fan of the source material, you’ll likely enjoy your time. It has tons of similarities to Devil May Cry 2 but it’s a much better game. It’s the type of game where if you bought it when it came out, you wouldn’t have been disappointed, you just wouldn’t be blown away.
5/10
Spawn: Armageddon starts off well enough. The CG cutscenes look good and the presentation is quite nice.
The combat is mixed. It’s not without good ideas, but it fails to push the player to engage with its systems in a dynamic way most of the time. There’s a technique bonus for killing enemies a certain way. Getting this bonus will reward extra souls for powering up Spawn and help achieve a higher ranking. While most of the time going for the technique bonus is also the most effective way to kill enemies, sometimes it’s completely impractical to go for. Enemies like the Angelic Warriors, require a counter attack when undoubtedly the most effective strategy is ranged attacks. But the system works rather well overall. The game does a good job of throwing multiple types of foes at the same time, causing the player to focus down the more threatening enemies.
There’s some technical issues with the combat as well. Inputs constantly get eaten. There seems to be no input buffer. Much like DMC, jumping is your best defensive option. Jumping after attacking doesn’t work most of the time. This makes boss fights painful. The camera is a constant hindrance. It gets stuck on the walls and trapped underneath platforms obscuring the action completely.
The level design is bad. Bland open environments similar to Devil May Cry 2. There’s awesome mechanics such as the double jump, gliding, wall jumping, and grappling, but the levels hardly take advantage of this. There’s a few levels that do, but Spawn: Armageddon ultimately fails to combine its platforming mechanics into level structures.
Spawn: Armageddon isn’t a good game, but it isn’t a bad one either. If you’re a fan of the source material, you’ll likely enjoy your time. It has tons of similarities to Devil May Cry 2 but it’s a much better game. It’s the type of game where if you bought it when it came out, you wouldn’t have been disappointed, you just wouldn’t be blown away.
5/10