Random Select: Spawn games

As a child, I loved comics. As an adult, I love comics. Only natural that we start talking about comic book games. I already have written about a few spider-man and x-men games, but this is different. As a child, it was clear to me that two companies dominated all of comics. You had marvel and you had DC. Both had their history and universes and that was that. Then an artist from Spider-man decided to do his own thing and his own company and make Spawn.

Spawn as a character started off amazingly. Around issue 60ish, I had to ditch the series. I keep telling myself to go back, but I like the idea and memory of spawn that I have. What makes him so interesting is that he is an anti-hero in a way the Punisher and Wolverine could never be. The Punisher actually punishes evil and Wolverine runs around with the X-men righting wrongs. Spawn lives among the homeless and is a demon. An actual sold his soul to the devil demon. He has a power bar of 9:9:9:9 that once used up, he returns to hell and will be forced to attack heaven. He will lead legions against all that is holy. Every action he does takes some of his energy, power blasts, telaporting, healing himself. Once its gone, its gone. That's the idea and thought of Spawn that I have in my head. Anything or anywhere he's gone lately, I don't really care to know just yet. Once I pick up the books again and re-read them all again, maybe I'll get up to where things are now. But this isn't about comics. This is about video games. I could easily write a few posts on another Modern Method cblog about the toys, but I want to talk about his games. Of which there are five appearances in video games.

Spawn:
My Price: 5.00


I never owned this as a kid, but I did get to play it. My cousin had it and we would often try to play it. It's rather confusing in that its not just a regular beat em up. Spawn has his 9999 energy limit and can do most of his abilities. The problem is their all done by fighting game moves and are difficult to pull off. At least for me.



I tried playing the other day on my recently purchased copy. I just couldn't get anywhere with it. Spawn would flip around as I pressed buttons, but nothing was really happening. Regular attacks work, but you'll need to pull out the special moves at some point. Otherwise the game isn't interesting, its just a beat em up. So next time I play I'm heading to gamefaqs. I recall playing most of the game a few years ago and making it to Violator's fight. I was bothered by his size in game. I really want a game that has a gigantic fight with him in all its glory. Far as I can tell, the best battle is here.



Other than that, it's a basic spawn storyline. You're after villains kidnapping kids, and things get progressively crazier as it goes along. All manner of angels and demons and spawn villains. Re-deemer (who I think was the "anti spawn" still yet), Overtkill, and Violator being three I recall. Not too bad of a game really. If you can figure out the specials, you're all set.

Spawn The Eternal:


I've not played it. I will sometime and talk about it.

Spawn gameboy game:


I have played it and don't talk about it.

Spawn: In the Demon's Hand
My Price: Free


This game is awesome. I got it for free, so maybe my reasons for loving are the price point. If you've got a dreamcast and an internet connection, by all means get yourself a copy. This game is a fun arcade style game. Sort of a fighting game, but not really. I'll try to elaborate. You pick your character, most of the spawn characters are here. Redeemer, Overtkill, Spawn himself, Medieval Spawn, Clown (who can transform into Violator!), and several others. The levels play out pretty quickly. You're put up against a boss character and generic enemies run around as well. You've a time limit to beat them in. That's pretty much all the gameplay right there. Also included is a four player split screen mode where you can all fight each other.



In my college time, I used to bring this and we'd play it occasionally. I hung out with people into comics, so some of them knew who these more obscure characters were. Now as far as controls go, every character has plenty going on. Spawn for example has chains, guns, energy blasts, as well as punches & kicks. Other characters have all their special moves. It makes good use of the controller and wasn't terribly difficult to explain.

Spawn: Armeggedon
My price: 8.99


I wanted to buy this when it came out. It looked cool enough to me. Guns, spawn, his axe (which I never saw in the comics I read), and chains are all here. So what's not to like? Well in playing this game I've seen some major no nos. My major criticism right up front: I have to latch his chains magically to these floating orbs and move around levels. Not cool. Not fun. Just silly and out of place. The level designs aren't all that wonderful. Spawn's powers don't feel powerful. Three levels in I've not met one Spawn character, not even in battle. At the end of a level a boss should show up, specifically someone like Violator. The fact that its not here makes me sad.



I'm in a scene right now that has me running around the same room, which looks like a big empty industrial building, hitting switches on the wall. Something moves, another switch. I ran to it. Hit the switch. A big thing slides and another switch. And now I'm lost. Earlier in the same level I had a horrible, horrible jump I had to make. I had to double jump and do the cape glide, hit something perfect to latch on the side, then climb up and make another jump. I restarted the level just now and I don't have energy to go on right now.



I wanted this game to be great. An undiscovered gem the way some other comic games are. Not really. Not unless I missed something. This game isn't wonderful. I want to play ahead and see if it gets better, but its not. I want to fight some big bosses and cool monsters. Ghost Rider's PS2 game is lackluster, but I knew that going in. There was no major movie for this to be based off of. It just should have been its own thing. If I'm not mistaken, this promotes a recent Spawn comic, or maybe adapts it. I don't know. Information isn't everywhere. I'm not giving up though. I will play this again and see if it gets better.

Soul Calibur II (xbox version only)

I've never played Soul Calibur. I played a demon of part IV on the 360, but otherwise I've never played it. I'm told the first is amazing. I for some reason know that the second game had console exclusive characters. The playstation 2 version has Hihatchi from tekken. The gamecube has Link. And xbox got Spawn. It made sense for Hihatchi and Link to be on those consoles, but Spawn came out of nowhere for the xbox one. He didn't have an xbox game at the time, so what made them put him in? In reading up on the subject, Todd Mcfarlene worked on the game designing the character Necrid. So I guess it makes a little more sense to put him in. The game does feature weapons based combat, so with his axe it makes sense that he would be there. That just brings me to another question, what does Hihatchi bring to the table as his weapon? Link's is obvious, but Hihatchi's got nothing. Yoshimitsu might have been a better, you know what, I don't need to argue this. I've not played Soul Calibur II and will some day. But my original xbox has died, and at press time my 360 is off with Microsoft, so I couldn't play this if I wanted to. I'm sorry. If and when I do play it, I'll update this, but honestly you and I both can get a good idea of what spawn does from a video.