Constantine Hands-On

We go to hell, which looks a lot like our L.A. office.

October 13, 2004 - John Constantine, a true Hellblazer, was originally designed as a blonde, British son of a bitch. The upcoming video game and movie Constantine changes a few things, turning JC into a dark-haired American. Don't worry though, every indication from the early build I played suggests that Constantine will still be one ornery SOB. Just the way we like him.

Constantine, an alcoholic chain-smoker, also has some serious ties to the occult. His fight is with the forces of hell, with demons and spirits that do not belong in our world. Using specially crafted weapons, such as the holy shotgun that shoots cross-shaped bullets and the Crucifier, a submachine gun that fires nails used in crucifixions, Constantine must travel to hell and back on a variety of objective-based missions.
Hell, however, is not on some other plane of existence. Instead, think of it more as a slight shift on this plane, so that if you are in L.A. and go to Hell, you go to the hellish version of L.A. And Hell is well-represented here with heat wave effects and lots of poltergeist-type moments. Strange noises echo in the streets, cars fly around as if tossed by invisible giants, and ugly devilish demons crowd the streets.

One of the more pesky demons is encountered in your very first mission. Tiny spider-like creatures crawl inside and possess living and dead bodies alike. Kill the body and the demon is free. If you don't squash it with a melee attack or shoot it quickly, it will climb into any available body and once again pester you.

Fortunately, Constantine is stocked with weapons and with a few spells. Spells do take time to cast however. Let's say you want to cast exorcism. You select it with the D-Pad, then hit the casting button to begin your chant. At the top of the screen, four symbols, representing the four face button, light up in a Simon Says-type mini-game. Repeat the pattern as quickly as possible to cast the spell. More complex spells likely require longer combos and you can cast quickly if you can react to the highlighted symbols fast enough.

Controlling John Constantine is simple enough and the button layout is actually quite good considering that you have to manage primary and secondary weapons and spells. The third-person perspective allows for a few nifty visual tricks to set a creepy mood (and Hell does seem sufficiently spooky), but this is more shooter than anything else, at least based off the demo, so the inherent problems of playing a third-person shooter come into play. Namely, aiming is a little less efficient and sometimes Constantine takes up too much of the screen.

If the camera system is flexible and intelligent and the levels have some variety in terms of design and gameplay, then Constantine could prove to be a solid action game. Though it likely won't have the voice of Keanu Reeves (that's a bad thing, right?), the game does maintain the overall feel of the Hellblazer comics. As a fan of the comic, I'm hoping developer Bits Studios can pull this one off.

Constantine ships for PS2 and Xbox in early 2005. We'll have more on the adventures of JC in the console realm in the near future.