Yesterday's Worlds #7 - Constantine

 Constantine (Bits Studios\THQ\2005) - Once in awhile, the passage of time can be a good thing. In my case, it helped both the Constantine movie and the game....but in the case of the latter, only so much.

When I first saw the movie many years ago, I didn't know anything about the comic so I was more than a little lost. Since then, I've watched (and enjoyed!) the NBC TV-series which has helped me better understand Constantine's personality and the world around him. When I watched the flick the other night, I was amazed how much I enjoyed it, and also slightly horrified at how badly Keanu Reeves portrayed the character. It took another, more talented actor to show me what Constantine was really like. Reeves (or rather his direction) was so stunted that I didn't get a feeling for what Constantine was like.

Similarly, I had tried a demo of Constantine, the PS2 game, back when I used to get Official Playstation Magazine demo discs (those were good times). I remember being somewhat bewildered by the gameplay and actually thought it was intrinsically broken. What I think it was, after playing the full game some, was that my PS2 gaming skills at that time were so rudimentary that I was just overwhelmed. Well, that and they did sort of drop you into a fight in "Hell L.A." without much introduction.

Interestingly, the game starts out with a nearly shot-for-shot recreation of the opening of the movie (with an even passable KR sound alike). Then, unfortunately, the game shifts gears to its own story, one that seems like it might be going in the same thematic direction as the movie but with different characters and settings. It made me yearn for Batman Begins - say what you want about that "stealth-lite" game, but it kept to the original movie storyline and that was a plus. I was able to get through a few of the missions, but got bogged down in an endless trek around an underground basement (with, of course, sewers) and have decided to skip the rest of the game. I have nothing against older games, but I need to feel that there's a reason to play them instead of newer, more sophisticated titles.