In Spawn: Armageddon, you play as McFarlane’s Spawn as he prowls around New York City. You’ll fight off demons and swing between rooftops in a standard mix of platformer and fighter. Spawn comes equipped with hell powers, which are basically magic-enhanced attacks, a set of chains and his battle-axe: Agony. To say every weapon is overpowered is putting it lightly, as you’ll easily shred wave after wave of lesser demons while taking minimal damage yourself.

While the weapons look good on screen, especially the glowing blasts of plasma from the hell powers, they make combat all too easy. There’s a minimalist combo system in place allowing you to button mash your way through multiple axe strikes, lash out at enemies with chains and fling some high powered projectiles (via miniguns, machine pistols and such) at your opposition, but it’s mostly unnecessary as a few quick whacks with the axe takes care of just about anything. The combat is fun for a little while as you try out the different attacks on the absurdly weak AI opposition, but sooner or later you’ll come to realize it’s all a rehash of the button-mashing gameplay of Combatribes, Bad Dudes and every other 80’s arcade fighter just done up in pretty 3D. And when you’re not fighting, you’re being led by the nose through the levels, as animated medallions illuminate your path, ensuring you’ll never be lost. On occasion, there’s some swinging and double jumping necessary, but it’s nothing too challenging.

Spawn himself looks good, which intensifies the blandness of the other characters and environments. Spawn’s cloak grows and flows wonderfully in the wind while his weapons are animated with a serious attention to detail. Unfortunately, the environments are stale and empty, populated mostly with birds, garbage and bad guys. The bad guys don’t look too shabby, but they aren’t nearly of the same caliber as their hell-spawned opponent. What you end up with is a beautifully rendered Spawn fluidly ripping his way through an onslaught of so-so looking demonic minions in Lego-land environments.

During the animated cut scenes (which are far better than the rest of the visuals), the voice work is top notch, but once you step into the actual game, it’s all just grunts and groans with a few weapon sounds mixed in. The musical score is so flat it’s practically unnoticeable. There won’t be any awards won for Spawn’s audio, that’s for certain.

As Spawn: Armageddon is a linear action title, you won’t find any reasons to pick it up and play through it again. There are no unlockables to speak of, and since the medallions direct you through the levels, you won’t find any secret areas or other types of surprises.

When looked at for what it is, a simple button-masher tacked onto a popular license, it’s a pretty average title. Fans of Spawn will probably enjoy Spawn: Armageddon as an extended rental, but it’s doubtful anyone would need to purchase this, since it’s so short and simple.