There are a massive 36 playable characters in all, 12 of whom are available by default. They comprise all the usual suspects - Spawn, Al Simmons, Clown, Tiffany, Redeemer - as well as fan favorites like Sam and Twitch. With a character selected, players are thrown into gigantic labyrinthine levels where there are multiple platforms, rooms, obstacles, and objects to throw around. There are 17 of these behemoths, each with their own theme like forests, underground installations, and cityscapes. Their goal: kill each other.

The level designs offer fantastic variety to the gameplay. There are winding flights of stairs to climb, bottomless pits and lava pools to avoid, and wide open spaces with a few barricades, rocks or crates - which if not blown to smithereens you can pick up and throw at each other. One of the more interesting aspects of the levels was the fact that even though the screen blanks out for an instant before entering or leaving a room, you can still be shot at from the other side of the door.

These environments are all portrayed with an incredible eye for detail. Every texture is smooth and crisp to look at - you actually won't mind spending your first few tries of the game being blown to pieces as you try to wander around and absorb the beauty of it all. And the icing on the cake: constant 60 fps gaming goodness. Again, the visual integrity of this game is just mind-blowing.

Gameplay is frantic and intense - more so than even Powerstone 2. This is made possible firstly by a radar that lets you hunt each other down with frightening speed; and secondly by the excellent variety of weapons at your disposal. Every character has a different weapon. Spawn, for instance, being the all-round hero that he is, sports a pistol, a machine gun, a sack of grenade, and his good ol' fisticuffs. Hmm... that actually makes him Commando Spawn. Anyway, other characters like Tiffany use bladed non-projectile weapons, while supernaturals like Cogliostro wield dazzling magic spells. Each frag... er, kill also leaves behind a power-up, typically speed-ups, extra strength weapons, health recovery, and so on.

Just in case you've completely missed all the Quake references, you can die as many times as you want during each deathmatch. The point of the game is to rack up the most kills at the end of the time limit.

Thankfully, Capcom haven't just stopped there. They've thrown in a slew extra modes like Tournament Mode, Team play, and Boss Mode - which is a single-player game that most closely resembles Sega's Outtriggers in terms of mission goals and time limits. Some of the other options include the usual handicaps, damage values; one of the more interesting options lets you adjust the level of violence. Just so everyone knows, the highest level of violence depicts decapitations and people being chopped in half.

There are only a couple of niggling faults to this game. Firstly, the cameras are quite terrible. It's impossible to see where anyone is, but that's a fault inherent to the 3rd person perspective of the game. The easy solution is to flick the L trigger, which instantly brings the camera behind you. This trick doesn't work quite as perfectly as in, say, Shin Sangokumusou, since the L trigger is actually for the first person view, so there will always be a miniscule transitional phase of the camera zooming back out behind you. Still, it works for the most part.

Secondly, there's some disparity between being able to juggle opponents and when they're momentarily invulnerable to attack. Sometimes you move in to finish them off with a hail of bullets, only to discover (a) not a single bullet hit him or her, (b) you're out of ammo and in the process of reloading, and (c) you're a sitting duck. This requires a little readjustment to strategy.

The only thing left to comment on is whether Dreamcast owners should buy Spawn: In the Demon's Hands or Sega's homegrown arcade game, Outtriggers. Ideally, you'd get both. I've played Outtriggers quite a bit, both in the arcades and in beta form for the Dreamcast, but even I am now less likely to make a purchase of Outtriggers, simply because it is so short-sighted in many ways. The weapon variety in Outtriggers is pretty sparse. The level designs are also tiny and downright boring, especially compared to Spawn. Level design is the reason Spawn is more addictive and playable in the long term than Outtriggers - their intricate layout being conducive to memorization and practice, just like learning to play Quake. Don't forget also the aspect of character design - a unique product where the Japanese have interpreted American character designs. Just as the Marvel Vs Capcom series wowed Marvel comics fans, Spawn looks very inspired compared to the more generic designs of other recent games.

Bottom line: a couple of hiccups, but they don't stop Spawn: In The Demon's Hands from being one of the best multiplayer games on the market. Just be sure to have a big-screen TV when you hook this thing up - otherwise you're going to set a new record for most time spent squinting at a 4-player split screen.