The game is basically a third person shooter set half the time on earth and the other half in hell. As John Constantine, you are blessed with certain magical abilities that allow you to cross over to hell and back on a whim and do battle with various types of hell spawn.

One of John’s innate abilities is the ability to see what normal people can’t. This True Sight ability allows him to see when apparent humans are really demons in disguise, but it also conveniently doubles as night vision. I won’t argue with the utility of night vision, but it is just one of many aspects of this game that seems unrealistic and kept me from getting wrapped up in the game.

The weapons you use to do battle are mostly ranged weapons like the holy shotgun and a nail gun tactfully dubbed The Crucifier. Add to these, holy water hand grenades (different than those used on Monty Python killer bunnies) and a dragon breath flamethrower and you have a collection of absolutely typical video game weapons. Giving each one a cute back-story about how it is fashioned from religious artifacts or pulled out of dead martyrs bodies (Crucifier ammo, ugh) does little to change the fact that you get a shotgun, machine gun, grenades and a flamethrower.

The spells John learns, as the game progresses are pretty cool looking. When you execute each one, you have to press a particular sequence of buttons in a short amount of time while not being interrupted. If successful, he spews Latin and causes magic particles or lightning that either damages your opponents or otherwise hinders them. The button sequences are not hard and time slows down when you start casting so there is really no reason you should not be able to get off a spell as long as you start it from a reasonable distance away.

The enemies you fight are the definition of repetitive. They are the same type of demon you see in the movie except in seven or eight very subtle variations. There is a small, but fast demon, a medium sized demon with medium strength, and a big demon with armor. There’s a flying demon, a two-headed demon, a pointy skinned demon and a demon whose hand is a blade. Oh and there are rats too. With the exception of the rats, the demon models are almost identical. It looks like they took one model and deformed it several different times to create the game’s cast of enemies.

One thing that I found sort of cool was the fact that you have to use your ability to cross over into hell as a puzzle solving technique. Invariably, you will encounter an area that seems impassable and you’ll notice a puddle of water on the ground. Well, four button presses later, you’re in hell were the impasse no longer exists. Once you navigate past it, like in the movie, holy water smashed into your chest brings you back to the plane of the living. It’s a rather cool concept but even coupled with puzzles involving moving obstacles or finding keys or interacting with objects, the game doesn’t pull you in.

The environments are pretty nice looking, especially when you cross over into hell. Everything is burning, there are wrecked cars everywhere and every once and a while a manhole cover bursts open when you’re not expecting it making you start. It’s basically what you see in the movie though and after a few minutes the novelty of it wears off and you realize you are playing a fairly generic third person shooter.

The bottom line is that Constantine is not a very fun game. Third person shooters have been done before. Puzzle games have been done before. Even puzzles requiring changing the environment have been done before. All of them have been done better. So if you are looking for a fun, comic book action game, keep looking because you wont find it here.