S1E25 - Spawn: Armageddon

It's.

Welcome back to another episode of Discreet Error, the podcast where every week we dive into the extensive and fascinating library of the greatest selling video game console of all time, the PlayStation Two French version.

Yes.

We.

I'm Derek Kicker. I'm Ian Golding.

French and yeah, that was good. Baguettes, et cetera. Cheese sigalitz. This week, there is hell to pay with Spawn Armageddon.

You've been violated, girly man.

I made a deal. I sealed my faith whole for the love of my wife, forced my old things evil to join with two miserable.

Companions of misfortune spawn Armageddon for the PlayStation Two. This game came out November 21, 2003.

Okay.

Almost like like a full on, like eight months before the before it was released in Japan.

Interesting.

It's usually the other way around, almost.

Well, maybe they don't have a Spawn culture. Maybe they're not super familiar with that Todd McFarland creation.

You don't think they're Spawn heads in Japan?

I don't think they're not Spawniacs. No, I do not. Yeah.

Spawniacs. Spawn. Sponda Sykes.

Is that it? There it is. No, now it is.

Fucking I love it. Are you a Spawniac?

Yes, I was. Obviously not anymore. I don't even know if they still print it. But early 90s Image comics was all about it. I had spawn. Wildcats. There were so many fucking good image comics. I loved image comics when they first popped out.

Is wildcats like the Aristocats, but like Christopher Nolanized. Like, it's like the Dark Knight version.

Of it is exactly like that. Yes, you did the nail on that. It's precisely that.

I'm super interested in it now.

It's just fucking comic book arrows. They're drawn in that McFarland style where everyone is bulging freak show. And this is the knock against todd McFarland was always he can't draw a face to save his life. That's why Spawn's face was purposely all fucked up, because when he did Spider Man, people you could like his face was always a fucking horror show. And not on purpose. Like, he thought he was drawing a good face.

The man loves the throbbing penis vein.

Kind of oh, yeah, he's a vascular kind of artist. He loves that.

Yeah, it's weird. Everything's oddly like phallic.

Oh, yeah. He's all about spawn.

My first exposure to Spawn was actually the movie.

Oh, okay. So you didn't even watch, like, the HBO cartoon?

No, I think I was too young when that was, like, airing.

Okay.

I have watched it since then. You know how every episode, it was like, hi, I'm Tod McFarland.

Yes.

And they had that intro and they just didn't cut it. It's just, like, uncut. So he's clearly reading off a cue card and there's, like, weird pauses in it, and nobody fucking did anything. Nobody thought, like, maybe we should cut this up. Maybe we should do two cameras so we can cut this, because this is really a really bad read. It's like they did he gave them one take, however it came out. I do like the cartoon. I do kind of like the comic. I don't even hate the movie.

No movie.

I think the movie it is very much, and I feel like it's what Michael Jai White kind of has his whole career. I don't want to say low budget action movies, but not quite right there's the niche that he kind of operates in a niche.

Absolutely.

Yeah. But they also got Martin Sheen in it, which is kind of crazy bizarre.

Right?

Yeah. And John Leguizamo is the violator is transcendent. He should always be the violator. But I think my first exposure to the Spawn video games and I think this might be pretty common for Zoomers, too, was the Angry video game nerds video on the Spawn video games correct. In which he does not like this game.

Oh, he does not like this game at all. He doesn't like game.

Makes him angry, hence the name. But I like the Super Nintendo spawn game. I think that's pretty fun. I think it's kind of impressive, too, for a Super Nintendo game.

True. Yeah. It's not awful. I mean, it's not great, but yeah.

And I am a fan of the Dreamcast game. Demon Fist. Demon get Demon fisted or something like that.

Sure. Why not?

Something like that. The PlayStation One game is ass.

Full ass.

Very bad. It is full ass. Not good.

Not great.

Not good at all. But this game is the one we're talking about. And it was released November 21, 2003. It was published by Namco, of course, legendary video game publisher Namco. And it was developed by a company called Point of View.

Okay.

Based in Irvine, California.

Interesting.

And they went out of business in 2010.

Seven years it took them. That's a seven year bomb from this game.

Yeah. And looking at their list of things they have done, they've done a lot of ports. They did a lot of ports, including the PC Port of Genesis game. I really like Garfield caught in the act.

Sure, why not?

Yeah. Which if you're a fan of, like, Lasagna based games, you'll like it.

Check it out. Yeah. It's probably where you should start. Right? That would be a good starting point for Lasagna based gaming. Yes, correct.

They also did the Saturn and PC ports of Mortal Kombat trilogy. Rampage World Tour, NFL Blitz. For PC, they did a lot with Midway.

Sure.

They were the developers behind, ready to rumble boxing.

I like that game. That was a dreamcast, too. Yeah, it's a fun game.

They didn't do the Dreamcast version.

Of course they didn't.

They did the N 64 on PlayStation version. And then for round two, they did the PlayStation version. They also did the GameCube and Xbox version of Blitz 2002. But they did, apparently, all versions of NFL Blitz 2003. Michael Straham.

Yeah, sure.

They also developed Scorpion King Rise of the Acadian, which is dog shit.

Oh, I can't imagine any yeah, that's so bad.

The last game they did was TNA Impact crossed the line.

Okay.

But I do want to point out one game they did that I didn't know existed, and now I'm obsessed with and must find and play immediately.

Let's hear it.

In 2007, for the PlayStation Two and PC, they developed a video game adaptation of The Shield with Michael Chicklis.

We have to play that on this show.

Absolutely.

We have to.

That's one of the funniest shows of all time.

Unintentionally unintentionally. Of course.

In the same way that, like, Sons of Anarchy is hilarious.

Unintentionally unintentionally.

Absolutely. Yes. We must play the shield on PlayStation Two. I can't believe this company went out of business.

I'm shocked. After the home run hits of those intellectual properties, we could do, like, is there a fucking well, no, because it's too soon. I'm just saying, if there was a Sons of Anarchy a game, we could do, like, a whole FX fucking month of FX shows with this that oh, my God.

So it would be Sons of Anarchy. The game. The Baxter to executioner. The Game. The Americans. The Game.

I love it.

It's always sunny in Philadelphia. The Game.

The Game. Yeah. Oh, my God. That'd be amazing.

Frank's donkey brain madness.

I'm going to play that in a second. Yeah.

We have to do The Shield starring Charlie.

We have to do The Shield a game on this podcast.

Like, absolutely.

Begging you. I'm begging you.

And this game was directed by tod McFarland spawn Creator. He directed the game's production.

He likes to insert himself in a lot of things. I'll say that I'm not going to make any I'll say this.

He seems unlikable.

I've never met him, but every interview I've seen and everything he's ever done, I've found him insufferable.

He seems annoying.

Yeah. Like buying Barry Bonds winning baseball or something for, like or maybe no, it was Mark McGuire. Sorry. When he broke the home run record, he bought that for X millions of dollars or something. And then he's just he's insufferable.

And apparently this is this is a wrinkle in the whole thing. He's gonna make his feature film director did yeah. Directorial debut with a reboot of Spawn that will star Jamie Fox wait, soon. Who is not doing well.

Yeah. Do we even know what's going on with him exactly?

Yeah. I don't know. Like, he had, like, a stroke or something or something like that. All I know is all the dumbest people on the planet immediately were like, oh, vaccine.

Of course. Anytime anything happens now, it's got to be the vaccine. Betty White died. She was 104 years old. Had to be the vaccine. Couldn't be the vaccine.

The Crypt Keeper died. He got the jab.

He must have gotten the poison shots. Fucking clowns. It's weird.

It's on Todd McFarland's, like, IMDb, but it is not on Jamie Fox's. So I wonder if this is a case of Todd McFarland is trying to.

Manifest this in fucking sufferable, this guy.

Oh, God. We're just starting all kinds of beef now.

Listen, again, I don't know the guy, and I might be wrong, but I don't think I've ever seen a photo of him where he's not wearing a backwards baseball cap. That's the kind of person I feel like Tom McFarland is. He just can't.

We're taking the stand right now. The discrete error. Podcast officially has beef with Tod McFarland.

That's right. We're calling them out.

Seth McFarland for that. Fucking Seth McFarland for? What was I trying to say? For that matter.

Yeah, for that matter.

Yeah, seth McFarland, too, for that matter. Fuck that guy.

The Orville, though, I kind of like the Orville.

Family guy's ass.

No family guy's ass. I hate Family Guy, but, man, orville is pretty good. I got to be honest. I'm enjoying the Orville, so whatever.

I haven't watched it.

It's like Star Trek, but actually Star Trek like what Star Trek was when.

People were divided on Seth McFarland. But Todd McFarland. Fuck that guy.

Fuck that guy. Fuck him.

Officially. That's the official stance of the Dr. E Pod.

Except I got to say, he makes some good toys. Todd toys were always the best, but go on.

Fuck that's right. I have a Tod McFarland Simpsons.

I know you do, because they are the best. They are the most detailed fucking things in the world.

All right, well, Tod McFarland, you're on fucking notice.

He's on blast. He's on blast.

You're on thin fucking ice. Also, if you directed this game, then you were responsible for the Marilyn Manson song. Use your fist and not your mouth. Oh, my God. Being used in the intro and in the credits. Yeah, that hasn't aged well. Fucking yikes. Maybe that's the secret to growing this podcast, is we need more Howard Stern like Baba Booyah.

Yeah, get fucking Beetlejuice in here. He'll do some draws for us.

Fuck yeah. I would love this podcast, would be the number one podcast if we were reviewing these games with Beetlejuice and he.

Didn'T even play them, but we'd still ask them, did you like that part where you fought Hades in God of War? Beetlejuice Hades? Yeah, it was great.

I liked it a lot.

I beat shit up. He's great. I can't kick his butt.

I love Nintendo.

We got to get Beetlejuice as our third fucking co host.

Absolutely. If there's any booking agents out there that want to take us on as clients and can book a Beetlejuice specifically, he's really the only person we're interested in.

Literally no one else like Obama. And we'd get millions of listeners. I don't care. I want Beat. That's what I want. I want Beetlejuice.

Absolutely. I would say a Beetlejuice and the bagel boss guy, but that dude just died.

No, that's untrue. He's not dead. It's all fake news.

He died.

It was all over Twitter. But he's still alive and he's alive.

Trust the Internet for shit. We need to get Bagel boss on here to confirm he's alive.

And just sneak in short jokes every once in a while, see if he catches him. And when he does, he would storm off every episode. He just fucking closes the zoom call and he's just gone.

Yeah, that's what we need. That's the kind of lively attitude we need on this show.

And this week we're playing tiny Tune Adventures. You motherfuckers.

You're not my dad, you're not God or my father starts talking about dating sites.

He has like a 20 minutes rand in every episodes about chicks calling him shorts and dating sites.

Oh my God, it's so funny. You know what? Grumpy cat would have been a good get, but that cat's definitely dead.

That cat is dead. That cat did die. Yes, you're correct.

Absolutely. Grumpy moment of silence for Grumpy cat.

Pour one out.

Yeah, pour some caffeine out on the curb. But back to what this podcast actually is about. Spawn. Let's get into the story as much as there is one.

Yeah.

What are you doing here? Did you see the beam that just struck Central Park? I saw it. What was it?

Surely a herald of things to come.

Not exactly sure what it was, but it can't be good. A herald of things to come. What are you saying? I have a feeling that you're about to get involved in something that may overwhelm you. Whatever that beam was, I can handle it.

So the game starts out with, I would say, a pretty decent looking cutscene.

Yeah, the cutscenes are good. The cutscenes are very good.

Yeah, cutscenes are good. And you get like some sort of soliloquy kind of that's the proper usage of that word, right?

Sure.

Of Spawn. Voiced by voice actor Kevin M. Richardson. Which quick aside, I did pull a couple of the things that I thought were interesting that this guy did voices for, because he's done voices for about 15 trillion things.

Oh, shit. So he's like a Frank welker type.

Yeah, he's like the busiest man in fucking Hollywood voice actor wise. But in the video game space, he's the voice of Tartarus in Halo Two.

Oh, wow. Okay. Yeah.

He also in the reboot of Celebrity Death Match was the voice of Shaq on one episode.

Okay.

In Metal Gear Solid Two. He was CMC Dolph.

Don't remember CMC, dolph Neither do I. Not many people do. Probably.

In the Wild Thornberries movie, he was Shaman Mianambo, the one who I believe gives Eliza her powers. He's also captain gone to in the Lilo and Stitch game.

Got it. So he reprised his role, which is cool.

He's also a voice on Canceled Too Soon show starring Eugene Levy and Seth Green on the Fox network. Greg the bunny. He was in one episode of that.

I remember Greg. I remember Greg, the bunny. Sure.

He also is Mace Windu, along with a bunch of other characters in Star Wars. Jedi Starfighter. And he is Sebastian in Kingdom hearts. Sebastian the crab.

Yeah. Okay.

So needless to say, Kevin M. Richardson man's got range, big range. He can be a demon Hell spawn. He can be a Jamaican crab. He can be a space officer. He can be a shaman.

He can be a Jedi master.

He could be a Jedi master. There is no limit to this guy's range. And I would say it's a highlight of this game.

Oh, yeah, the voice acting. His voice acting highlight. Yeah, I agree.

But, yeah, he's on a rooftop. He's giving you the spiel. He's bringing you up to date about how he made a deal with the Devil.

Sure.

Save his wife. Wanda Sponda. Sponda.

Sponda. That's correct. There you go.

To save his wife sponda. And he's, like, pissed off about it.

No, he's not.

Happy correspond is a tale of buyer's remorse.

100%. Yeah.

He knew. Like, I don't know about you, but if the Devil were like, hey, actually, you know what? I'd probably be spawn. That sounds actually sounds kind of fucking cool. I would do it, too, but I just wouldn't bitch about it, I guess.

Right? He bitches about it, which he can't.

Seem to not bitch about it. It sucks so bad. Fucking having superpowers and being fucking ripped and just having fucking chain that can do whatever I want. Doctor Strange ass cape.

Right? And his beef seems to be that he doesn't want to lead Hell's army onto Earth. And my thing when I was a fan of the comic was, there's nothing to say. He has to do a good job, couldn't he? Just bad job, fuck it up, get in there and be like, yeah, you guys go into those meat lockers and close the door. I don't know that's off the top of my head. Yeah, he's had time to plan. I haven't. That's just the first thing I thought of. But like, yeah, do some dumb shit. Maybe you'll get fired, or maybe they'll lose, and then you're like, oh, well, I tried. I guess I'm not very good at this. By the way, you picked me out randomly to do this Devil, because I.

Was like, a special agent, right?

Yeah.

Or do this. You talk to the devil. Be like Diablo. Devil, satan. Lucifer Morningstar, my guy. Check it out. What if we did this? What if we infiltrated American politics and over the course of a few decades put in place a right wing Supreme Court and just slowly but surely, through foreign policy and aggressive, aggressive austerity measures just made everyone's life fucking terrible?

Just the worst? Yeah.

And then we take over the world. We're jumping ahead steps here. He could do that. But of course, he's a fucking idiot. So he's stuck in this, and he never does it. He never is leading the Hell's army. He's just bitching about it. And I guess the Devil never thinks to just take his powers from him and be like, all right, dude, and you're not fucking following. You're part of the deal.

Yeah. You're just running around on rooftops and fucking being a homeless weirdo who smells.

And not great, not looking good.

No face. Bad face. Bad face.

But, yeah, he's just, like, the worst employee.

Yeah, the one of the worst.

Yeah. Like, if you go went down to hell and looked at all the employees of the month, they're fucking Vlad the Impaler. Hitler, of course, maybe employee of the century. George Bush, sure, but not spawn. Never Spawn.

This space reserve for Henry Kissinger. Yeah.

If this were an episode of The Office, he's the gym. He clearly doesn't give a shit about this job.

No, he doesn't care. He's looking at the camera.

Meanwhile, how the violator is Dwight, and it's just like, yeah, pick me. Why wouldn't you pick me? Secretly, Satan's disgusted by his clown image, but, yeah. So he's on the rooftop. We've gone aside from this, but he's on the rooftop, he's filling you in, and then all of a sudden, a shockwave of green fucking, like, I don't know, devil and green goo. A green shockwave blows through New York City, and he's like, what the fuck is this? And then he jumps down and his cape's doing cool stuff, but then his cape disappears because his cape is not around all the time. It seems like he only uses his cape, though, when it looks cool.

Yeah, that's fairly canon, though, in the comics, honestly.

But there's no reason for his cape to be out when he's, like, sitting on a gargoyle.

No, it's just vibing with him, honestly.

Yeah. It's an aesthetic choice. And he realizes that it is Armageddon. And the war of the demons versus the angels has begun.

Yeah, it's time. It's go time.

And through a pretty incoherent story, you fight both demons and angels. And the Redeemer, who looks like a paladin from Vanilla World of Warcraft, he's the anti Spawn. He's the Heavens version of Spawn. And he is voiced by Joe Motherfucking DiMaggio, the goat bender himself.

That's right.

And then you fight, like, the violator and stuff, and it makes no sense. None of it makes any sense.

No, of course.

That's not the point. You're not playing this game because it's literature. No, this is not withering fucking heights. This is Armageddon.

Yeah, exactly.

But let's get into the gameplay.

All right? Jason, what are you hiding? There's nothing in here about a weapon with a beam like the one I saw, but what's this? Cybernetic soldier experiment? Performance enhancers test subject escaped, heading for the city? No, this is more my style.

So this game has some interesting gameplay. And by interesting, I mean not incredibly interesting. No, you have an agony axe, so that's where your cape actually is when it's not doing cape things, it turns into the Agony Axe.

Correct.

Of which you have precisely one attack with you slam the circle button and he goes, yeah, you have that.

Yes.

Then.

You can shoot shit, right?

You can pick up guns.

You do have guns.

Yeah, you can get guns. Spawn's a different kind of hero. He's a hero that will bust a cap in your ass and not think twice of it. The guy loves guns. This is probably one of the reasons why the Devil was interested after seeing his CV, like, oh, this guy's good with guns.

He's like, this guy gets it.

Guns are awesome. Yeah. Hits the guns thing. It's sick. Fuck, we love guns.

Love them.

Everything is cool with guns. You can get a sawed off shotgun. That's the first gun you get. That's the basic gun. So that's what kind of game you're dealing with. You can get semi automatic pistols, of course. You can get a submachine gun. You can get a mini gun.

Yeah.

You can get something called a Brimstone Cannon.

It's like a one shot DFG deal. Yeah.

And then a burst missile launcher. And then the strongest weapon in the game, the Inferno Cannon.

Yeah. Oh, yeah.

See, because the Inferno Cannon brother, brother, brother.

Oh, boy.

Which is cool. I mean, sure, you can tell it's cool. You can tell it's cool by its name. Inferno Cannon.

That's true. That's a very good point.

Yeah. How do you get cooler than an Inferno Can? But then also, that's not an end because you can also hit people with your chains.

Hell yeah, you can.

You can hit all kinds of people with your chains. And that's not all, because you have access to hell powers.

Fuck.

But Hell powers have a cost, right? There's a mana mechanic mana or mana, whatever.

Okay. Yeah, it's fine, it's fine.

Yeah. You have to collect the grossest substance name I've ever heard. Necroplasm. Which sounds like demon jizz, right?

I mean, I think it almost exactly is.

It'S Ghoul splooge. Ghoul spooge correct. Splooge. That's a good band name, ghoul Spooge. It's a death metal band name if I've ever heard one.

Fuck.

So you collect ghoul spooge. Splooge. And you have various abilities you can use with it. The first of which is, and I'm not fucking kidding you, necroplasm Ball. So you have a ball of Necroplasm, and then it just busts on your enemy and lights out. Lights out. Then you have the Necroplasm Beam.

Right?

Which shoots a beam of Necroplasm that can hit multiple enemies.

Yeah, I mean, it's like a three.

Shot, like a rail gun.

Yeah.

Then you have the Necro Shield, which covers you face cocoon. Covers you in a cocoon of necroplasm, dear, and shields you. And then you have Hell Speed, which you release your Necroplasm and you are fast, like you just lost ten pounds. And you are quick. You're flying quick with it quick. Hell yes. And then the last one. And like the biggest upgrade, right, is Demonic Fury. So you fill up with Necroplasm and then it summons a worm like entity of necroplasm energy that swarms your target. Causes a large amount of damage.

Indeed. Nerdiest shit.

Imaginable definitely not sexual at all.

Oh no.

Where would you get that idea to do with that?

None at all.

And these are all things you can kind of with your weapons especially, you can upgrade them. So there's like an in game currency. There's like fucking orbs and money. You're like getting in shit. And you can upgrade in between stages. There's 23 levels in between stages. You can upgrade your guns, you can upgrade, you can upgrade your health and get more health, more maximum health, more maximum ghoul sploge. These are all things that you can do in between. I don't know about you, this is a much better game than Minority Report. But I get Minority Report vibes from this game.

Very, very they're spiritual cousins, at the very least.

Yeah, there's something extremely Minority Reportish about the vibe of this game. This is Hot Topic minority Report.

There it is.

And there are a surprising amount of enemies, right?

Yes, there are.

Not in the beginning of the game, though. In the beginning of the game it's basically exclusively imps and like these stupid fucking demon spider things that suck.

Yes.

But eventually you get like bulldozers. Like the demons like possess a bulldozer, which is funny. A claw demon. Some of the imps fly. You fight the violator. There's hell leeches lamenting demons, hell eyes. Meat puppets. Metadrones. The metatron. It's the Redeemer in his final most powerful form, right?

That's correct. Yes.

Newborn, which are large imps possessed soldiers. Reavers fucking angels. Angel assassins. There's a lot of enemies in this game, but don't let that make you think that this is a long game. I would say this is like a four or five hour game.

It is not tops 5 hours. Yeah.

If you're quick with it, with this kind of like fucking beat them up kind of thing, you could probably burn through it in 3 hours, I would say.

Yeah, easily. Easily, yeah.

There is not a lot of game here which is probably for the best. This is a game that very quickly starts wearing out its welcome.

It absolutely quickly wears out. I think it might have it was a conscious choice to make this game this short, I think.

Yeah, a good choice. There is something that really bugs me about this game though, and I think this is something that we didn't mention but Predator also did, that was kind of fucking goofy. When it goes to a cut scene, it is so disorienting because it goes to just a camera angle you would never expect and then goes back to kind of where the camera was.

Right.

Seemingly with reason.

Right.

It's so weird. It's so disorienting. It sucks. And it's funny because the music will go to ethereal stringy stuff in a cutscene, and then the second the cutscenes over back to burn it.

Burn it. Yes.

This game has fucking terrible music.

Yes. Oh, my God.

It's not even butt rock. This is like early 2000s, like every fucking band in the south that said they were a metal band.

Yeah, perfect.

This is Confederate flag metal music.

Yes. This is the ectoplasm of which kid rock emerged.

Yes. But with less rapping, I guess.

Yeah, without the rapping. Yeah.

That's the vibe that is cultivated by this music. But I would say the graphics don't look too bad, especially considering that it's like a 2003 release. I would say it looks as good as Predator Concrete Jungle. I think it looks at least as good as that. At least as good as concrete jungle.

The graphics didn't stand out as being particularly good or bad. They were fine. They're good enough.

Yeah, the FMVs were pretty good.

Yeah, not bad. Not bad. Yeah, not bad.

But it kind of falls flat on its face in, like, too many things. I guess I would just say that this game is kind of unremarkable.

It's exactly the right word. I've been trying to think of the word for it. It just kind of is there it's a game that you're just like, yeah, I'm playing it. I'm not not enjoying myself, but I'm not like, oh, my God, I got to keep playing. Like, if you're just like, oh, I guess I'll keep playing, but you don't have a reason to because it doesn't fucking matter. And it's like, you're not getting the dopamine hit of succeeding in gameplay, and the story is fucking garbage. So you're just like, this is a video game. This is a video game I'm playing currently. I think there are other games like.

This that are more enjoyable because you can kind of hone your skill in, like, the combat system, and it makes it more fun that way. You're like, oh, I can get good at this kind of combat system. This combat system is so mediocre and not complicated. And it's like a three button. It's jump gun, Ecto, splogee, whatever, or hit them with the axe and you combo, I guess, by just slamming circle button. But it's not complex or interesting enough to get some sort of pleasure out of that.

It's run of the mill. I mean, it's just generic, but hey.

What the fuck do we know? Let's see what other people thought of this game.

I want to know. It is done.

The hell hole is closed.

Now it's time for Melbosia to fulfill his side of the bargain.

I'm afraid that won't be happening, my friend.

What?

You were promised your humanity if the.

Weapon was never fired again.

But indeed it was.

Shit.

So this game came out on PlayStation? Two GameCube and Xbox.

Okay.

Would you be shocked. To know that the PS Two version was the worst rated.

No, because that's an ongoing theme.

It was the worst rated. 56 out of 100 on Metacritic. Xbox was 57. I guess it got the one point bump because people were loving the Soul Caliber Two Spawn exclusive.

That was what it was. I mean, honestly.

Yeah. And then the GameCube got a 61, which I think we can just refer to this as the GameCube Bump. Every multiplatform game gets a little bit of a bump on GameCube because people have just so much nostalgia for that. And even at the time, I think people just liked it better. And I mean GameCube's controller. Yeah, I think that's what it is. But it received mixed reviews on Metacritic, and the action was criticized for being basic and repetitive and the combos described as lame.

Okay.

Which is pretty fucking accurate.

Oh, I'd agree. Yeah. Accurate.

But a bunch of people did review this game, and EGM gave it a 4.83 out of ten. That's specific.

That's hurtful.

Game Informer gave it a 6.5 out of ten. I would say meet me in the middle.

Sure.

Game Pro gave it a two and a half out of five stars. Game Spot gave it a 5.6 out of ten. Game Spy gave it a two out of five stars. Game Zone gave it a seven and a half out of ten. IGN gave it a 7.7 out of ten. PlayStation Magazine gave it one and a half stars.

Wow.

Yikes.

Yikes, indeed.

This is kind of funny, though. Nintendo Power gave the GameCube version a three and a half out of five.

Okay, guys, come on.

Yeah. Why would Nintendo Power even review this?

Yeah, it's not for kids. Yeah.

This doesn't make any sense. Game Spa actually gave Xbox the highest the highest score at 5.8.

Okay.

And EGM gave it across all platforms the exact same.

Which makes sense. Makes sense to me.

Official xbox Magazine gave it a 6.5 out of ten.

They're juicing up the numbers there.

Yeah, they're just juicing up because they're like, fuck, nobody's buying this fucking green box. They're only playing Halo.

Yeah, exactly.

That's the only reason anyone has this goddamn thing.

Just buy something else.

Fucking buy something else, please, for the love of God.

We got lots of games. We got lots of not just Halo and Madden.

So, Ian, how would you rank this game?

Okay, I'll start with my number. I'm going to give it five out of ten. Imps. Running up to you, trying to kill you, and getting just beat down.

Running up to you. Doing stuff.

They're doing stuff. The word the kids are using, it's mid. It's just right in the middle.

Definitely mid. Dead ass. No cap on.

God.

For real?

For real. 100. There's nothing special about this game. This is, I think, about the perfect quick cash in IP, which is weird, because when it came out versus when Spawn really was at its peak was not in 2003, but it's just the IP game that it's like Chat GPT made it. It's right on the average, it's right down the middle. Game pays fine. It doesn't play awful, it doesn't play fun. The voice acting is good, but like, the music's bad, the graphics are fine. There's just nothing exceptional about this game.

Which in a lot of ways, I.

Think the story and this is going to be hot take. Hot take is kind of how I've always felt about Image comics. It just exists and it's just nothing special about it.

I know, people, style over substance.

Yeah.

Unfortunately, with the video game, there is not much style either.

No, there's also not much style, and I think, again, it's not exceptional, and maybe it doesn't need to be, but that's why I'm fucking reviewing that's why I gave it a five. Not exceptional. Spawn.

I'm going to give it five out of ten. John Leguizamos.

Nicely done.

Because this game is mid as hell. On, God. No cap.

No cap. No cap, folks.

No cap. No cap here. You can't call us Lids because no cap here.

Yeah, that's right. See what you did there? I like that.

Like that, yeah. Do people go to Lids anymore?

I'm not sure they exist, but I think they do.

The hat store.

The hat store. I know what it is.

If you need a Dodgers hat, you.

Go to Lid or you get them in CVS. Yeah.

If you're taking a date to a baseball game and you want to make her think you actually care about sports, but you don't, shit. Just pop by Lids, get yourself a.

Fitted and keep the sticker on the bill, on the bottom of the bill. Keep that sticker there, because that's key.

And yeah, there you go.

Boom, boom. There you go.

Well, that was Spawn armageddon.

Sure was.

Armageddon.

Armageddon.

Armageddon on what is it? That's an album or something, right?

Probably. If it's not, it should have been Armageddon. Well, thanks, folks, for listening. We really appreciate it. Please like us, subscribe to us, leave a comment. Wherever you're listening to this, just say thumbs up, thumbs down. You don't know anything about image comics. If you want to get in a little comics fight, we can do that. I wouldn't mind. I've got a little bit to stand on and vote in our polls.

If you think Spawn to Sykes is a lame ass joke, don't tell me that'll hurt my feelings. Keep that fucking self.

Leave that to yourself. That doesn't need to be said, because it's wrong. Also, it is correct. You are wrong.

If you don't like that joke, follow us on our social media at Discrete AirPod on Instagram. You can also find me at funeral. Casual games.

I'm at Ian Golding Games, and you.

Can find us on whatnot? Occasionally at funeral casual. Also bullshitting, dropping hot takes and doing the damn thing.

Doing the damn thing. Also, we'd like to hear some like what are you called our fans? Are you the dreamers? Dr? E dreamers.

Dreidel come up.

Dreidel seat. We already have two. Those are just us off the cuff. I sprung this on Kicker. He didn't know I was going to say this. I want to know what you want to be called. Tell us what you want to be called. Because we just call you people.

Dr. Dre's.

See, that's three good ones right there. Maybe we're gonna that's a poll. That's a fucking spotify. Boom.

You got polled.

You just got fucking he just got fucking polled. But a boom.

But a bing.