McFarlane's Monsters: Evil Prophecy

Written by Ryan Smotherman  on March 31, 2004

First Impressions: Am I Evil? No, but these guys are.

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Todd McFarlane, creator of the comic book character Spawn and founder of one of the most popular and respected toy companies around, hasn't had very much success within the gaming medium (sans a relatively small part in Namco's Soul Calibur 2). All of the games based off his pride and joy have pretty much sucked. I'm talking a sucking of the Spawn movie proportion here. Though, McFarlane's latest videogame project known as Evil Prophecy is nearing release, and with the backing of a company known for such classic franchises as Metal Gear and Castlevania, this action-based hack n' slash could potentially be good. Go figure.

The basic idea behind Evil Prophecy is rather unique. As it takes the characters from one of McFarlane's best toy line-ups, this being 2002's McFarlane's Monsters: Series 1, and shoves them into a videogame console for you to take on. The series was essentially McFarlane and company's take on such classic monsters as Dracula, Frankenstein, Werewolf, and the Mummy, as well as the Sea Creature and the Voodoo Queen. Except, they are brought to life with incredibly detailed sculptures that only the creative minds at McFarlane Toys could fashion. Don't believe me? Then check out the full line-up.

Set in the 19th century, Evil Prophecy will let you control four different characters in an action-packed romp with the goal of killing all six of the monsters as they present themselves. About the closest thing you could compare this game too would be Interplay's Hunter the Reckoning. They both sport four heroes, feature melee-based hack n' slash gameplay with a little magic thrown in, and have a dark backbone with which drives the action. Not much is known about the four playable characters except for their names Ц Doc, Chic, Pirate, and Shaman, and the fact that all four will be playable at the same time if you and your buds have a multi-tap and four controllers handy. Similar to games in the genre, the gameplay will consist of you and your friends defeating waves of baddies and eventually facing one of the six powerful monsters as a boss character.

Naturally, when you have the art talents of McFarlane's team, you're going to have an impressive graphical package. So far the 4 character models that make up the protagonists and the 150 or so creatures look to be up to snuff, especially the six monsters of which the game is based upon. While the fact that there are so many characters on the screen at once that it was only natural that a few details had to be dummed down a bit. From what little we've seen so far the environments that you'll be exploring are also nice, and suitably dark, but a lot has been hush hush up to this point. Do expect something special however.