When it comes to cartoon franchises, the most peculiar choices ended up being the biggest sellers. Who would have thought that the damning critique of treatment of Veterans would earn 60 episodes and a slew of merchandise, or the ultra-capitalistic hellscape of Delta City would have both a T.V. series and a successful cartoon? In 1999, feeling like a tie-in for a similar cartoon listed above, a Game Boy Colour game took Al Simmons on the road, in Spawn.

Al Simmons is out taking justice to the streets, climbing platforms and dealing with foes from both the mortal realm and the forces of heaven and hell. While the story was limited on the cartridge, characters from the franchise’s history will come to taunt Spawn. You cross through the 3ight levels, either vertically or horizontally, travelling from platform to platform, across familiar locales. As with Simmons, your mission remains true: strike those who oppose you, living or otherwise.

As a cartoon platformer, Spawn remains a simple yet effective proposition. You traverse the levels, dealing with foes; if you’re playing on easy, they shouldn’t be too much of a problem. Harder, like the name suggests, provides more of a challenge, but at least you get a different ending for your troubles. Weapons are available to you as you make your way through familiar locales of Heaven, Hell and beyond, but your fists and hand-to-hand combat should serve you well on your quest.

Finding a home on the portable Game Boy’s Hardware, Spawn keeps the gameplay simple but effective to maintain the most impact. However, the title shines in the presentation. We are firmly in Spawn game territory, which was released after the film came out. So, fresh characters like Jennifer Priest and Violator feature prominently. It is still cool to see them drawn in the cartoonish manner of the game. Spawn gets points for fully integrating the Game Boy’s sound chips to produce actual recorded dialogue. While that may not be as mind-blowing when compared to the home consoles, I always find it cool to see what you can do with limited tech, especially as few games managed to take advantage of these techniques. Even if the actors aren’t as iconic as, say, Keith David, they do a solid enough job, and if a Saturday morning cartoon was in the works, I can think of a few good choices based on these performances.

Spawn is cool, there’s little doubt about that, both the comic book, the film, and now the Game Boy game. The cartoon look evokes the S.N.E.S. game well from a few years prior, which may not be a bad thing, as the acclaimed H.B.O. show was sunsetting. The innovations in using voice acting on this console are fun, too. For the few hours that you spend with it, Spawn is engaging enough to keep the compelling tale of Simmons on the go.

If you want more positive reviews delivered to the e-mail box of your choice, you can click on that little text bubble at the bottom of the screen. Do you agree or disagree? or have a suggestion for another pop-culture artefact that needs a positive light shone on it? Leave a comment in the comment box below! But remember to keep it positive!