The Incredible Hulk: Ultimate Destruction

"Obliterate! Annihilate! Destroy! SMASH!"

Ah, The Incredible Hulk. One of the most outrageous Marvel heroes of all time. With stupendous strength, insane will, and a devil-may-care attitude, he smashes through his opponents without breaking a sweat.

Obviously, ol' Hulk would be a good candidate for a game... so when Ang Lee put out the Hulk movie in 2003 Radical Entertainment and VU Games responded with a video game. Unfortunately... the game was laughable, shoddy... it was just wrong.

The two companies realized their mistake, and they decided to apologize for it with a better game, one sticking to the Ultimate series of Marvel comic books. Enter The Incredible Hulk: Ultimate Destruction.

Gameplay: 9/10

The best superhero gameplay there was was Spider-Man 2. Not anymore. TIH:UD has some really outstanding gameplay- the Hulk is placed in one of two free-roam areas, akin to Grand Theft Auto. What sets it apart? The Hulk, of course! Hulk can run up and across buildings, his jumps are massive, and his attacks are both destructive and varied. Granted, the only thing you'll be doing is smashing things and/or people, but it is quite fun- there are many ways to smash a helicopter, such as jumping on top of it and riding it to its death. Hulk also has standard special attacks, going by the name of Critical Mass moves; "mass destruction" indeed. Unfortunately, you won't get the full power of the Hulk at the beginning- you'll have to purchase his moves using "Smash Points" gained from, well, smashing things- but Hulk is still impressive in his most basic form.

Story: 6/10

The story is straightforward... the Hulk is simple-minded, and the same can be said for the story. It starts off with old mild-mannered Bruce Banner trying to work out a cure for his horrible transformation with Doc Samson. Of course, to do this they'll have to get technology from the military, and it doesn't help that both General Ross and Emil Blonsky want to destroy the Hulk. Along the way, you'll just either be retrieving data/objects, protecting things, or smashing things up, so there's really no reason for a story.

Graphics: 8/10

The city and the Badlands are rendered in a vast fashion- this means that not everything is terribly detailed, but there sure is a lot of it. The main human characters are modeled pretty well- the designs come out as pretty artistic. Explosions rock the buildings around them, and for every step the Hulk takes he leaves a crater. Apparently there aren't any noticable clipping problems- this could be either the sheer vastness of things, or the fact that you'll be having too much fun to notice.

Sound: 8/10

The music for the game is cinematic- orchestras, a looming soundtrack, sometimes silence. However, the music does happen to outclass 2003's Hulk, so keep an eye out for that. As for the effects, none of the sound is canned- all of the effects were recorded fresh. Thus you get some really nice quality in your booms and your pows. What they failed to mention, however, is that when there is a million explosions going on, the sound seems to conglomerate into one messy bass show. This can be either good or bad- in my opinion, it adds to the chaos.

Replayability: 7/10

If you don't want to do the missions, well... you have to, but there are some alternatives. There are challenges laid about the City and the Badlands for you to conquer, and also a nice little Extras section with movies and art. There are also different skins and cheats to use, but all-in-all it's the same ride.

Overall: 8/10

The Incredible Hulk: Ultimate Destruction is an extremely fun ride- however, it's quite short once you get the hang of Hulk. I wouldn't say it's completely worth its' $50 price tag (namely because of the length); however, hardcore Hulk fans will probably be entertained for years. I'd suggest a rental, just to get the scope of things.

Reviewer's Score: 8/10, Originally Posted: 08/29/05