The Incredible Hulk: Ultimate Destruction

"Ur? Where Hulk now? Good game!? Can't be!"

The Incredible Hulk: Ultimate Destruction

Let me begin with a mea culpa - I love the Hulk. Not in a smooshy, touchy feely way, because the Hulk would not like that, and he would squish my head like an overripe melon. No, more in a "that character is totally awesome" kind of way. A being with uncontrollable rage, nigh invulnerability, and almost immeasurable strength. The concept itself has depth, given the whole "struggling with the inner beast" motif. One would imagine that to make a good game, you would need to focus on one of two aspects - either on the struggle with inner demons, or on the almost limitless destructive capacity of the alter-ego.

If you are aware of the title of this game, I think you can see where this one is headed.

- Gameplay

The basic layout of the game is similar in format to Spider-man 2 (or any sandbox-style 3rd person adventure, really). You've got two locations to tool around in - a metropolis and a desert with a small town and a military base. Markers here and there activate main story quests and side missions. Completing either earns you smash points (like experience points, but greener), which can be used to purchase additional moves and powers at your home base. In addition, causing local carnage can bring a strike force to bear on your position, which will vary in difficulty throughout the game.

As you complete main story missions, new missions pop up until you hit a boss battle, which in turn unlocks the next chapter, at which point a new set of moves becomes available for purchase and the difficulty level of the strike force increases.

- Graphics

As with most games of the sandbox variety in this generation of games, the graphics are not astounding. Because of the relatively large locales, detail must be sacrificed to avoid burdensome load times. While you can tell female from male pedestrians, I never actually saw faces or fingers. Buildings, likewise, are mostly texture-mapped flat planes with little variety in a given section. Naturally, larger characters receive special treatment. The Hulk looks awesome, pretty much exactly how he's drawn in comic books. Enemies down the road that are Hulk's size or larger tend to be finely detailed, sometimes with targetable parts. Overall, you can't expect much better graphics with this format in this piece of hardware.

- Sound

Spot on. The Hulk's grunts and yawps are well represented here (and his roars during a taunt are pretty fun, too). People will scream and run away from the Hulk, especially when he lands next to them off a powerful jump. Explosions are crisp, you can hear the whoosh of a missile as it passes by you, car tires screech realistically when they swerve to avoid the green goliath. My only minor gripe is that the between-mission dialogue between Bruce Banner and his associate is too quiet, forcing me to turn the volume up on my tv set.

- Plot

The story could be better. Basically, the military, in conjunction with Emil Blonsky, are hunting the Hulk. Bruce Banner enlists the aid of an associate to help him design a machine to keep his alter-ego under control, and the missions largely center around gathering parts for that machine or sabotaging military efforts to make anti-hulk weaponry and equipment. It's an innovative enough story that a functional game can be built around it, but you'll be playing the game for the Smashing, not the plot.

- Control

Solid. The Hulk is a little bit cumbersome, but that's exactly how he's supposed to be. There's actually a pretty steep learning curve, because he's got a lot of buttons that you use constantly - punch, punch harder, grab, run, and jump, usually several at once. Most of the actions Hulk can do are chargeable - hold a button for more power, with a visual power cue as the Hulk begins to glow. You've got to bear in mind, though, that the Hulk is not Spider Man or Wolverine. He's not about agility and reflexes, but raw power. So while you're flailing through the air, wondering why you can't get the Hulk to direction himself a little better, just remember that he's not supposed to do that. Purchased moves are introduced gradually enough that the ones you find useful are easy to incorporate into your play style.

- Misc commentary

Radical attempted to add an RPG-like element to this game via Smash points. Completing missions will get you bonus points, but the upgrades are not particularly gradual, and lack depth. A few new skills will require an older or cheaper skill (eg, you can't acquire a multi-ground pound before you can do a regular ground pound), but by and large you just buy new stuff as soon as a new chapter opens up. If you take the time to do the side missions, you'll never find yourself lacking in smash points. While it falls flat as a character-building mechanic, that fortunately means that you won't ever have to "level grind" - I only found myself repeating missions to get more smash points toward the end of the game, and even then I only had to do the same one over three times to get everything I needed.

- Fun Factor

The core of the game is, overall, pretty solid. So, the key question with any game - is it fun?

Well, depends on what you like, but I would venture that for the vast majority of gamers, the answer is yes. It's Smashing good fun (pun intended). It is immensely pleasurable to just bounce along the city and cause a little random mayhem, intentionally attracting a strike force so you can beat the snot out of it. Hulk's ability to run up buildings and, later, to do a little air-charge maneuver, means you can almost constantly be on the move, without having to stop for anything. And even if you're on the ground, just holding down the run button makes you a nigh unstoppable juggernaut. Hulk will plow right through cars, pedestrians, cows, large rocks, etc. And once you get the ability to reach critical mass and do extra damage with charge moves, you'll find yourself scaling a skyscraper just so you can jump off and devastate the hapless inhabitants of the square below. The best compliment I think I can pay to the game is that the Hulk feels like the Hulk should. You get a sense of the raw power coursing through his veins, of his boundless rage and pure destructive capability. Every move looks like it hurts... a lot. And they've given him enough creative moves and abilities that he can smash in style.

- Overall

I give the game a 9. If you enjoy sandbox-style play and a lot of random (though sanitized) violence, or if you've ever been a fan of the Hulk character, you owe it to yourself to give this one a try. It is somewhat lacking in story and graphical achievement, but is otherwise a great time. Its story mission playtime is relatively short, so rent it if you don't think you'll enjoy going back every once in awhile for some bonus carnage.

Reviewer's Score: 9/10, Originally Posted: 07/26/07