The Incredible Hulk: Ultimate Destruction

Hulk Smash Good! See why VU Games' latest attempt at a green goliath action game is totally awesome!

Every comic book superhero tries to make it in the world of video games and it usually takes a few tries to get it right; a few painful, god awful, horrible tries to get it right. As any fan of the Incredible Hulk will remember, the Hulk’s first entry into the video game market two years ago was less than stellar, not to mention it was also a movie tie-in, a video game death sentence. Thankfully it took less tries for Radical to make the Hulk something actually worth playing than most superhero games do. Taking a page from Spiderman 2 and some would say Grand Theft Auto, since everything is compared to it these days, but whatever works, go with it. The Hulk has to deal with his usual foes, General Ross and the US Military along with a few more villains from the comics, some more obscure than others, thrown in for good measure. The story is pretty straight forward, one that any comic fan or anyone familiar with the Hulk will know, the military wants the Hulk captured and Emil Blonsky, the leader of a shadowy government agency known as the “Division”, has his own agenda with the Hulk, all while Doc Samson and Bruce Banner are trying to find a cure for the green goliath’s affliction.

The game is broken up into missions that the Hulk must complete to help him figure out if there is a cure out there for him. The missions range from retrieval missions where you need to go to a hospital to find objects like a CAT scan machine, to demolition missions where you need to go destroy a certain building or object and protection missions where you need to fend off enemies attacking an object or building for a certain amount of time. Along with the 30 plus storyline missions, there are also a wide range of mini-games that range from hilarious to frustrating. These games have no effect on the story at all but do gain you smash points which can be used to purchase new moves that can be used in the game. The mini games are just for fun and usually involve the Hulk throwing, kicking, batting or carrying objects. Some such mini-games are kicking cars through a football goal post of sorts, batting soldiers with a steel girder as they drop out of a chopper and the time trial mini games where you need to carry a certain number of objects to a goal in a limited amount of time.

The control of the Hulk is a love/hate relationship. For the most part the control is done quite well. He can run up buildings, along the walls and jump a mile into the air. The problem comes when you are running up a building and the camera decides to go wonky on you, following you up a wall while you are running on an angle and you are unable to change it until you hit a level surface. When you are out on a romp through the city destroying everything you touch, it’s not that big of a problem, but when you have helicopters firing missile after missile into your green, bulbous head and purple shorts, it can get a little frustrating. Stopping to get your bearings and to make sure you are headed the right way can pull you out of the experience.

Just about everything in the Hulk can be destroyed and just about everything you can find can be used as a weapon. Cars can be picked up, ripped in half and your fists sheathed in them, buses and trucks can be flattened into shields to hide behind, smaller cars can be balled up into bowling balls, wrecking balls can be used as a morning star, poles can be used as clubs, anything that can be picked up can be thrown and so on. There are many possibilities found through out the game and it is very refreshing to have so many options. That’s not to say that you start the game with all these options, because you don’t, you need to purchase the moves by using Smash Points that you accumulate through out the game by destroying things. It really isn’t hard to amass them and you rack them up without even knowing it. There are times in the storyline game that you even need to have certain moves, like being able to hammer toss a tank to continue on, which a pretty good hint as to what you will need to do for that mission.

The graphical style of the Hulk is pretty spot on. They aren’t the best graphics in the world but they certainly aren’t awful by any means. Animations are done suitably and there are plenty to go around, especially with the little hidden ones like when the Hulk pats civilians on the head or flicks them in the face. Cut scenes are something worth playing through the game for as they are both gorgeously done and help push the story along. The destruction of objects is remarkable and believable and trust me, there is a butt load of destruction going on, whether it’s intentional or not. There is a lot going on in Hulk: Ultimate Destruction with both the storyline and mini-games but there are also little prizes such as comic book icons that unlock special galleries and costumes for the Hulk.

All in all, even with no multiplayer, Hulk: Ultimate Destruction is a game that is well worth the time, albeit shorter than many games, and although the setting is limited to only the cityscape and the desert environments over and over, the missions and mini-games mixed in with the carnage that only a brute like the Hulk can provide, it all makes the Hulk’s outing this time well worth it.