The Incredible Hulk: Hulk fans are sure to have a blast smashing their way through every destructible obstacle the game throws at them.
For as much as superhero movies have improved
over recent years, the games based on the same intellectual properties haven't
exactly kept up. Just look at Spider-Man, Batman, The Punisher, or the
Fantastic Four--er, OK, maybe not the Fantastic Four--and then look at the
games that have followed up on the hit movies. Generally, there's a pretty wide
gap between film and game quality, even when the game itself isn't directly
based on the movie. 2003's game based on The Hulk franchise suffered from a
similar issue. While the game was mostly OK, it lacked depth, and it threw
together too many hackneyed gameplay mechanics that just weren't conducive to
an enjoyable experience playing as everyone's favorite angry, green hero.
Thankfully, developer Radical Entertainment saw the problems with the original
game and didn't give up, putting together a hugely improved sequel in the form
of The Incredible Hulk: Ultimate Destruction. Featuring something of an
open-ended structure, a bevy of crazy moves and destructible, well, everything,
Ultimate Destruction places you in a veritable playground designed just for
those who love the Hulk's methodology of destruction over discretion. Though
the game does have its flaws, the fact that Ultimate Destruction does such a
good job of actually making you feel like you are The Hulk makes its issues
much more forgivable.
Ultimate Destruction isn't based on the Ang Lee
Hulk film from a couple of years ago. Like THQ's recent Punisher game, it
focuses more on the comic-book universe, putting together a storyline that
brings such familiar characters as Doc Samson and the Abomination (aka Emil
Blonsky) into the fold. There isn't an awful lot to the plot of the game.
Essentially, Bruce Banner is already the Hulk by the time the game begins, and
he and Doc are working on a way to try to cure him. Enter Blonsky and a cadre
of government soldiers, who want nothing more than to wipe out our friend, Big
Green. Clearly, this aggression will not stand, and through the several
chapters of story the game presents, Hulk smashes whatever tries to stand in
his way.
And smash he does. What Ultimate Destruction
absolutely does best is give you a metric ton of ways to completely obliterate
anything around you. Hulk starts off with some fairly basic punches and throws
that let him do plenty of damage to the scenery around him, but as you play through
the game, you'll earn smash points via your destructive tendencies, which can
be used to purchase new moves. These moves range from humongous seismic bursts
that explode everything within a 30-foot radius to crazy hammer-throw moves
that let you whip tanks as if doing so were an Olympic event. Hulk is also
armed with a number of "weaponizations," which are basically ways he
can take things--like nearby cars, streetlamps, or what have you--and turn them
into methods of mayhem. You can pick up buses and smash them into useful
shields, rip cars in half, wrap them around your fists to effectively give Hulk
his own pair of novelty "Hulk Hands," or pick up a nearby missile
launcher and simply throw the missiles at oncoming helicopters. There are literally
dozens upon dozens of moves to unlock, and almost all of them are an absolute
riot. The game isn't exactly stingy with the smash points either, and even when
you do run low, all you need to do is head to one of the game's main
environments and go nuts.
During the game, Hulk takes up residence at a
secluded, abandoned church somewhere in the middle of nowhere. But from there
he has access to a few jump points, where he can literally jump hundreds of
feet in the air to reach new areas, the primary of which are a major metropolis
and the badlands (a barren desert with several military installations).
Similarly to those of the Grand Theft Auto games, story missions are accessible
from icons found in each area, and they are denoted on your map. The story
itself is quite linear, as you're only given one story mission at a time. But
in between story missions, you can run and do any number of a whole lot of
available side missions, which earn you more smash points. These missions range
from simple checkpoint races around the world, to rescue missions, to long-jump
competitions with a giant monkey balloon acting as a parachute (we'd try to
explain, but trust us when we say it makes more sense in the context of the
game). There are a whole lot of these side missions, giving you plenty of
lasting play beyond the scope of the story missions. And that's good, since
there really isn't a lot of breadth to the storyline portion of the game.
Not crush, not smush, not bash, not crash. The
Hulk will only SMASH!
In many ways, The Incredible Hulk: Ultimate
Destruction is exactly what a quality single-player adventure based on a
license ought to be. It pays ample service to the Hulk fan base through
numerous obscure references to assorted comic-book bric-a-brac and lots of
unlockable materials, and it manages to get the game portion of the equation
down pat, creating a world well-suited to Hulk and his destructive tendencies.
Sure, it isn't the deepest, longest, or most technically proficient game out
there, but fans of the comic book are sure to have a blast smashing their way
through every destructible obstacle the game throws at them, and anybody else
with a penchant for obliteration ought to at least give Ultimate Destruction a
look.
CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD THE INCreDIBLE HULK
Post a Comment