The Incredible Hulk: Ultimate destruction Review

December 11, 2006

Hulk rages out on the Gamecube

Graphics 8.8/10
Gameplay 9.3/10
Sound 9.2/10
Lastability 9.0/10
Overall 9.2/10

Being a gamer in the know I approached Hulk with a fair bit of caution due to its license and the tendency that license games are poor quality that rely on the license to sell. But to put it straight I am very impressed with this new Hulk game.It’s a sequel to the movie based Hulk game made by the same studio. The game follows a similar vein to the original although this time around the developers have given the control to the gamers. This is what makes Hulk so much fun. Instead of forcing you to follow the rules set by the developers you are given the freedom to explore 2 main areas. One of which is dense city and the other an open desert. There’s also a few boss battles to break the game up from the mission based structure. There are two types of mission, the story ones in which need to be completed to progress through the story and the extra missions in which earn extra unlockables. There is plenty unlockable content as well; developer videos, comic book covers, game cheats and more moves for the Hulk.

All of the games freedom would be pointless if the Hulk didn’t play right and luckily for us he is fine tuned to perfection. Personally I think that he can jump too high and too far in fact he could probably traverse a city quicker than Spidey. Also when jumping and running up buildings the camera and Hulk himself becomes somewhat difficult and turn in crazy directions that put you in the wrong direction. This becomes frustraing in missions that require you to get from A to be in a tight time limit. Hulk can punch, kick, do combos of both, smash down on the ground etc. As you progress through the game you unlock points for creating destruction that can be spent on buying new moves for out green friend. Theres a lot to do with Hulk. It’s not what Hulk can do that makes playing around with him enjoyable, its how he can interact with the environment. You can rip trees out of the ground and use it as a bat to smack pedestrians into the sea, tear cars into boxing gloves, surf the streets on a truck there’s just so much that you can do with the environment around you.

In between missions you can go around and do whatever. You can move between the church(main hub for the game) to the city and badlands(desert). Although the church links the main areas the city is where you’ll be spending most of your time.

Presentation wise Hulk is rather nice. FMVs accompany the main game which contain professional voice actors. Hulk of which is done by the voice actor doing the voice in the new cartoon series. The main menu looks nice enough but is a bit tacky. Another element that that makes this game a Hulk fans dream is the story line which much like the voice acting is made by people already working on the Hulk franchise. The story itself is one of twists and turns and is quite typical of most superhero plots not in a bad way though.

Graphically Hulk looks very solid, the grity art style that the developers have opted for works a treat and fits into the Hulk universe. The characters are all very well animated and use motion capture that gives it a realistic feel. The draw distance in the game is rather impressive. From the city level you can see most of what is in the background scaled down to a realistic view. Since Hulk is all about destroying things the explosions are done very well. They are very flexible and don’t look bad when your up close.

Just like the graphics and presentation further time and effort was put into creating realistic sound effects. Any form of destruction leads to some sort of realistic sound effect. From buildings crashing to throwing someone into a wall. All characters in the game contain full voice acting and as mentioned before are very well done. There’s plenty of variety in sounds that come out of Hulk. So he never sounds repetitive and annoying.

The whole Hulk game engine is very diverse an is made so well. There are a few glitches and the ocassional bad camera angle but for the most part it works lovely. I was amazed that some things in the game occurred. It is something that I’d expect from an upcoming gen title. When you think something isn’t covered it probably is.

Closing comments

The depth of the game, freedom that is given to the player and the load of unloackables make this game one of the best action games for the Gamecube of the year. The effort that has been put into this title shows, despite a few common flaws Hulk is a must have title for any super hero fan.

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