| Game Reviews From a Parental Perspective! | |
|
|
|
| Home | Forums | Review Archive | Columns | Feature Articles |
|
Home >
Review Archive >
Video Games
> Results: The Incredible Hulk: Ultimate Destruction
Format For Printing | Tell A Friend | Digg | Slashdot | del.icio.us | Buy This Game Scroll down for our Kid Factor. 
Where does a 2000-pound green man play golf? Right in the middle of town! Everyone's favorite not-so-jolly Green Giant is back for a gamma blasted good time full of destructive goodness in The Incredible Hulk: Ultimate Destruction. Taking cues from the wildly popular Spider-Man 2, Radical Entertainment and Vivendi Universal unleash players on a virtual city to wreak all sorts of havoc. In Ultimate Destruction, you try to build a cure for the Hulk's gamma radiation. You must also stop the unsavory Dr. Bronsky from destroying the Hulk and defend him from General Ross' Hulkbuster forces. Got all that? It's all part of the harried and frantic play. The game steps deeply into the comic book stories of the Hulk, exploring characters like the Abomination, Dr Emil Bronsky, General Ross, and the fact that the Hulk is dying from the very thing that gives him his strength.
The gameplay is similar to Spider-Man 2, Sly Cooper 2 and other ﾑfully immersive' worlds. Run around a free to explore environment, collecting items, battling random enemies, and starting new missions from various points on the map. Story mode has a linear feel to it. You don't have any choices if you want to advance the story, just hop on over to the next green dot on your map and take off. There are other non-story missions available though. These include standard challenge missions, where you either race along a series of waypoint markers, engage in some feat of strength, or some feat of skill. This includes two golf courses, a hang gliding and parachute event, and a home run derby of sorts. As you progress through the story, you get smash points for everything from pummeling opposing tanks and armor suits, to bashing through a tree instead of going around it. If you can see it, you can damage it. Not all the buildings can be brought down, but if you look carefully you can find a few.  The smash points you earn buy you new moves and longer life bars. The further into the game you get, the wilder the moves get. Punching, stomping, grabbing and jumping start things off. But by the end of the game you can jump onto an attacking helicopter, kick that one into another nearby helicopter, grab an armored soldier on the way down, bounce off of him and land on your feet (while still holding onto him). Most of the time the battles are larger than life and fairly simple to beat. Puzzles are pretty much non-existent unless you count boss battles, where you have to use an alternative or weaponization to attack. Weaponizations take ﾑpick it up and smash them with it' gameplay to a new level. Start by picking up a car. Use your special attack button to rip it in half and form it onto Hulk's hands like giant metal boxing gloves. Or there's my favorite, grab a bus, smash it flat and you have a handy dandy shield. Toss it on the ground and Hulk's a skater dude now. You could also rip the wrecking ball off of a crane and use it like a Mace. There are all sorts of fun things to do. This is a great game for fans of the Hulk, wanton destruction, or a deep brawler with lots of awesome moves. Fans of the comic will find great satisfaction in the handling of the story, along with several great Hulk covers through the years, including the Hulk Pops cover and the Where the Wild Things Are cover. It's very cool. Joe Fixit makes a showing in the Golf challenge missions, and the enemy characters and the uneasy alliances are all treated with care. Even if you don't follow the story, Hulk can be a great way to blow off steam with a little rampage here and there. Gameplay is good, although precise placement of Hulk's movements can be a little bit muddy. But if you jumped a mile at a time, you wouldn't be able to land on a dime either. The fighting at times boils down to mindless button mashing until you can pick up some of the more fun techniques, like the Cyclone Air jack (jump and grab a flying enemy and ride to the ground). The music is mostly just generic orchestrated music in theme with the moods. There is a lot of disc loading however, and that is a big pain. Even restarts take you to the loading screen. The loading and the generally short length (come on, only three chapters?) take Hulk down a notch.  
Kids love the Hulk. He can jump all the buildings in a single town. He can use a bus for a skateboard. He can use a car to play kick the can. He can grab a giant inflatable gorilla and go hang gliding. Hulk's also violent and a poster child for anger management classes. The game delves into the Hulk's more cerebral stories regarding the deterioration of Dr. Banner's (Hulk's human form) mental state and others from the Gamma radiation that gave them their powers. Banner was abused as a child and that led to Multiple Personality Disorder and as a result one of the darkest themes of the Hulk rears its head. Thankfully it's near then end, but the level where you confront and defeat Devil Hulk (the personification of all things bad in Banner's mind) tosses jeers at the Hulk that I'm uncomfortable with my kids hearing. You do overcome the evil of Devil Hulk and stop someone else's descent into that madness.
There are some other eyebrow-raisers too. While you tromp around the city you can pick up innocents, and flick them across the street. Cars and planes and such that you get to smash, toss, kick and destroy don't show the people jumping out and running off. You can abuse cows like there's no tomorrow yet they get up and keep on coming. There's also the fun of unbridled chaos and mayhem as you wreak havoc in the streets. The mental health themes presented make this a solid T rating. The violence is steeped in comic book imagery, way over the top, and involves an eight-foot tall, one-ton green guy with a buzz cut. That's not too much for a ten-year-old. But the themes approached later like stealing because of health reasons, mental instability, betrayal and general destruction keep it a game for the older kids. Format For Printing | Tell A Friend | Digg | Slashdot | del.icio.us | Buy This Game Browse Amazon.com's selection of "Hulk" themed games Home > Review Archive > Video Games > Results: The Incredible Hulk: Ultimate Destruction |
Read the GamerDad 2007 Holiday Guide!
|
Please Note: GamerDad is not intended to be read by anyone under 18. We stay clean, but be warned! Content Management System developed by Redbird Solutions. |
