The Incredible Hulk: Ultimate Destruction Preview

A few years back, the big green hunk of muscle mass and anger known as the Incredible Hulk made the transition from comics to film, and the results were quite tepid, at least as far as many fans were concerned. A game based on the film didn’t fare much better, bogged down by repetition and some lousy stealth sequences. However, the folks at Radical Entertainment and Vivendi Universal are looking to reinvigorate the franchise in The Incredible Hulk: Ultimate Destruction. This game has none of the abysmal sneaking, and instead chooses to focus on what the Hulk does best, smashing the crap out of everything in sight. With a score of new gameplay features and some really cool moves, Ultimate Destruction could be the game that the Hulk desperately needed.

The storyline follows Bruce Banner as he tries to develop a cure for his condition. However, he soon finds himself pitted against an evil nemesis, Abomination, who is trying to harness the Hulk’s power for his own. The story was written by renowned comic book writer Paul Jenkins, and will likely impress fans of the comics.

The biggest difference between this Hulk game the so-so movie tie-in Hulk is the non-linear aspects of the stages. The game basically plops you into the middle of a city, with a map and indicators telling you where to go in order to pick up missions. However, it’s completely up to you to decide which missions you want to accept and when, meaning that you have free-roam to inflict carnage and destruction throughout the area.

You have a bunch of great new, chargeable moves at your disposal. You can now dash your way through enemies and vehicles and go running up the side of buildings like in Prince of Persia. You can grab nearly any object off of the ground and either chuck it into an enemy or a vehicle or you can pound it into another object like gloves or a shield to use against your foes. Also, you can do a charged jump, which sends you flying through the air much like in the Hulk movie.

The environments are very destructible, meaning that you will be able to take out nearly every object in the game, enemies or otherwise. You can grab tanks by the cannon, swing them around and throw them into other tanks and topple buildings, a la the classic arcade game Rampage. You could do pretty much whatever your destructive little heart desires without even accepting a main quest mission.

Graphically, the game has a few subtle improvements over its predecessor, and the stylized cel-shaded feel of the first game has been toned down some. The character models are a bit more defined, and the destructible environments look great while retaining the feel of the comics. The sound department is also faring nicely, with Neal McDonough (the Hulk animated series) and Ron Perlman (Hellboy) voicing Bruce Banner and Abomination, respectively.

As it stands, Ultimate Destruction is way better than its predecessor, and should be the non-linear smash-up experience that Hulk fans have been clamoring for. Check it out later this month.