Developer Radical Entertainment has decided to ditch any association with the 2003 Hulk game for Ultimate Destruction, instead looking to draw upon the vast history offered up by the long running comic book. Radical turned to prolific Marvel writer Paul Jenkins to come up with the story for Ultimate Destruction, which essentially involves Dr. Bruce Banner teaming up with his old friend Doc Samson to create a machine which will help Banner subdue the Hulk, and prevent other deep seeded "aspects" of his personality from breaking through. Unfortunately for Banner, Emil Blonsky, a man with unparalleled hatred for gamma creatures, is after both Bruce and the Hulk. Blonsky is the head of a special government branch known as "The Division", which has special control over military resources. The Hulk's long-time pursuer, General Thaddeus "Thunderbolt" Ross, also falls under Blonsky's control (despite the fact they're supposed to be sharing control of The Division), though the iron-willed general is not about to give up his authority, despite wanting to capture or eliminate the threat of the Hulk.
The Hulk is quite agile for an oversized booger
After completing a short tutorial on basic moves, the game will dump you into the city (which is not based on any real location), and you can pretty much do as you please, which includes levelling the entire city if you so desire. Controls are fairly easy to pick up, and the Hulk himself is astonishingly agile, easily putting Spider-Man (from the second game) to shame. The Jade Giant can run up and across walls, take massive leaps across the city, and spring into the air like a water rocket. Attacking is a cinch, with punch, slam, and throw buttons at the player's disposal, each of which can be charged or combined with the others to execute different moves and combinations. There are also moves that can only be executed when you reach "Critical Mass" which happens as a result of gathering more energy when your life bar is full. Critical Mass attacks cause massive damage - enough to wipe out big enemies or take out buildings in a single shot.
Once the action starts in Ultimate Destruction, it never lets up. Hulk is almost constantly under attack during the game, particularly when the player knocks the alert level to full by being destructive. The player will constantly find him/herself surrounded by enemies, and will be forced to bring out every move in the Hulk's arsenal in order to survive - a fresh change from the usual formula where the game has one sure-fire tactic for winning. The fights in the game only get more spectacular as you progress, as you'll come up against tougher enemies such as Harrier Jets, Hulkbusters (small, big, and gigantic), tanks, helicopters and more. When enemies become more plentiful, the player's strategy will have to change, but by this point they will have more moves at their disposal.
Aerial battles are quite fun once you've mastered some of the Hulk's air moves
To make the Hulk more devastating, players can purchase a number of moves from the Buy Menu at any point during the game. This list starts off small, but begins to snowball after you've completed a few chapters. Smash Points are Ultimate Destruction's currency – you get them for, well, smashing things, as well as completing story missions, side missions and finding smash point tokens and comic book tokens. Eventually you'll get to do some really impressive moves - spinning tanks around by the barrels, catching missiles and throwing them back, and levelling city blocks with your sonic clap. Aside from general smashing moves, Hulk will gain the ability to weaponise certain bits of debris and vehicles – for example, you can rip the missile pack off the back of a missile launcher, and throw the rockets out at any opponents nearby.
Incredible Hulk: Ultimate Destruction is a free roaming game, much like last year's Spider-Man 2, but does seem to lack a few features from other free roaming titles. The city is relatively small compared to say, Los Santos from GTA: San Andreas or Manhattan in Spider-Man 2, it's sparsely populated, and there is no day/night cycle. The city isn't the only location in the game however, with a number of missions taking place in the Badlands, a desert/canyon based area. Throughout these locations are jump points which allow the Hulk to perform a massive jump from one part of the city to another, or out to the church (Hulk's base of operations) or to the Badlands. These are quite handy when you're surrounded by large numbers of enemies, but they trigger off short load screen, which can be quite annoying when you've jumped several times in a row.
The main downfall of Ultimate Destruction would have to be the story missions. Most of the missions in the story require Hulk to run across the city to fetch and object and take it back to the church. Fortunately, things get mixed up every now and then with a mission that requires wanton destruction or a boss fight. Ultimate Destruction's boss fights are easily a highlight of the experience, with massive opponents that are at least as powerful, if not more powerful than the Hulk. Thunderbolt Ross and his massive Hulkbuster tank provide some of the most challenging and entertaining stuff we've seen on the Xbox this year, with pretty much the entire city area you fight in being levelled in the process of the fight. There are also side missions scattered throughout the city, which range from rather lifeless affairs such as races, to ingenious uses of the Hulk's strength, such as a Home Run contest that requires the player to smash troops with a pole while they jump out of a helicopter, the Field Goal mission which requires the Hulk to kick cars through a set of goal posts and the Golf mini-game, where Hulk must bash an oversized golf ball around the Badlands into a number of different holes. The main story missions are likely to last 10 hours for skilled player, as things can get pretty heated for those not prepared to experiment with different combos and moves for each enemy. You can add another 5-10 hours on top of that for the side missions for those completionists out there.
Add dentist to the list of Bruce Banner's qualifications
Ultimate Destruction is fairly mixed in its presentation. The Hulk has been modelled very well, and has awesome animation - the same goes for the bigger enemies and the bosses. The draw distance in the city is pretty impressive, and the debris and destruction effects are quite good. The framerate is solid throughout the game and 60Hz and widescreen modes are on offer. Unfortunately, many parts of the game look bland, the city is a ghost town when you're not fighting Division forces, and many of the smaller components of the game - namely cars and civilians, look rather crap. The game's audio is really quite good, with the soundtrack provided by Bill Brown (Any Given Sunday) comprising of tracks that give off a great feeling and suit the action to a T. Vivendi have enlisted a score of Hollywood voice talent for the game, with Neal McDonough (Band of Brothers, Walking Tall) as Bruce Banner, Ron Perlman (Hellboy, Blade 2) as Emil Blonsky, and Donnie Wahlberg as Sampson, with voice actor regulars Cam Clarke (Liquid Snake from Metal Gear Solid) and John DiMaggio (Bender from Futurama) providing extra voices. It would have been nice if some of the movie or television show actors (the ones that are still living, anyway) provided voicework, but the featured actors do a decent job, nonetheless. Ultimate Destruction also features in-game Dolby Digital 5.1 surround sound.
In conclusion, Incredible Hulk: Ultimate Destruction provides the best Hulk experience to date, with great action, a solid narrative and good presentation. The game isn't as free as we'd have liked, can look a bit ugly at times, and certainly lacks mission variety, but on the whole, the positives outweigh the negatives. It's certainly the best attempt at a free-form superhero game, despite the obvious score discrepancy between this and Spider-Man 2. Ultimate Destruction is also a sign that Radical Entertainment is improving as a developer, especially when it comes to licenses and free-form action titles. Hulk fans and those who enjoy free-form gaming should give this one a look - especially since it's only $AU69.95.
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