--- Reviews ---

The Incredible Hulk: Ultimate Destruction

The Hulk is one of the most recognizable comic book characters around. He’s one of the old ones, whose name and image are burned into American culture as surely as Superman, Spider-Man, or Batman. Everyone knows him, and his power—when he gets mad, he gets big and green and tough and STRONG. In his time, he’s had TV shows and movies, toys and cartoons, and even a professional wrestler named after him.

I can’t think of a better character to put into a videogame. A big green guy who gets mad and smashes stuff—perfect! He’s bulletproof, can jump really far, and likes to throw cars and boulders. It’s so perfect!

But Hulk videogames (and there have been several) have mostly sucked, and at best been mediocre. Primarily for one reason: the Hulk was a wimp. He could get hurt and die as easily as any videogame character. That’s just not right.

Which brings us to the latest attempt, and the first one to get it right: The Incredible Hulk: Ultimate Destruction.

Stuff We Like:

First and foremost, this game feels right. It actually feels like you’re playing as the Hulk, instead of a generic videogame character. He’s big, he’s tough, he can jump like crazy, and most importantly, he can smash. Oh, can he smash. Just running into people will kill them—in fact, it’s hard not to. Landing from a jump too close to a vehicle will smash it. People and cars try to avoid you—in fact, they’ll crash trying to stay out of your way. It’s great.
And if you get mad—everyone better watch out! It’s all too easy to leave a wake of destruction, and very satisfying.

Secondly, the free-roaming world mechanic is perfect for this game. Set someone loose in Grand Theft Auto, and they’re far more likely to go on a meaningless shooting spree than choose to do a mission. In the Hulk, meaningless destruction feels more satisfying than in any other game. And if you choose to do a mission, guess what it usually entails? Right: destruction (but not meaningless). Excellent.

Third, the game mechanics and difficulty are well thought out. Being the Hulk means you’re tough, and the game has that nailed. But being completely invulnerable doesn’t make for much of a game. So they came up with the right answer for that as well: tough enemies. The jets, tanks, mechs, and monsters (to avoid being too specific) that you’ll face in this game are tough. But not as tough as the Hulk—if you know what you’re doing. The combat system isn’t terribly complicated, and it shouldn’t be. The Hulk’s no martial artist, he’s a brawler. He’s also a hell of a jumper, and he’s never been afraid to hit-and-run. And that’s exactly how you’ll play against the tougher opponents. The move set takes some liberties with the Hulk’s powers (mostly because he has mid-air abilities that he shouldn’t), but it works well. Awesome moves include:

1. Throwing tanks.
2. Grabbing onto planes/choppers and dragging them down.
3. Critical Smash—hitting the ground so hard everything within a block takes damage.

Stuff We Hate:

Every game has flaws, and the Hulk has its fair share. The most annoying, probably, is the fact that the game resets your health to ¾ full (not counting extra ‘Critical Mass’ bars) every time you start a mission or mini-game. That flaw is particularly annoying during boss fights, because at that health level, you don’t have access to your most damaging moves.

(plot spoilers below)
Other annoying flaws have to do with the story and characters—mostly lost opportunities. The story is okay. Our problem with it is that it seems to set itself up for certain boss fights that never happen. Specifically, we were hoping to fight Doc Samson and for a Grey Hulk/Green Hulk faceoff (longtime Hulk fans will know that the Hulk was originally Grey and not dumb, and the Grey and Green Hulks are separate personalities in Bruce Banner’s mind who sometimes fight for control). On that note, we were also annoyed that Joe Fixit (who is really just the Grey Hulk in a pinstriped suit) gets to talk, and he’s funny, but the Grey Hulk can only growl like the Green one (which isn’t accurate either—the Green Hulk can talk, he’s just a bit slow. They could’ve left in his trademark “Hulk Smash!” line).

We also thought that some of the mini-games, which were good, would have been even better as full-fledged game modes, specifically the golf mini-games. Also missing was a bowling mini-game (or mode), which is odd considering that you can use parts of the environment as bowling balls in-game. Other minute picking points include the fact that missiles ignite when the Hulk throws them (it’d make more sense and be cooler if they didn’t), that only some buildings are destructible, and that the following moves are lame:

1. Running up buildings.
2. ‘Grinding’ on smashed buses.
3. Returning ‘boomerang’ throws (also with smashed buses).

Like/Hate Score:

But those are not huge flaws in the face of how much fun this game is. Our overall take on The Incredible Hulk: Ultimate Destruction is that it’s excellent. 

On our scale of 5-10, we give it an 8.8. 

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