... You wouldn't like me when I'm angry.
Loading up for the first time, you’ll find yourself dropped into a training level to help you get acquainted with the Hulk’s abilities and this is where it becomes obvious just how much fun The Incredible Hulk: Ultimate Destruction is to play. You start off with the basic moves such as being able to pick up huge boulders, cars, trucks and pretty much anything around then hurl them at anything else you fancy. Hulk can leap, run, punch and kick, with each action being powered up the longer you hold the button down before unleashing the move.
One of the best features by far has to be the ‘unstoppable motion’ running that the Hulk has. Basically, in normal mode, he just plods around and gently nudges stuff out of the way if he meets an obstacle. But pull down on the right trigger and Hulk will start running and you’d not want to be in his path when he’s doing that as he shoulder barges anything but the sturdiest objects or heaviest vehicles out of the way. I spent a good half hour just legging it about the city smashing busses, cars and vans all over the place just by sprinting everywhere.
The idea here is obviously to keep the gameplay and destruction coming as smoothly as possible and it works a treat. But the sprinting doesn’t just let you barge through anything… you can use it to climb buildings too. Just sprint at a building and Hulk will start running straight up the wall until he’s at the top, then he carries on going along again. Hulk can grab on and climb building in the more normal clambering way, but legging it up them is far more fun.
But the ‘unstoppable motion’ idea is just one of many well implemented ideas that all come together to make The Incredible Hulk: Ultimate destruction a corking good game. Radical have a spent a long time looking at the Hulk’s abilities and powers and this shows in the gameplay. All in all there’s 150 different moves to learn which, to be honest, is a mind bogglingly large amount. Some are just variations on the same moves or power up for lesser moves but they’re all useful in certain situations. For example, the Sonic Clap (no, not an embarrassing disease) starts off being fairly weak but handy in the early missions for clearing an area of weaker enemies. Later on, when powered up through upgrades and used at full power in the game, this little number can devastate a huge area, taking down everything except heavily armoured foes… awesome stuff.
But the damage wreaked by these standard moves pale by comparison with the Critical Mass moves which, quite frankly, are bloody scary. These moves which, like all the others, you buy from the upgrade menu are only accessible when the Hulk’s power meter has reached Critical Mass. You power up the Hulk by collecting the energy spheres lying around the city of dropped by enemies when you deck them. When you’ve got enough, the Critical Mass bar appears and you know you can unleash some serious havoc. The Critical Mass moves, like all the Hulk’s other moves, are accessed by a sequence of button presses but take a wee while longer to power up… but boy oh boy, when they go they are totally devastating, often with effects similar to a small atomic bomb going off and the effects, with a panning slow motion view before the full effect is unleashed makes them well worthwhile saving up to buy.
But the fun doesn’t stop there. Another feature that it’s essential to get to grips with is the ‘Weaponization’. Now if I haven’t made it clear enough already, I’ll just remind you that pretty much everything in the game is destructible. Now, not only can you smash just about everything you see, you can also pick most stuff up and use it as a weapon. So that rather innocuous looking tree or lamppost could be torn down and used as a club, or how about picking up a bus and hurling it at a tank. Better still, pick up the turret of a destroyed tank and use that as a bat…
But as well as just grabbing stuff and using it to batter enemies to a pulp, you can customize certain objects to then use as weapons. As you progress through the story mode, you will unlock more upgrades, so you start off with a basic ‘Steel Fists’ weaponization, which lets you tear a car in half and mould the two halves around your hands like giant steel boxing gloves… Later on you can pulp vans flat to use as shields or even Frisbee them at enemies to give you a powerful ranged attack. Or how about grabbing a bus and using it like a skateboard or picking up a missile pack and hurling them like darts? Yep, you damn near do whatever you want with whatever you want… cool stuff indeed.
