Graphics are all the rage
Graphically, The Incredible Hulk: Ultimate Destruction has to be one of the best looking X-Box games I’ve seen in a while and testimony to what a decent bit of coding can do. Powering up the Hulk’s Critical Mass powers produces some of the best effects I’ve seen so far and really does give a feeling of massive powers being unleashed.
A nice touch is the use of John Woo style slow-motion at certain key points in the gameplay, such as when you’re taking a particularly nasty pasting from a boss enemy, or of you perform a special move. The action freezes, the camera pans around and then time gradually speeds up again as devastation reigns supreme around you… great stuff.
Sound is similarly well done with the balance between music, sound effect and voices for once not needing any adjustment. On my 7.1 Dolby set-up the sound implementation is particularly helpful, especially when locating flying enemies. After a while the smashing a bashing sounds tend to feel a bit generic, but there’s usually so much going on that explosions and crashes tend to melt together making this less noticeable.
The Incredible Hulk: Ultimate Destruction supports HDTV, so if you’re lucky enough to own one, you’re in a for a treat with the visuals looking particularly clean and crisp and all but eliminating those nasty jaggies. Don’t get me wrong, there are still there, but just less noticeable than before. In fact, with all the graphical trickery going on, I’m wondering just how they managed to squeeze this out of Microsoft’s black box… still, I’m not complaining… it looks good.
