If
the engine used in Incredible Hulk: Ultimate Destruction is never used again,
it's a crime against the gaming community. Here's game specifically created for Marvel's
green angry monstrosity, but would work so well for something like King Kong. It
needs to be used in other titles, though it's hard to imagine how much better this can
get. This is one of those rare games to truly showcase a comic book heroes best assets, without falling into the basic video game design traps. It moves itself away from general restrictions, letting the player loose in various environments to do one thing the Hulk can do: destroy everything. It's not important if the game is easy and the title character can take an incredible amount of punishment. It's about being that character, and the developers have done that better than anyone before them.
In fact, Ultimate Destruction becomes one of the best pure, non-stop action titles ever. It's barely even relevant that the character is the Hulk. Once you've begun decimating a city with your bare hands, you're lost in almost flawless design. In a minimal set of controls, players can perform a wide variety of attacks and combos, all set on power.
Even
if the alter-version of Bruce Banner had a single button to press the entire game, this
would still be incredible. The variety (expanded further by the ability to use about
everything except buildings as a weapon) is just another positive piece to a monumental
title. It's fair to compare this to Criterion's Burnout
series in multiple ways since both center their gameplay around explosions and intense
action. The Hulk can run down anything, ramming into it when he speeds up, tearing apart
everything. It's a blast to just run and pick off helpless civilians or authorities. The somewhat open-ended design lets players do that too. Once the missions to advance the story are complete, you're free to do as you please, or accept side missions to earn experience for new moves. The more you destroy the better. The epic soundtrack never becomes an issue, even if you plan of spending hours on a rampage.
The smartest thing done in the creation of this title is to finally come to terms with Bruce Banner. No one who picks up an Incredible Hulk video game wants to play as the scrawny non-mutated version of the character. It's what ruined the Hulk game based on the movie a few years back, and everyone involved in the creation of Ultimate Destruction finally decided to ditch the dull sections for all-out brutality.
Some will complain the
repetitive nature is the game's downfall. While a legitimate complaint (there are a ton of
"destroy everything" missions), this is what the game does best. It's only
natural it will offer more of it. In fact, this game could last another eight hours
following the same path and it would still barely qualify as a complaint.While it may not be considered "pure" or "hardcore," Ultimate Destruction becomes everything you should expect from a video game. It's fun no matter how long you play or how repetitive it gets. It's a perfect example of how video games can be crafted from an idea that isn't necessarily original, but can still become one of the sleepers of the year.
