G-pinions

The Incredible Hulk: Ultimate Destruction is really quite good. The same raw, focused energy that was central to the look and feel of the character in his most recent cinematic outing is present throughout in the game, along with all of the brutally appropriate animations. Think of Spider-Man 2 meets Mercenaries meets a kick in the face, and you have some idea of what the feels like. Going with that comparison, I would actually say it's the best of both worlds - swinging around in Spider-Man was brilliant, but the missions lamed it up, whereas the missions were the primary source of enjoyment in Mercenaries. Regarding the kick in the teeth, well, if there's an upside, Hulk incorporates it.

Just like the best 3D action games, everything just feels right. Bouncing like a massive green flea through city streets and running up the sides of skyscrapers is wonderfully tactile and rewarding, as is throwing a city bus into a helicopter and being shot by a tank. It's not quite as....easy to traverse all heights and angles as it was in the aforementioned web-slinging epic, but it's a lot more grounded (certainly no pun intended, don't insult me) and satisfying when you do end up exactly where you planned after plummeting seventy stories. They did the combat right too, as every thousand-pound punch, sonic clap and atomic ground slam is useful and responsive. There are a TON of moves to unlock as well, which helps the combat to grow more interesting and dynamic as the game progresses (and the enemies get more aggressive). The game actually does a really solid job overall with pacing and progression; just when you start to tire of the rainy cityscape, you're dumped into the desert to fuck with oxen and run along canyon walls. And then back to the city after a bit, only it's daytime and the smashy smashy it even easier to enjoy.

There's so much fun to be had. Grabbing soldiers, running up a building and hurling them out into the ocean screaming has to be one of my favorite pastimes, as does floating gently down from up high by holding a giant inflatable used car lot gorilla over your head. The developers know this stuff is inherently fun too, as a solid percentage of the myriad (for you, my Dan) side missions involve silly yet sadistically fun tasks such as soldier batting and kicking field goals with cars. Even the more predictable ones such as defending certain areas, rescuing people and gathering floating markers are fun though, simply because everything feels so right. Oh, and before I forget, the boss fights are really fantastic. Very little gimmicky crap needs to be performed, it's mostly just you and your opponent whaling on each other (in nice large destructible, weapon-littered environments of course) until one of you goes down. That's not to say that the epic, "being chased by the entire goddamn U.S. Army" missions aren't thrillsville, it's just very satisfying going one-on-one with a relative equal once in a while.

I suppose I'm still in the honeymoon stage with this once since I'm only a half dozen hours in or so, but it's lasted much longer than I thought it would. Every time that I get into a relatively mundane rhythm of progressing through missions and beating down my foes, I get a new move or insight that changes the gameplay just enough to keep things really fresh. It certainly gets the most elaborate tip of my hat that this just-now-invented ludicrous rating scale will allow, and I'll be sure to let you know my final thoughts when that time rolls around.