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Radical Entertainment shares its thoughts on the big, green, mean one's return ahead of Ultimate Destruction's release...
The Hulk is back again with his incredible powers. He can jump, climb, and smash anything â?“ even a giant building. Free roaming means loads of exploring and when he is in another temper rage he can create his own weapons from the mayhem and destruction he causes and creates. Our man on the spot spoke with Eric Holmes, Lead Game Designer on the game, to find out what other surprises are in store!
One exciting feature is that the game offers open-ended/roaming gameplay, but what problems does this present in terms of gameplay and progression (story/narrative) and can you explain what this actually means?
Our story is player-driven â?“ that is to say that the player chooses when and how to progress it. The game has a broad selection of mission types, but they principally break down into STORY missions and SIDE missions.
What does this mean? It means that the playerâ??s in the driving seat. Always having some way accessible to him to progress the story through those missions, or earning Smash Points to unlock more moves and abilities by playing side missions, or just free roaming around, quietly exploring, or destroying everything in his way. Itâ??s your game, and if you never even want to take the story on, hey, you donâ??t have to.
Destruction and carnage appears to be the main focus of the game; so what kind of extra rewards will be on offer for those that want to spend hours just searching around but ensuring that the gameplay isnâ??t shallow or repetitive?
The game is a lot of fun to just be in, because the Hulk is a great fun character to play. You can hack around, messing with the local security forces as you do so; the more destruction and mayhem that you cause will mean the government gets a fix on you; the result is that a special Response Team is dispatched to take you on.
Where you might be fighting soldiers and tanks in the streets, the response teams are made of the more agile and fast enemies that can bring the battle to you; helicopter gunships, attack jets, fast and deadly mechs rise to the task of taking down the mightiest creature on earth. Itâ??s not all bad though; we didnâ??t want the player to be able to truly do anything punitive in this game, so when you wipe out the response team you earn yourself a nice bonus.
Weâ??ve also tucked a large number of bonus collectibles, such as â?“ you guessed it â?“ bonus Smash Points, but also collectible comic books around the world. Each one unlocks a custom book in the gallery, and is also tied to some Special Feature. A feature may be something like a special costume or a part of the broadcast quality, 22-minute long â??Making of The Gameâ?? feature. This game is brimming with features.
There are 30 story missions as well as 40 side missions which will equate to hours of gameplay. How diverse are the story missions and can you give us a few examples of the 40 side missions â?“ are they more like mini games - and does this allow the player to hone their skills?
The side missions as I mentioned are a great diversion. Mini-games is not a bad description, but it doesnâ??t really capture the diversity of it all. The story missions are very grim and serious, so we added a broader range of tone and emotional experience with the side missions; they may be as crazy as Hulk golfing through the desert (using the robust physics system we have in place), Hulk surfing through a set of markers in a minimum time, or Hulk whacking soldiers as far as he can â?“ all in the name of Smash Points. â??Hulk Soccerâ?, â??Hulk Floatâ?, â??My Car!â?...the list goes on.
What outside expertise did the team bring in to ensure real continuity with the comic strip character and do you feel that this game not being based on a film gives the team more focus to create original gameplay ideas?
Great question â?“ we went to the best in the fields of writing, art, music and sound design. For writing, we went with Paul Jenkins, an approachable and cuddly writer. Paulâ??s a bit of an oddball â?“ a Welshman with the voice of a Londoner who lives in Atlanta. Heâ??s been working in the industry forever, starting all the way back with the Ninja Turtles, and most recently having his own series of â??Spectacular Spider-Manâ?.
Paulâ??s 2-year run on the Hulk was a great inspiration to us and we felt he had a great deal of depth and thoughtfulness that made him our top pick. Youâ??ll see some influences from his run in the game, and youâ??ll also hear his sense of humour in a lot of the dialogue. Paul not only wrote our story, but also our dialogue and was present for the recording of it. He also recorded a line of it â?“ see if you can pick him out through the police sirens and gunfire.
Working with Paul was inspirational; heâ??s not only a talented writer, but heâ??s a gamer too â?“ he wants to tell the story outside of cinematics and keep them to a minimum, which I think as gamers is something we all appreciate. The boy has a pedigree too, having worked on a bunch of franchises such as Legacy of Kain, Twisted Metal and, most recently, God of War.
For artistic collaborator we again aimed high, and we scored Bryan Hitch. Bryanâ??s Hulk is the definitive version of the character, bursting with muscle, sinew and rage in every frame. If you havenâ??t read The Ultimates, get out of the bath, get dressed and run out to get a copy NOW. Itâ??s a fantastic piece of work. Bryanâ??s characters are at once contemporary and timeless, and Iâ??ve never seen an artist who can capture off-the-scale action and intimate dramatic facial shots on the same page.
For sound designers we elected to work with Danetracks, the company behind all the source material of The Matrix series. These guys are simply insane â?“ and if you donâ??t believe me, check out the â??Making of The Gameâ?? features that are in the game. Youâ??ll see Dane Davis and crew at a junkyard in the desert, where they drop cars, vans and tankers on top of each other â?“ and then peel a truck in two with giant traction engines and steel hooks. What this means to you is that the sounds of wreckage, ripping and destruction in the game are just that â?“ for real! This is not generic sounds from stock CDs, but real-as-can-be destruction originated entirely for this game â?“ and it sounds amazing in 5.1 surround. This game will make you happy if you have a subwoofer.
Finally, for music we found what we were looking for in Bill Brown. You may not know his name, but I guarantee you know his sound â?“ Bill has scored the entire Rainbow Six series, Command and Conquer: Generals, Lineage, Quake 2 and 3, and is currently scoring CSI: New York. The guy is a machine, producing a score that quite simply knocked us on our asses. The digital versions alone were amazing, but we also worked with Bill to record the entire score with the LA Orchestra. The results were outstanding â?“ itâ??s a dark, brooding and energetic body of work - the perfect score to motivate you to break heads.
"The control system is the single thing I am most proud of with this game."
What has been the hardest aspect in recreating the Hulk â?“ can you still have subtlety in movement and does the Hulkâ??s sheer bulk present problems regarding physics that you have tried to adhere to?
The control system is the single thing I am most proud of with this game. The Hulk plays very smoothly, doing exactly what you want him to do, when you want him to do it. He can run incredibly fast, and with what we call â??Unstoppable Movementâ?? nothing gets in his way. Hit a car, and you shoulder it out of your way like a 12â? mutant linebacker. Hit a wall, and you start running straight up it, feet digging into the concrete. The scale and power of the character is just perfectly captured with the animation, effects and physics on the objects slammed out of Chief Greenskinâ??s way; weâ??re pushing the consoles hard for physics performance â?“ there are no other games doing anything like weâ??re doing in terms of raw interactivity with the world.
The World is your weapon â?“ surely there must be some rules, and disadvantages to this and what are the counter opponents/obstacles to stop the Hulk?
When designing the game, itâ??s easy to lean in the playerâ??s favour in any combat situation â?“the player is the Hulk!! Any object you see â?“ ANY â?“ you can use, smash, slam, toss, kick. Additionally, we wanted to push the limits of the Hulk fantasy with weaponization - many of these objects you can also weaponize into new weapons. With the power of the Hulk you can rip them in two to create boxing gloves, flattening into shields, ripping parts off like a yo-yo or a missile launcher, a Frisbee, a javelin, a clubâ?¦the list goes on.
This is something perfectly Hulk-like â?“ letâ??s face it, as much effort as EA push at Superman, you are never gonna see Superman flatten a bus and ride it like a surfboard. Thatâ??s a great thing about the Hulk â?“ as this character you have the freedom to do whatever nasty or heroic things your character does, because the Hulk is a creature capable of any sort of actions across the moral spectrum. Be the hero, or bad guy â?“ just smash the hell out of the world. You are the Hulk, so itâ??s your call.
"â?¦that's not even something the mighty Battlefield engine can boast, and it's right there on your PS2/Xbox/GameCube, in HD."
Perhaps you could give a brief explanation of some of the technology behind The Incredible Hulk: Ultimate Destruction, focussing on the destructible environments and open-world AI?
Radical has a strong foundation in shared technology, and weâ??re always aggressively finding ways to push performance on all fronts. For the current engine, weâ??re drawing approximately twice as much as we were with the previous Hulk game. Our worlds are many times the size, as is evident if you climb to the top of any building in the city. From any high point in the city, you can see the entire city. Everything! You can then jump across rooftops to get thereâ?¦thatâ??s not even something the mighty Battlefield engine can boast, and itâ??s right there on your PS2/Xbox/GameCube, in HD. All formats boast 480P, supporting widescreen 16:9. The Xbox also pushes the envelope with 720P display â?“ what more could you ask for?
Was there anything that the team had to leave out of the game due to limitations or constraints?
There are always things you have to leave out because of time constraints or pushing your budget in a certain direction. There are some more weaponizations I wanted to add â?“ creating a richter-scale earthquake attack using a bulldozer, and tossing rapid-fire cars out of a commercial car-carrier were ones that were painful for me to give up. Given the large number of weaponizations that are in the game, I donâ??t think people are going to be disappointed.
"Gamers vote with their wallets; if any game is a runaway hit then some direct sequel or spiritual successor will be pretty much guaranteed to follow."
The Incredible Hulk: Ultimate Destruction looks to be facing off against Activisionâ??s Ultimate Spider-Man; who will win this epic confrontation and do you believe thereâ??s room for two such heavyweights?
Is there room for both of these games? Absolutely.
Comic book characters? Check. City environment? Check. Games are very different? Check. Example: Spider-Man fights bag-snatchers by throwing web-balls the size of a snowball at them. Meanwhile, the Hulk throws a flaming bus at a 60-feet tall mech, destroys him, and when the mech collapses backwards he takes down an entire building. Yâ??see, Hulkâ??s just a bigger-scale power fantasy and is quite a different experience. Both the Spidey team and the Hulk team work with Marvel, and it wouldnâ??t be in Marvelâ??s interest to have us compete over the same dollar â?“ I think they tie into different fantasies. Spider-Man is a â??coming of ageâ?? drama, with neato web swinging, where the character is someone we could all aspire to be. The Hulk is a â??let it loose power fantasyâ??, where you can be the ultimate bad-boy, and misunderstood anti-hero who lets it all out with all the power of an atomic blast; being the Hulk is a guilty pleasure.
I thought Spidey 2 was a great game and I loved the web-swinging, so Iâ??m as keen as the next man to see what they do next â?“ but the Hulk game really offers something youâ??ve never been able to experience before.
Presumably if Ultimate Destruction takes off this will make way for a new franchise; are there any plans to take the Hulk onto next-gen formats or handhelds?
I could neither confirm nor deny your allegations. What I can say is the market is always controlled by consumers, and what they want. Gamers vote with their wallets; if any game is a runaway hit then some direct sequel or spiritual successor will be pretty much guaranteed to follow.
I have high hopes for the game myself; I still love playing it after 4 years of working with the character â?“ to me there is no stronger statement about the quality of the game!
TVG would like to thank Eric Holmes for taking the time to speak extensively about the game and the rest of the Hulk team at Radical Entertainment; The Incredible Hulk: Ultimate Destruction smashes onto the consoles on September 9th, TVG will have a review very soonâ?¦
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Game Information
Available On:
GC, PS2, Xbox
| Release Date: | Players: |
|---|---|
| Out Now | 1 |
| Publisher: | Genre: |
| Vivendi Games | Action/Adventure |
| Developer: | PEGi Rating: |
| Radical Entertainment |
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