No One Can Stop The Incredible Hulk from Achieving “Ultimate Destruction”

by Louis Bedigian

“Just moving is an exhilarating experience as the most powerful character on earth.”

Free-roaming.  Open-ended.  Never-ending.  Those are a few of the words publishers like to use when describing their games.  They may sound typical, but every once in a while the hype isn’t just hopeful; it actually has a leg to stand on.

In this case it (he) has two legs to stand on: The Incredible Hulk.  Like the name says he is incredible, and for the first time ever he’s getting a game that’s just as free-roaming and open-ended as the world he lives in – The Incredible Hulk: Ultimate Destruction.   

Like Reggie Fils-Aime he makes a big impression on his audience.  When the Hulk kicks butt, however, he doesn’t bother taking names.

Abolishing store shelves this month, The Incredible Hulk: Ultimate Destruction will soon be in the hands of gamers.  Will it be the ultimate action title?  A game we hope never ends?  Eric Holmes, Lead Game Designer at Radical Entertainment, turns us into believers.

Simpsons: Hit & Run was a huge hit for you guys.  If you don't mind me asking, were you disappointed that you couldn't make a sequel?  I know of a few million gamers who are…
 

Eric Holmes: We were busy making Incredible Hulk: Ultimate Destruction – the Simpsons team have gone on to make “Crash Tag Team Racing.”  If you like their wicked sense of humor and wacky driving, you might just want to check it out.

Now you're doing The Incredible Hulk: Ultimate Destruction, which sounds like it'll be just as free and open-ended as Simpsons: Hit & Run.  Tell us about this.
 

EH: HULK SMASH PUNY HOMER!  Hulk is a solid generation beyond what Hit and Run pulled off; we have a full free-roaming go-anywhere city environment and the most powerful videogame character ever created. 

Ever wanted to just smash your fist into a wall?  This game takes that destructive desire and allows you to let loose with a character that has all the punch of a tactical nuke.  A world-class physics system allows you to smash, toss or crash hundreds of objects around in real-time, and chuckle to yourself as pedestrians run in terror at your might.  Go on…smash stuff up – you get points for it.

As The Incredible Hulk I can weaponize any object I see, correct?  Does this mean I can pick up a tree, a car, a small building, etc., and throw it at my enemies?  Please go into detail about this aspect of the game.
 

EH: Every object is interactive. EVERYTHING. You can pick it up, toss it, slam with it, smash it – the Hulk’s strength is second to none.

The term “Weaponization” is sometimes misunderstood and misquoted in the press, so I’ll try to break it down. 

Hulk can pick up anything in the world and use it as a weapon; a lamp post can be used as a club or a bat, or a car can be hurled at a helicopter or smashed over a tank.  This is just straight combat; sure we’ve driven up the scale and the sheer volume of interactions than you can have, but that’s a natural progression of what you’ve seen before.

Weaponization is different.  Weaponization is where we’ve taken the extreme strength of the Hulk and allowed the player to rip, smash, shred and pound objects into entirely new weapons.  Rip a car in two to make steel boxing gloves – “Steel Fists” – that’s Weaponization. 

Since the game is open-ended, does this mean that I have the freedom to complete missions out of order?  Also, are there any side missions?
 

EH: The story missions are ordered to give a structure and ramp the action accordingly, however the player has a lot of choices available to him at any time.  There’s a lot of gameplay to be had in free-roaming; collecting comic books and smash point collectibles, upgrading his moves, initiating ‘strike teams’

A lot of comic book and superhero-inspired games limit the amount of time that players can use their super powers.  Is that the case here?
 

EH: No way.  The Hulk’s strength is an ‘always on’ commodity.  All we do is boost your potential when your health is high; Hulk can unleash enormously destructive ‘devastator’ attacks, akin to your old school Defender “smartbomb”.  This will blast everything from ambient vehicles and armed opponents into orbit - and rock buildings to their foundations.

We also subscribed to ‘the madder Hulk gets, the stronger he gets’.   Hulk gets a constant damage bonus as his rage builds, and gets a huge surge when his health is low – a safety net of sorts.

You say the environments are destructive, but what's your definition of that?  How does this game define destruction?
 

EH: To Hulk, destruction is analogous to interaction.  Anything Hulk touches, he wrecks, smashes or rips.  For example, if he’s flying through the air at 100mph, and grips into the concrete of a skyscraper, he doesn’t stop on a dime.  Hulk’s fingers bite in, but he’s so large and heavy he rips across the surface, gouging chunks out of the building.  Hulk feels big, powerful and mean, even when just coming to a stop.

If Hulk runs into something, he doesn’t just stop dead – he slams into it, flipping it through the air under real-time physics.  That object could be a screaming pedestrian, an ambulance trying to back out of his way or an attacking mech.  Just moving is an exhilarating experience as the most powerful character on earth – try it, and you’ll see what I mean.

How does the game's extreme use of destruction influence each mission?  In between frequent havoc-wreaking, what tasks / objectives will players have to complete?
 

EH: Inside of missions the player will be using his powers against the various enemies, ambushes and opportunities the story affords him.  The Hulk’s genetic material is a valuable scientific commodity, and “The Division” are the latest industrial/military lynch mob out to secure their lab boys a sample. 

Meanwhile the player is out to build a machine – he’ll start by thieving high-end scientific equipment from across the city.  The police don’t like this much, so the military immediately get the call.  It’s a cruel sort of fun at the start of the game, because the military aren’t even aware you’re in the city, so you’re just chasing terrified police officers around; their pistols don’t mean anything to the Hulk, and their in-game dialogue recognizes that.  The police APB description of the player lists him as, “Suspect is a Dr. Bruce Banner, approximately twelve feet tall, green skin, wanted in connection with property damage and resisting arrest.”   The voice acting is just perfect, too.

Later in the game, the player has to escort a valued ally through the city center while under a military lockdown – so he’s got problems not associated with his own particular brand of invulnerability – an SUV can’t take repeated hits from tank shells, and as far as I know GM don’t yet market a truck that can regenerate health.  Other objectives help to mix it up; defending a computer facility as Doc Samson hacks in, rerouting power to the premises of Doctors Banner and Samson, shutting down military spy operations – by smashing the hell out of their satellite uplinks…the list goes on. 

The game doesn’t just cast the player as reactionary either; He’ll strike back by destroying prototypes on the testing range to slow down field deployment of new weapon systems or wrecking convoys carrying parts to a construction facility – parts for new military weapons.

Boss games are also big-ticket items – we wanted characters who could challenge the power of the Hulk.  Apart from all the requisite military opposition, that’s primarily satisfied by a number of encounters where you battle against your nemesis – The Abomination.

Outside of missions we have the ‘Response System’.  This is a measure of the government’s fix on the Hulk; as he destroys more and more they get a fix on his location.  Camp out for a while and their lock-on diminishes, or continue the devastation and you’ll find yourself engaged with a team designed to take down the Hulk.  Initially this will be modern day military hardware; helicopter gunships that can keep pace with the Hulk’s amazing movement, or even VTOL-capable strike jets – then the big guns come out, with purpose built “Hulkbuster” mechs, weapon platforms designed to take on the Hulk toe-to-toe. 

What will the world do to stop The Incredible Hulk from leaving the world incredibly devastated?  Will he have to take on a few tanks?
 

EH: We wanted top-of-the-line military hardware in the game, so yes – he’ll face everything from varieties of APCs, Tanks, helicopter gunships, helicopter transports dropping off squads of soldiers, fighter jets, bombers…  Then we really get started – the military have been designing weapons specifically to take the Hulk out with technology referred to as “Hulkbusters”; this will include mech enemies that can fly, fight hand to hand, they have a variety of capture and destroy weapon systems. 

There are several varieties, with two primary families; the Army have their field Hulkbuster units and the Division have their stealth-oriented “Black Ops” Hulkbusters, which don’t officially exist.  The largest Hulkbuster is referred to as the “Titan” class, and is big enough to be described as a battleship with legs.

Are there any boss or super villain battles to keep players on their toes?
 

EH: We have a total of six bosses; the Abomination features twice as the conflict with him primarily drives the game.  The player will face off against Mercy, a reinvented classic Hulk enemy; she’s Division Director Emil Blonsky’s right hand person – quite an interesting character, as she’s under 6 feet tall when compared to the Hulk at around 12ft.  The Hulkbusters measure up at over to 60ft! 

We also star Devil Hulk, in definitely one of the more bizarre confrontations that takes place inside the vestiges of Banner’s mind.

The story is being written by Eisner Award-winning comic book writer Paul Jenkins.  What new elements is he bringing to the table?
 

EH: Jenkins is an experienced storyteller.  He crafted a much more focused tale than we originally drafted, and he brought many new ideas to gameplay – too many to name. I’ll give you one example though; Paul wrote numerous “Blonsky Files” that are unlocked through the game as you play.  They’re on Division boss Blonsky’s mainframe – this you steal in an early mission, then over time they become decrypted.   At your hidden headquarters, Banner can study these files with his ally, Doc Samson – you get to read the files and you hear VO of their analysis of the contents.  This provides a much broader view of the background of the “Hulk” universe and the story as it progresses.

Jenkins also brought a great deal of humour to the game.  He’s a funny man…for a Welshman.

Will the story have traditional Hulk elements as well?
 

EH: The story is a “classic” Hulk tale.  I think one thing that’s important about the Hulk IP, from the comics to the TV series is that it’s a somewhat grim tale, and often has tragic element to it.  Of course, this isn’t realized in the gameplay, which is chaotic and fun – but the story has some darkness to it you don’t often find in games. 

How did the acquisition of Hollywood voice talent (including Ron Perlman) change the course of the game?
 

EH: It didn’t!  We had always planned to get some voice-over heavy hitters, and Ron is someone I’ve wanted to work with for as long as I can remember – I’m just glad that we made it happen this time around.  I admire Ron greatly – not everyone seems to know, but as well as having his many roles on the big screen, he’s a very prolific voice actor. 

Perlman brought great depth to every scene he was in.  I’d love to work with him again. 

Has Bill Brown's score for the game been completed?  Whether it has or hasn't, could you describe the music for us?
 

EH: Comic book adaptations have some of the most powerful central themes – Williams’s aspirational Superman theme, Elfman’s high-action Spider-Man theme, or Zimmer’s haunting Batman Begins.  Our game is no exception.

We stated our needs and Bill’s music hits the spot – it makes the player take on the characteristics of the Hulk; each piece urging him into violent, destructive acts – each track is the player’s less-than-silent partner in crime.  The music is driven and potent, often underscoring gameplay ‘moments’ of Hulk’s majestic movement or terrifying power as if it was scored just for that exact section of gameplay.

In some ways this was a synergistic relationship; the music was driven by early gameplay and mission concepts; when played during development of the missions it helped us to create an experience that was on-track with those early goals.  I think it’s fair to say that the impact of Bill’s work surprised us all, and I wouldn’t trade the final music for any other – it’s perfect.  When you’ve finished the project, isn’t that the best spot to be in?

What has it been like to work with DaneTracks?  Why were they your number-one choice for destructive audio sounds?

EH: People are always so interested in knowing all about game development, so you can find out more about this if you check the 22-minute “Making of the Game” feature on the game disk.

On the disk you will see that DaneTracks are a bunch of crazy people who will do anything to get you the right sounds.  They went out into the desert and dropped cars on top of each other to get our car crunching sounds.  They ripped cars in two with traction engines to bring you the “Hulk rips a car to make Steel Fists” sound. 

Why DaneTracks?  These guys have a great name for quality – they did the sound source for “The Matrix” among others.  They are as obsessive about the right sounds as we were about making this game the biggest power fantasy you can find, and the best superhero game ever. 

 

Thank you for your time.