The first thing it’s important to point out is that Hellboy: The Science of Evil is not a hideous game-of-a-film for Hellboy: The Golden Army. The fact that the two titles have been released more or less simultaneously is just, one suspects, a mere marketing ploy to shift units of the game. No, it’s important to point out that Hellboy:TSoE is, in fact, a hideous stand-alone game.
I’m a fan of Hellboy, so I was initially thrilled to get to play as Big Red and generally kick ass and smash things with my big stone hand, but then the game loaded and I just wasn’t so thrilled with it. Gameplay is simple, you’ve got light punches and heavy punches and jumping-ground-trembler punches. That’s pretty much it. You can grapple things, which is great for pulling the (explosive) heads off little critters to use as make shift grenades and there’s a gun. The gun is fine unless you’re aiming it yourself… and that’s where the problems start.
Whoever looked at this game and signed off on the camera angles wants a damn good kicking. The person who then looked at the game, and the camera angles, and then thought “hey, why don’t we stick a kind of manual aiming system in” wants to be taken outside and torn apart by horses. The aiming sucks. You can use the right stick to move an aiming reticule around the screen, but the game also decides what you’re aiming at. Quite often these are not the same things as you want to aim at. Take level one for instance (and boy, you know it’s going to be a good game when you have a gripe with the first level), you’re in pursuit of a witch. You chase said evil-doer through a murky forest to a murky graveyard where the murky witch flies around. You then have to throw things at the murky witch using the dodgy aiming. This little section wound me up so much I had to actually leave the game for a few days before I could bring myself to do it again.
As you may have gathered, I don’t hold much sway with the graphics either. Everything throughout the first level is really dull and dingy. It may be my screen, but I’ve never had any problems before so I’m pointing the finger of blame firmly at the game. I know it’s a long established tradition, dating back at least as far as Mulder and Scully, that all paranormal things happen in the dark but really, folks, give me some light. A flaming torch here and there would be nice. Just something that’s not a shade of grey or brown would be good. What is the opposite of dynamic lighting? Is there such a thing as dynamic darkness? The graphics do improve in later levels, but you are left wondering why the developers chose to make the first level as dull as it is.
The game’s story involves Hellboy’s nemesis, Nazi Hermann Von Klempt’s plot for world domination. It never really pulls you in, as the ingame narrative is quite weak and even the voice talents of Ron Perlman, Selma Blair and Doug Jones (Hellboy, Liz and Abe respectively) fail to make it much more enjoyable whether playing it through on your own or with a friend over Live.
Oh yes, folks, there’s a multiplayer co-op mode which, when I have been online, no-one seems to be playing. The co-op mode lets you play as Liz (Hellboy’s fiery on-off girlfriend) or Abe (the psychic fish-guy) as well as Big Red, but the fact that you can’t play through the single-player mode as either of these characters (even as a reward for finishing the game) makes me think that someone only worked a half-day when developing the online features.
My initial impressions of the game have, basically, clouded any judgement I may have of it as I progress further along its murky, linear game play. I haven’t, as yet, come across anything that’s made me think I was completely wrong, but occasionally I feel I may have been a little too harsh in my early assessment. Sure some of the levels are quite generous with the colour, but are you really going to play that far to find out? As I’ve been writing this, I’ve been asking myself if I would play on if I wasn’t reviewing it. I can safely say that if Hellboy had come to me as a rental it would be going back the day after, based purely on my experiences with the first level.
First impressions really do count!
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