Hellboy: The Science of Evil

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Being a fan of Hellboy, I was kind of looking forward to Hellboy: The Science of Evil. However, also being a veteran gamer, I wasn't looking all that forward to the game, simply because of the terrible history of licensed video games. Well, I didn't expect too much out of the game, but what you get here may even be below your lowest expectations. Hellboy: The Science of Evil puts you in the shoes of the title character as you brawl through numerous hordes of baddies and take on the occasional boss. That's it. That's all you do from beginning to end in this game, and it gets boring very, very quickly. Not to mention that the game as a whole is quite short, quite easy, and features some technical issues that all combine to make the game quite bad. The game features some bland environments and choppy animation, and the clipping issues are more distracting than anything else. Co-op multiplayer is also available where you can play as Abe Sapien and Liz in addition to playing as Hellboy, but it offers nothing to improve the experience at all. Hellboy film stars Ron Perlman, Selma Blair, and Doug Jones lend their voices to the game, but they all sound so bored that they just add nothing. No matter how much of a Hellboy fan you may be, avoid Hellboy: The Science of Evil like the plague. There's no challenge, innovation, or anything else to even come close to holding your interest.

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The reviews about this game involving the lack of game challenge (the repetitive hack n' slash), the ps2 quality graphics, and the fixed camera angle are pretty much the bulk of the bad. The good definitely is the nice mix of comic and movie versions of the characters and the caliber of the voice acting.

What really cheated the fans was the cancellation of the Downloadable Content. If you are a Bruce Campbell nut, the planned DLC would have included Bruce's take on the pulp hero, Lobster Johnson. I also think new maps, storylines, and achievements were in it, too. This game really needed a patch. It's now cheap enough to buy instead of rent.

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I love comic books and enjoy it when I see them leap to the big screen. Of course, I enjoy it even more when they transition over to a video game platform as well. The trouble with games that tie-in with movie releases is that there usually not great games to enjoy and only end up being mediocre. Some end up being down right awful and completely frustrating.

I am always pretty lenient with video games reviews and despite the fact that some games really deserve three or three and a half stars. I'll end up giving four stars out of generosity, but Hellboy was a bit of a letdown. My only real complaint is the camera angle and control.

Almost every game these days has the ability to rotate the camera 360 degree with the 2nd analog stick. This is such an important feature. However, this is not the case with Hellboy. The camera is always at one point of a view in this game and does change based on what you're doing, but it doesn't let you control it. If you are going inside a building it will zoom in a bit closer, but you can't control that zoom. It just happens when it wants to. We all know Hellboy involves the supernatural and supernatural things usually happen at night, so the majority of the game all takes place when the sun is down which results in a dark creepy atmosphere. Considering how dark every level is, everything happens at night, and the fact you can't control the camera only makes seeing Hellboy and the villains in the game a bit more complicated. Also, some of the objectives for each level are very unclear as well. I guess the only way to change this is to turn up the light setting on your TV, so you can see where Hellboy and the villains are on screen.

In the first level you have to defeat the witch, who just happens to be flying above in the sky. The camera is set a ¾ overview. Kinda like Zelda back in the Super Nintendo days, so you can't really see where she is. The instructions on screen actually tell you to throw the goblins that she throws at you, back at her. It's kinda complicated to do so when you can't see her and you can't control the camera in order to see her.

That is my only real grievance with this game. Other than that, the visuals are very pretty and I found the game to not be at the point where it was so horrific that it was unplayable. It's doable for the price of being under twenty bucks, but I really did expect a lot more.

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Your basic simple hack and slash game, which is pretty entertaining. For those of you who hate games based on the movie, don't worry this doesn't happen here. This game has its own story and Hellboy still keeps his witty sarcasm throughout. There are a few glitches, like most games that were rushed to make the cinematic deadline. In fact, I had to restart the system at one point because one of the enemies got stuck in an area out of reach and I couldn't kill him, he wouldn't go away, and the game wouldn't allow me to move on without killing him. This doesn't happen often though and provides a good laugh, if it happens at all. The environments are visually really great, there are a few places to explore and a lot of variety to the game in terms of where you get to go -from desserts to caves to cemeteries, and so on. Be prepared for a lot of enemies and different ways of getting through the environments. It's not a very sophisticated game, definitely mindless, but I had fun and although some will find it monotonous because of the same two button combat system I really enjoyed it and you may too.

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I picked this up because I'm a pretty big Hellboy fan. You can get this used at Gamestop for about $5, so try there before buying online.

GOOD:

Voice acting by actors from the HB films are present here. This really makes the game fit in with the movies. Ron Perlman as Hellboy is a great choice.

Short playthrough. The overall time to get through the game is around 5 hours, give or take. Great for when you don't want to invest your soul into a game a la Final Fantasy/Mass Effect.

NEUTRAL:

Easy learning curve to mastering the game. Basically a button masher. Although this can be good for simply jumping into a game when you only want to kill an hour or two, for long-term playing this can be a drag. I personally would have liked to have had more control depth with better combos and maybe some type of upgrade system.

Graphics. The graphics do look like they could have been done on PS2/Xbox. Although many graphics whores would cry bloody murder over this simple graphic design, I didn't really have much of a problem with it. The cartoonish style graphics actually made sense when you consider that you're playing a video game based on a comic book (a comic, which I might add, that doesn't have the most sophisticated art style).

Linear gameplay. I don't mind linear style games (hell, Mario was linear way back in the day and he's the one who got me started on video games). This is something I did not feel overly bad or good about.

BAD:

Story. Whatever story is here is not a very impressive or strong one. Also, I was hoping there would have been more dialogue from the characters during play other than the corny one-liners.

Camera angles are clumsy, annoying, and cumbersome in this game. The player has practically no control over the angles of the game. Boo.

Overall, this game is rather simple. Although I love simple games for the fact that you don't have to schedule time to sit down and get into detail on things, this game needed a little more flushing out for me to want to play it twice. This would be a good game for a kid that hasn't had much time playing video games.