Hellboy: Science of Evil

Preview from Yug - Monday, 18 August 2008 @ 5:19pm

Ron Perlman.

In my imaginary fantasy world I believe that every Friday night he catches up with Bruce Campbell and Patrick Warburton at the local drinking hole, where they discuss such pressing issues like: who has the deeper voice, who’s features are most chiselled, who has the most quotable quotes, and most importantly – why the hell Jason Stratham is more famous than them.

In the world of video games however, these guys carry more clout than the typical cookie cutter A-list celebrities. So having the new Hellboy: Science of Evil game feature Ron Pearlman doing all the voice work ups the production from ‘cheap movie tie in’ to ‘potentially cool movie tie in’.

What if I told you that everyone else in the movie provides the voices for their characters too?

And what if I mentioned that the development and story were overseen by Guillermo del Toro and Mike Magnola themselves?

And then I told you that the game has absolutely nothing to do with the new Hellboy 2 movie at all!

... huh?




I recently wandered down to local game developer Krome Studios, the company responsible for bringing the Hellboy franchise to the next generation. It’s always great to see a local Aussie developer working with internationally renowned franchises, and Krome tend to pick up the bulk of them – Star Wars, Hellboy, Spyro and Viva Piñata

I was taken in by PR girl Melissa, who’s chirpy and upbeat demeanour seemed out of place for a Friday afternoon. She introduced me to Rich Foster, the Assistant Producer for Hellboy, who handed over an Xbox 360 controller hooked up to a playable copy of Hellboy: Science of Evil and let me run loose.

The game is a straight up third person brawler, which makes perfect sense really. Hellboy as a character is all about kicking ass and kicking more ass, the comics and movies usually leaving it to the supporting characters to do the thinking and problem solving. In that respect, you play as the big Red himself while smashing and shooting an onslaught of enemies.

You’ve got your typical light and heavy attack alternations, and while button mashing seems to work just fine, there are specific combinations you can use if you see fit. You’re able to pick up various objects and slightly pummelled enemies in order to throw them around, either to complete an objective or attack something. The end of the first level boss for example had a flying wraith looking thing shooting flaming skulls in my direction, and the counter attack involved picking these up before they exploded and flinging them back – graveyard ping pong.

Click the joysticks in and you get a limited amount of extra power, which turns the screen all red and glowy, and makes your attacks inflict massive amounts of damage.



It’s all pretty straight forward actually, they’re not trying to re-invent the wheel here. There are a few unique touches here and there though, like some of the animated grab attacks that involve decapitated body parts – or the fixed camera that alleviates the typical camera issues associated with these type of games – or the unique story created specifically for the game. Oh, and Ron Perlman.

Probably the best selling point of the package is the ability to play through the single player campaign co-op, either split screen or via Xbox live. Two people can play as either Hellboy, Liz Sherman, Abe Sapien or a hidden 4th unlockable character (hint: it isn’t Johann Krauss from the new movie). I got to play for a bit as Liz while one of the Krome boys (Gaute – who worked on the game but couldn’t remember the controls) teamed up as Hellboy. I was happy to see the differences between the characters are more than just aesthetic – with Liz having different attacks (including ranged), while being unable to throw heavy objects. She can, of course, set herself on fire – which is a handy skill in these kind of games.

Graphically the game looks alright, but nothing to write a song and dance about. When zoomed in close to a character there are some nice textures, but when in the heat of battle you can’t help but feel that it looks a little bit dated compared to the recent games that have been coming out on 360. Perhaps it was just the level I played, but after moving through this graveyard for a bit, it all started to feel a bit ‘samey’. Thankfully the combat was still fun.

This was about the time I managed to convince Rich to show me some of the other levels in the game, really blow me away with something. He skipped ahead to an end of level boss fight, which gave a great example of the size and scope of some of the set pieces. I don’t know how else to describe it, but the boss was a giant slug looking thing, with massive tenticles and pincers, about the size of a small building.



The final thing he showed me was one of the downloadable content levels (which should be available soon after launch) set in a trailer park. Yes, a trailer park. Abe and Hellboy are cruising down the highway when they run outta gas, and Hellboy has to go get some. It sounds about as far removed from a comic book action set piece as you could imagine, but in truth it works really well, and does a great job showing off some of the games humour.

The main question I have looming in my head is whether Hellboy: Science of Evil can mix things up enough between the levels to keep me entertained for the entire game – but it’s a question I’m looking forward to answering, preferably with someone else playing co-op.

Preferably, Ron Perlman.