f13.net forums - Hellboy: The Science of Evil - Krome Studios

There are games that grab you from the moment you start playing them and never let go.

Then there are games that take a while to pick up, but when they get there the effort was worth it.

And then there are games that from the second you start them, you know you've wasted your money, and that feeling pervades the rest of the play experience.

Hellboy: The Science of Evil falls into that latter category. From the second you can first control Hellboy, stuck in a murky forrest with blurry graphics and bare minimum control over the camera, you'll realise that this isn't going to be a game experience you'll cherish.

Overseen by Hellboy's creator Mike Mignola and "Hellboy" director Guillermo del Toro, and containing the voice acting talents of Ron Perlman, this game tries very hard to feel authentic, but it falls short all over the place. The overall storyline is incredibly piecemeal, given that Chapter 2 and Chapter 5 are set in different times to the rest of the game - it's meant to all fit together, but it has been poorly executed.

A lack of polish is evident throughout Hellboy: TSoE. The collision detection on the grappling system is incredibly iffy. You can aim / throw things that you see on screen, but since the camera is fixed you'll often find yourself running around trying to find that last enemy who is off-screen somewhere (and still shooting you). Animations are often jerky, especially the 'finishing' moves you can execute off a grapple.

Overall, this title's biggest issue is repetition. Run into a room full of opponents, kick the snot out of them, see the door unlock, repeat in the next section. Do this for all six Chapters of the game. Only Chapter 5 stands out as something different since it contains some well-designed enemies you can't just beat to death, but too early on the game gives you a way around that too. At a rush, you could probably beat this game inside of 5 hours.

Hellboy: TSoE isn't even good as Achievement-bait, since the title was so rushed out the door that two levels were cut (containing 160 Achievement Points) and planned to be released as DLC. It's over 18 months later and that DLC hasn't been released yet. I'm not holding my breath.

Some people might think to try this game out for it's Hellboy-ness, but even here it falls short. Most of the time Perlman sounds bored and the script is pretty ordinary. It is only in Chapter 6 where the dialogue comes together (funniest line in the game is "The castle looks like it was designed in an outcrazying contest between a plumber and a bridge builder") and Perlman actually seems engaged. But then it is too little and much too late.

Final nail in the coffin: despite Nazis being a major enemy, there are no swastikas in-game. Instead, Nazis wear a large letter-X in its place. If swastikas were going to be such a major problem, perhaps going the Nazi route wasn't the best choice.

Rating: Avoid.