Hellboy: The Science of Evil

Hellboy: The Science of Evil - (PS3, PSP, Xbox 360)
Developer: Krome
Format: PS3, PSP, Xbox 360
Genre: Arcade

'Gone to hell' should be a compliment for Hellboy

Ports from films really should have more love thrown at them by now. It's not as if the road to them is littered with triple-A titles, so you'd think developers would wake up. So, once again, and this time for the horned dude, the movie franchise just cashes in with no style.

One of the few good points about this button mashing title, is that Ron Pearlman has been bagged for the voice-over work. But that fact won't sustain your tedious journey through six levels -fighting a selection of foes that lead to the inevitable boss level and the ghost barrier unlock that allow you to do the same thing over and over again. With little back story to work through in cutscenes, the game quickly descends into very simplistic button fighting with unimaginative combos, awkward and infuriatingly stubborn camera angles and lackluster graphics framed by some truly basic frame rate popping.

All the bad guys release an energy once you've mashed them that you can add to increase the power of your punch, but this is an annoyance in itself - they've seemed to focus in solely on Hellboy's enormously oversized fist - that's where the action starts and ends with nothing in between. That means little special moves, little innovation and little of the attention poured into the sequel of the movie. What should have been a title reflecting the franchise's wise-cracking, comic-book otherwordly appeal, comes across as a pale imitation of only the most straightforward of action scenes.

Over in co-op, it's the same six tales of Hellboy's quest and overall it just feels really half-baked.

This time round, going to hell is just not fun.

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