Hulk: Ultimate Destruction Post Mortem Q&A - Interviews

It's a refrain that just about any gamer and comic book fan knows from heart. It's simple and to the point, yet somehow poetic. "Hulk smash!" For the last few years, developer Radical Entertainment has been working with the big green guy and the latest -- Hulk: Ultimate Destruction -- landed at retail recently to solid reviews. In this Post Mortem Q&A with Co-Producer, Tim Bennison, we ask about what Radical learned from its previous experience with the Hulk, the log cabin in Radical's office, the number of people that worked on the project, parts of the game that were taken out (or were they?) due to time constraints, recommended system specs for console games, and the opinions of game journalists among many other topics. Thanks for your time, Tim!

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Hulk: Ultimate Destruction

Post Mortem Q&A

Conducted by Omni with Questions from the Armchair Empire Staff

Okay, state your name, role on Hulk: Ultimate Destruction, your past experience in the gaming industry, and the last restaurant you had lunch at.

Name: Tim Bennison

Title: Co-Producer, The Incredible Hulk: Ultimate Destruction

Experience: 10 years at Radical Entertainment as a Technical Director, VP Technology and Producer on titles like The Hulk, Crash Tag Team Racing and The Incredible Hulk: Ultimate Destruction.

Last Restaurant where I ate lunch: Radical’s Kitchen (game producers don’t have time to step out for lunch!)

The question that’s really burning a hole in my brain right now is, “Were there a lot less restrictions when it came to Ultimate Destruction than with Hulk, based on the feature film?”

I’d say there was more creative freedom on Ultimate Destruction. The only license-holder we worked with was Marvel (and they were very supportive and helpful), whereas on the Hulk movie game, we were also working with Universal’s Theatrical film division. Our main goal with Ultimate Destruction was to deliver an authentic comic book experience, so we worked closely with Hulk and Spider-Man writer Paul Jenkins on the story and The Ultimates artist Bryan Hitch on character design. Other than staying true to the Hulk license, we got to create our own story, game world and we even got to re-invent some classic characters from the Hulk comics.

The other question burning a hole in my brain is, “Why is there a log cabin in Radical’s office?”

All Canadian game developers have log cabins, ours is just the biggest.

Obviously, the two games are very different but was the experience with Hulk directly applicable to Ultimate Destruction?

We learned a lot from the first Hulk game and knew we had something cool in terms of the destruction and combat…Hulk SMASH! For Ultimate Destruction, we wanted to build on that feeling for the entire game. We also learned that people don’t like being contained in corridors when they’re the Hulk, so we made Ultimate Destruction a free-roaming game in a vast environment. Finally, nobody wanted to play as Bruce Banner, so in Ultimate Destruction, it’s all Hulk, all the time.

Starting out, what was the overall goal of the Ultimate Destruction team?

Our main goal was to make you feel like you’re the Hulk. We decided that the essence of the character is the feeling of ultimate power. We broke that down into four aspects: unstoppable movement, epic fighting, smashing anything, and total freedom. Play the game for 30 seconds and I think you’ll agree we’ve succeeded.

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At the height of its development and excluding QA Testers, how many people were working on Ultimate Destruction? How does that stack up to the other projects Radical has worked on?

The development team peaked at around 45-50 people. We’ve had smaller projects at Radical, but we’ve also built even larger teams. It depends on the type of game and the development schedule.

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On a multiplatform release it’s hard to play to the strengths of a console’s capabilities. Do the GameCube, PS2, or Xbox versions of Ultimate Destruction differ from one another?

This is a multi-platform game so you’ll get the same great experience on any of the consoles. The choice often comes down to personal preference for the controller. We made a special effort to make the control feel great on all the consoles, and we have customizable controller configurations on all platforms. One difference is the Xbox supports a higher resolution HD output in widescreen (720p).

Should console games ship with “Recommended System Specs?” I’m thinking along the lines of recommending 5.1 Surround and a widescreen TV. Or will that always be in the realm of PC gaming?

I think that one of the great things about console games vs. PC games is there are no recommended specs…you buy a game and you know it’s going to work without a complex install pr ocess. Ultimate Destruction plays great on any audio/video setup but I have to say that with 5.1 and a subwoofer your experience goes to a whole new level. It feels like a freight train is rumbling through your house. Our sound effects are all custom-made. We spared no expense at the junk yard dropping cars onto other cars using a crane, ripping vans apart with giant grappling hooks and generally blowing stuff up, for real. I’m happy to say no game developer was harmed in the making of this game.

Hulk is one of Marvel’s most powerful characters so how did Radical make sure that the gamer feels that power?

See above re: sound effects. Spielberg said sound is 50 percent of the experience in a film, and it’s the same for a game. There’s more to it, of course… for example, putting the player in a giant free-roaming city where you’re free to be the Hulk with no restrictions. Also giving you an arsenal of over 150 upgradeable moves that really capture the Hulk’s power. Our Weaponization moves let you transform objects in the game into weapons of destruction.

With Steel Fists, you can rip a car in half and make giant super-powered boxing gloves. The Shield Grind allows you to flatten a bus, turn it into a shield and then skateboard across town, destroying everything in your path while doing stunts.

What was the process to get the story officially approved and vetted by Marvel? Or does answering that involve revealing the deals of the license and therefore unanswerable?

Marvel was of course very involved in making sure we captured the spirit of the Hulk license and were very supportive and allowed us a lot of creative freedom with the story. We worked with Paul Jenkins (award-winning writer of The Incredible Hulk and Spider-Man comics) to make sure that we had an authentic comic book game. Paul wrote the story, cinematic script and in-game dialogue…it was a great collaboration. Bryan Hitch (artist on The Ultimates comic) did our main character design, so we have some of the best-looking character models in any comic game.

With the Xbox 360 coming out this Fall, was there much thought about producing a ramped-up version of Ultimate Destruction to take advantage of some new hardware?

Ultimate Destruction is available on PS2, Xbox and GameCube. It’s fair to say that the power of the next-gen consoles will give games of this type a huge boost in graphical realism, world interaction and general smashability. Everyone in the industry is looking forward to what these new machines can do.

As with every videogame, not every idea can be worked into the gameplay or story of a game. What got cut out of Ultimate Destruction due to being unworkable or simply running out of time? (Or is it still there and unlockable with a hack from Internet?)

I’m not aware of any unlockable hacks called “Hot Gamma Green Tea” or anything of that nature. But you’re correct, we cut some stuff that we either thought would be fun and weren’t, or couldn’t do in the time we had. We have ten unlockable Hulk skins, but it would have been nice to put in a few more. “Canadian Flag Shorts” did make it in.

Are any of the cityscapes in Ultimate Destruction based on real-world locations? If not, describe the process behind building the cities and populating them with destructible items.

We have two giant environments in the game, the City and the Badlands . Each is a fictional location, but inspired by real city layouts and natural environments. We created a custom world building toolset, and an advanced world streaming engine that lets us dynamically load the world as you’re smashing through it. You won’t notice this loading and that’s the whole point. Our destruction system and physics engine is also custom built at Radical for this game. You’re never going to run out of things to smash or objects to weaponize or blow up…it gets pretty insane at times.

Did the game receive any further fine tuning after E3?

After E3 we did final difficulty tuning, camera tweaking, boss fight tuning and of course lots of bug fixing.

What was the most difficult obstacle overcome by the team during the course of Ultimate Destruction’s development?

Going from a linear game to a full open-world free-roaming game structure presented a huge set of challenges in terms of graphics technology, art creation and mission design, but we were serious about making a great Hulk game and we knew we had to do this to really deliver on the essence of the character.

Is it harder to begin making a game or wrap up its production on time?

Starting a game is tough because that’s when you have to do all the hard creative thinking. Mistakes made in early pre production can really hurt later on. You’ve got to focus the team on the correct major features, and do a great job on the project planning side. Finishing a game is also incredibly tough… the bug fixing, tuning, manufacturing approval process and knowing when to say “it’s done.”

What aspect of Ultimate Destruction is the team happiest with – that one element everyone can point to and say, “Perfect!”

Ultimate Destruction makes you feel like the main character better than any other superhero game. We got that Hulk Smash feeling down perfectly through a combination of great controls, great animations, and state-of-the-art technology in terms of destruction, physics and world streaming. If you’re an action gamer, I guarantee that you will be having bucket-loads of fun within 30 seconds of picking up a controller.

Do superhero action games receive more criticism than other genres?

Tim: Well, superhero action games clearly have an inconsistent track record, so the criticism is probably justified, but Ultimate Destruction is different. We think this is the best superhero game ever made. Don’t just believe me. Check out the review scores and player’s comments. This is a monstrously fun and addicting game.

How much stock do you put in the opinion of game journalists?

We do care what you think. Your questions so far have been pretty insightful.

Radical is located in Vancouver , B.C. Is there anything about the place that heightens creativity, spurs productivity, or and drives the team to do the best they can? I know, Radical was voted one of the best places to work in B.C., but with the kind of fun stuff there is to do in B.C., is it difficult keeping people indoors to actually work?

Everyone at Radical is very focused on making great games. We work hard, but keep it fun. We’re very proud of our company culture and we’re set up to allow people to actually have lives outside of work, unlike some other developers.

In the Vancouver area Radical’s biggest competition is probably Relic and EA Canada, but does Radical even consider them competition? Is it just like a big happy game-making family but with different names?

Vancouver has many game developers, small and large. It’s a pretty tight-knit industry and everyone knows each other. We don’t compete in terms of final product, but we do compete sometimes in terms of hiring people. Each company offers a different “value proposition” to the prospective employee. I’ve been at Radical ten years, so I clearly believe that Radical is the best place to work. So do the other 200 people that work here.

What is your favorite videogame and how has it influenced the games you’ve worked on?

My favourite videogame of all time is Coleco Combat (circa 1978). It was a custom hardware tank combat game and my brother and I logged 100’s of hours on that thing. It taught me a few lessons: design tight controls which are easy to learn but give you a lot of depth, simple gameplay elements combined in interesting ways can give you hours of gameplay, and games that are FUN will never grow old. It seems that many games these days lose sight of this last point in their attempt to present over-the-top cinematics and massively complex controls.

Is current software taking full advantage of current console hardware?

Most developers by now are squeezing every last ounce of performance out of the current console systems.

It was once said about games that “Design is king!” What’s your motto when it comes to developing games?

I’d say “Fun is king!” Your basic core game mechanics have to feel right and you have to get a smile on the face of the player within 10 seconds. Don’t ship the game until you’ve achieved this. Ultimate Destruction delivers.

(September 9, 2005)