After a long 30 hours, Gamefly decided to send me a game. Not a new title like BioShock but a game that I've been waiting months for like Hellboy: The Science of Evil. How bad could it be, right? I mean really.

When I did a preliminary look up of the scores I checked IGN for a rather amazing score of 3.5. I only checked there cause when you want what the general public *cough*sheep?*cough* think, IGN is the place to go. But could a game really be THAT bad and not be Superman 64 or Too Human? Haha, I kid on that part with a bad game being Superman 64 ;).

On Sunday I finally plugged it in to see why the game has been so hard to get for these many months. How could it be so hard to get a hold of and yet such a horrible score? Well the first level was pretty dark. Perhaps it lightens up in later levels, I said. It did, but then it didn't. The game is comprised of six levels. To completely throw you off, they aren't in chronological order. That is, you play a present time level and then do a flash back. Present time, flash back. It is rather annoying and wierd because it seems the flash back levels are the only levels you can see anything!

And then one of the flash back levels tricks you. You start off in the desert and then you go into a cave. It is here that you are treated with a dark level layout. I found myself dying multiple times from walking/jumping of cliffs that I thought was ground. Apparently you are supposed to put your fist into a hole to bring up a bridge. How is someone supposed to know that when you are on the second to last level and never done something like that before?

What's worse is the boss battle in this level. I actually tried to record some of it. This is a small exerpt from it.

[video]33899:606[/video]

This video may seem long but that is trimmed down and I actually ran around twice as long trying to figure out what to do. What they don't tell you anywhere is that you are supposed to pick up the crystals and try to throw it in the mouth of the worm three times so he bends over and you can shoot the laser in his mouth all while those things chase you. I wasn't killing them cause they are indestructable unless you get a small crystal and put it in your gun. Of course this takes you awhile to figure out earlier in the level since the only way to find out is by a quick note you find laying around. The reason why you might not take the note seriously is cause these notes previously NEVER gave you valuable information in the first place, why start now?

I almost turned the game off then but then somehow I figured it out. And another thing about the video, the camera actually makes it look 10x brighter than it actually is and it is still dark.

Sorry but whoever designed the levels in this game should be fired. Half of the time I could barely tell where I was or going. The only help you have is your glowing red eyes and your glowing rock hand. Perhaps they wanted to take advantage of this aspect of your character with levels getting darker. As you progress more of your jacket gets ripped off so more of your glowing arm shows. Many times the game felt like it was red faint light vs. blue faint lights. Here is some footage of more darkness.

[video]33899:608[/video]

Very frustrating to run around and not be able to see where you are going. Can barely see where enemies are as well. But I have to admit that the game isn't completely horrible. I can understand why they gave it a low score, but I wouldn't go that low. Many times I felt like I was Hellboy with the combat which is good in my book. The game is short and is about a day play long. I actually didn't beat it cause the game froze at the end and I really didn't feel like restarting it. I was done with it.

Completely not horrible (although really baddly designed), and definitely not worth it even if you are a Hellboy fan.

But I will say, how can you fault a game that has a monkey (ape) with a gatling gun for an arm?!

[video]33899:607[/video]

Ummm, can you say win?