Title: Hellboy: Science of Evil
Company: Konami, Krome Studios
Platform(s): PSP
Rating: T for Teen

In light of the movie Hellboy II: The Golden Army, it seemed only fitting that a video game based on the same characters would be released. Hellboy: Science of Evil came out approximately two weeks before the movie did, and can be summed up one one simple word: disappointment.

For a hack-n-slash, beat-’em-up game, there’s not much to be expected. The game play in HB:SoE was terrible. Nothing like God of War, the last hack-n-slash game I played, this is ridiculously easy and downright boring. You can pick up extra weapons other than bullets for Hellboy’s gun, such as grenades of different types, but there’s no point whatsoever. The grenades are hit and miss–and mostly miss, at that. They’re slow and ineffective. The amount of bullets for Hellboy’s gun seems to be quite small considering that our red friend is a gunslinger. With six stages, it took me about 4 hours to play the game; I was dread to do so, but was hoping that the game would improve after the first few levels. I was mistaken.

The game play is only one part of the disappointment. Another part is the story. The story lacks any sort of interest, and the game does nothing to pull the player in. There is no voice acting during cut scenes–which are poorly-animated cartoon-style scenes that don’t make use of the crisp, clean and advanced graphics that the PSP is capable of.

Speaking of graphics, the graphics in this game leave much to be desired. The graphics are jagged and not well rendered, reminiscent of what one might find in early Playstation One video games. There’s not much in the way of background music; the primary sounds in the game consist of Hellboy grunting and making noise as he fights demons.

I do not recommend this game. If you’re looking for a fun, well-done hack-n-slash video game for the PSP, I would suggest checking out God of War: Chains of Olympus instead.

Overall, my rating for this game is 3.0/10.