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[R31DY]

Published by: THQ
Developed by: Frozen Codebase
Genre: Action
Number of Players: 1- 4
Release Date: 18/06/2008
Price: 800 MS points
Features: Multiplayer Versus, Dolby 5.1 Surround, Leaderboards



What do you do when you get fired from your job after 60 years of dedication? You go on a destructive rampage of course! In Elements of Destruction you play as the quirky mad scientist Dr. Edgar Herbert, who is hell bent at revenge at the AIC after they gave him the boot.
Using the tools of destruction that he designed while working for the AIC, the mad doctor unleashes elemental fury on Canada, America, Switzerland and Bermuda.

The target of most of the missions is to destroy specific buildings and objects, when this is complete you must cause a minimum amount of damage to the surrounding area. In order to do this you can transform into 3 elemental powers, a tornado which is slow at building up speed but causes massive damage to anything that gets in its path, a lightning bolt, which is quick and pretty weak but doesn’t use up much energy so you can use it multiple times, and finally an earthquake which can cause a massive amount of damage to rows of buildings in particular.

"ZZZzzzzZzzzZZzzap!"

The control system in EoD works fluidly and effortlessly, a quick flick of the right stick selects an element, followed by a tap of the A button at the required destination. Once this is complete however, you can increase the damage done by rotating the thumbstick for the tornado, a precise double-tap for the lightning bolt, and tapping A frantically for the earthquake.

Life isn’t all peaches and pears for the mad scientist though, the AIC are on to your plan and don’t take kindly to you destroying their buildings and equipment. In order to thwart your efforts the AIC have deployed turrets, planes, land vehicles and robotic mechs to make sure you don’t succeed. Most enemies you encounter have a specific weakness to one of your elements but are completely immune to another, so you’ll quickly have to change elements when a multitude of different enemies are swarming all around you.

"I hope no-one's home"

The graphics on EoD stand up well against most other arcade titles, as you level up your elemental disasters the destruction and explosions become bigger and better. The different locations of the game vary from snowy Switzerland to the beautiful and scenic Bermuda, they also have their own building models which could do with slightly better texture and details.
The audio on EoD is of a fairly high standard, the elements all sound as terrifying and devastating as they should. Some other nice touches are the sounds of the mad doctor cackling in all his madness at the carnage he is unleashing, and some radio chatter from the opposing forces.

After you are done with the single player side of things, EoD offers a few offline and online multiplayer modes. Offline you play via split-screen and wreak havoc on the environment playing co-operatively, or you can play against each other and see who the real ruler of the elements is.
When playing online you can challenge up to 3 other players to an elemental battle, or alternatively you can also play co-operatively on one of the single player maps.

"Mwahahahaha, feel my wrath!"

Overall, EoD succeeds in making the gamer feel like they are a god-like being, which, lets face it, is fun in anyone’s book. The campaign mode is very short however, only featuring two fairly big maps and one “boss battle” to finish off each of the three countries. The elements are fun and satisfying to use, but only having three at your disposal does mean repetitiveness kicks in close to the end.



Gameplay: 6
Graphics: 6
Sound: 7
Longevity: 4
OVERALL: 6.5