Elements of Destruction was developed by Frozen Codebase and published by THQ. It was released on June 18, 2008 and costs 800 MSP.

In Elements of Destruction you play the role of an evil scientist who has been fired from his job and wants to exact revenge on the corporate world. Like any evil scientist would, you build a machine that harnesses the power of mother nature and take your anger and frustration out on the world. Your evil alter ego will come alive as you unleash the lightning, tornadoes and earthquakes at your control and you cause destruction and mayhem across the globe.

Here’s what we liked:

RPGish elements – Each element: lightning, tornado and earthquake, has three levels of power to them. Each level requires a specific amount of points to upgrade to the next degree of power. Each upgrade in turn affects a larger area and does a stronger amount of damage per use. Upgrading the right element at the right time is crucial, as some stages will require you to use more on one element.

Story – A good game story is always a major plus, no matter what type of game it is. Elements of Destruction is no exception as its story line is one of its few saving graces. The story is rather simple, yet fun. We follow a mad scientist who is hell bent on causing billions of dollars in destruction for the loss of his job. Plus it’s always a nice break from the norm to play as the bad guy and help them in their evil transgressions. What a great way to get rid of some pent up rage.

Here’s what we didn’t like:

Elements – Although lightning, tornadoes and earthquakes are major forms of natural destruction. They should be really cool to watch, but in this case they get old rather quickly. There could have been more destructive options offered: floods, volcanoes, or hail storms, are just a few things that could have been added. Even the ability to combine the elemental attacks for different forms of destruction would have been welcomed with open arms. As it is the three elements fall a bit flat.

Worlds – Your character will travel around the world to places like Canada, Switzerland, the United States and more. Despite the different locations, each one is just as boring and bland as the last, with boring buildings of different shapes and sizes, a few cars driving around and maybe a cow or two if you’re lucky. It feels like there was no imagination put into the game. There are many very well known places in the world they could have used that would have been super fun to destroy.

Missions – All the missions feel the exact same: blow up this, destroy that, do it within a set time limit. You would think that they could have changed up the monotony of this just a little by branching out the gameplay. Why not make a goal to raise the sea level so far that it floods a town? Why not have to defend your evil scientist laboratory as a finale? Elements of Destruction runs its course rather fast and will have you feeling bored with blowing things up by level three or four.

View – Some of the stages are rather large, with no way to pull back and take in the whole stage in at once. It’s frustrating as it makes finding things on the level almost impossible sometimes. There is a radar, but it seems to serve no real purpose as it doesn’t point out anything to you that you can’t already see. Nothing like failing a level twelve times in a row due to the simple fact that you can’t locate the last lighthouse or barn that you must destroy.

In the end, Elements of Destruction proves to be more redundant then anything else. Each world and the stages within feel the same. It’s an utter bore doing the same thing over and over again. Even with several countries to visit, upgradable elements and a evil scientist who wants to destroy the world this game just fails to draw you in or entertain you.

Score: Skip it!