Hulk mad!
The Hulk doesn't exactly tie into the events you'll see in the upcoming movie, as the game prefers to draw on the green giant's comic book roots, and also acts as a sequel of sorts. Dr. Bruce Banner was exposed to a near lethal dose of gamma radiation. He survived, but when ever he become angry, he transforms into the Hulk, a massive, unstoppable green monster. The game starts where the movie left off, when Bruce returns to San Francisco from a trip to South America, still in search of a cure which will prevent the transformations once and for all.
Hulk smash!
To be honest, the only people who should really touch this game are die hard fans of the comic, and people with the same level of vocabulary as the Hulk himself. Radical have provided a gameplay style which just seems too simple for its own good. The game is split up into five chapters, and there are two main parts to the gameplay; missions were you play as the Hulk, and missions where you play as Bruce Banner. While the split is about 70/30, the Banner missions manage to have a more negative effect on one's feelings about the title than you'd expect.
The Hulk is a rather large fellow, and quite angry. Given his enormous size and muscular tone, the Hulk is pretty good at smashing things. The Hulk can rip through the environment with the greatest of ease, as well as using bits of debris as weaponry. Unfortunately the common soldier seems to be on the receiving ends of the Hulk's anger management issues, as the legions of soldiers will be easily disposed of by the giant - perhaps too easily. The Hulk's sections of the game don't offer much in the way of challenge, as the green giant is much too powerful, not to mention the fact these sections are also very short. His range of attacks and combinations are also very limited, and only receive a minor increase when the Hulk's aggression meter fills up.
Bruce Banner's part of the game relies on being stealthy, but fails miserably due to poor execution. The camera isn't very kind to Bruce with slow transitions and bad angles, which lead to you getting caught more often than not. Bruce doesn?t really have any tricks up his sleeve in the event of being caught - you can't run away and hide, because the guards will find you anyway, but you cannot fight back, because the guards are much, much stronger than you. The sections are just too bland, and consistently break up the already-monotonous Hulk scenes.
The Hulk is broken up into 5 chapters with around 6 levels in each. Each chapter seems pretty formulaic - you'll have a boss fight, a Banner mission, and 4 other levels of repetitively smashing anything that moves, and some things that don't. Levels are fairly short - you'll find that the only time you get stuck in the game is on Banner's missions. Call this one in at about 6-8 hours. There are a bunch of teasers, trailers and documentaries about the movie and game, but nothing that will really pike your interest once the game itself has been completed.
I see green
A unique graphical styling has been used in The Hulk. It's not quite cel-shading, but it's not realistic either - it gives off a very comic book-esque feeling. The Hulk himself is big, muscular and very green, with an array of satisfying animations. The same level of attention needed to be paid to the other characters in the game - they appear to be very stiff in comparison. Enemies don't vary too much either, you find yourself constantly destroying wave after wave of the same sorts of enemies.
Environments are a little too sterile for the most part, though the Hulk can destroy certain parts of them. A little more detail could have gone a long way in terms of the amount of the level you can destroy, but something is better than nothing. The Hulk is supposed to run at about 60 frames per second constantly, but you will find that it isn't immune to dropping below this rate. No widescreen or 60 Hz modes are available.
Sound isn't very strong at all. While Eric Bana does a good job of supplying the voice for Bruce Banner, the rest of the sounds are very generic and repeated far too often - mostly just roars and the sounds of things being crunched under the Hulk's immense bulk. Music isn't particularly memorable, either.
Hulk sad!
Another license continues to go to the dogs - not a single one of The Incredible Hulk's videogame endeavours has offered any sort of rapidly unique gameplay experience, just mundane, simplistic beat 'em ups - and this time it's paired up with an extraordinarily lame stealth section. The graphics and Eric Bana's voice acting are probably the standout features of the package. Only die hard Hulk fans and people with very low expectations of videogames need apply.
Loading...
