As every summer rolls along each year, this usually brings the good memories of the summer blockbuster. Unfortunately, along with every summer blockbuster comes a video game somehow “inspired” by the movie. Movie games have traditionally been known for their less than stellar quality, but this still has not dissuaded many uninformed consumers from risking their hard earned cash each year for these video game disasters. The Hulk, unfortunately has to deal with 2 barriers: the movie game AND the comic game. One only has to look at the Batman: Dark Tomorrow or the infamous E.T for the Atari 2600 to understand why many games cringe at the potential of a comic or movie based game. Surprisingly, The Hulk is actually quite good, and not simply for a comic or movie game, but just plain good. Despite its simplistic gameplay, The Hulk is a great beat-em-up that lasts long enough to give you some fun action packed hours, but ends before things get monotonous.
“Hulk Smash!” This famous Hulk line is a great way to describe the game, and there is a lot of smashing, and smashing is incredibly fun. In the Hulk, you will switch between The Hulk, and his not so hulking alter ego, scientist Bruce Banner. In the Banner missions, which make up about a quarter of the game, you help Banner sneak around and solve various puzzles. The stealth element in the game is very simplistic, and so are the puzzles. Each puzzle is the same, and require very little thinking ability. It’s not very exciting, but thankfully, these levels are not too difficult and fairly short, so it’s back to “Hulk Smash!” fairly quickly.
As the Hulk, the missions basically involve destroying everything in sight, or chasing after someone so that you can destroy him. The control system uses two different attack buttons, along with a grapple button. There is also a rage meter, which increases each time you get hit or get a rage powerup. When this bar is full, Hulk is invulnerable for some time and can unleash special attacks. There is a basic combo system, but it is easy and fun to use, like in EA’s Lord of the Rings: the Two Towers. Unlike LOTR, however, there is no rpg-lite element to the game, and the Hulk’s moves are the same from beginning to end. Being the Hulk is so incredibly (pun intended) fun because of the interaction with the environment. Almost everything can be destroyed or picked up and used against your foes. In fact, against some foes, it’s required that your rip up the environment to take them out. The game does a great job of presenting Hulk’s power. You can break through walls, toy with human soldiers, and tanks and helicopters feel like nothing compared to your power. The pace of the game is quite brisk, and the game isn’t too difficult except for the later boss missions.
A lot of the fun destroying the environment, and basically kicking LOTS of tail is being able to see the damage you’re creating. You can always tell the Hulk has been around because whenever you clear an area, it shows graphically. Cracks show where you jump and land, walls are broken down, and there’s a great feeling after you thoroughly trash everything around you. The prerendered cutscenes and in-game graphics both house a cel-shaded look to them. Overall, it’s very nice, although it does seem a bit odd for the prerendered custcenes. There is nothing truly spectacular about the graphics, and there is some slight slowdown occasionally. The set camera angles can also be annoying, but overall, neither problem affects the gameplay much. Objects look nice, if not great, and the same goes for the textures. The Hulk looks great and his moves are animated well, but like with the gameplay, there is nothing noteworthy about Banner, other than that he looks like Eric Bana, the actor in the movie.
Bana does the voice acting for Banner in the game, and the rest of the actors do a good job relative to the plot (more on that later). Jennifer Connelly does not voice Betty Ross, however, but her character is really insignificant in the game. The music keeps pace with the game well, but is not really epic in scale as in LOTR or Enter the Matrix. Hulk supports surround sound and it is used decently in the game, but it is non-existent in the cinemas. Like the graphics, the audio is fine but holds nothing truly memorable.
The storyline for the Hulk game takes place after the movie, but the story seems more in place in a low rate comic book. This is not a bad thing, necessarily, but upon reflection, the plot is insignificant, and really does nothing to enhance or detract from the gameplay. As mentioned before, the game is quite short, and only the boss battles hold any difficulty to them. There are unlockables, like trailers and DVD-type “making-of” extras for the movie and game, similar to LOTR. There are also various cheat codes, including a nice option to play as the Gray Hulk, which I believe is more enticing for fans of the comic. For some reason, I couldn’t quite figure out how to unlock these extras. Beating the game doesn’t unlock anything, and a few of the unlockables are available once you have a saved game. To unlock everything, I had to find out codes through GameFaqs. The only thing adding to potential replay is the addition of a challenge mode, which gives gamers a few missions where basically, you get to smash and smash a lot.
The Hulk is definitely nothing new, but it is refreshing to see a fun movie or comic based game finally. Although the game is supposed to take after the movie, I thought it was a great way to get into watching the movie. The Hulk is similar to LOTR in many ways, from its slick presentation to its simplistic beat-em-up gameplay, but lacks LOTR’s replay with multiple characters, and features much less in the way of bonus unlockables. In the end, it’s a still a great game, but whether it’s worth $50 is probably best discovered through a rental first.
Graphics: 7.5/10
Sound: 7.5/10
Control: 8.5/10
Gameplay: 8.0/10
Overall: 7.5/10
(originally published in GamersInfo.net)
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