The Incredible Hulk

The Incredible Hulk

Grand Theft Auto 4 isn’t the only big name game this summer to present a fully functioning recreation of New York City. The Incredible Hulk, game tie-in for this month’s Hollywood superhero blockbuster, takes its own stab at the Big Apple. And, while Hulk’s New York might not look so graphically impressive as RockStar’s Liberty City, it does come with the considerable added bonus that almost everything in it can be smashed, broken, kicked over, picked up and hurled into the side of skyscrapers at 100 miles an hour.

Everyone knows the score with movie tie-in games. The benefit of a big name license and the buzz of a theatrical release to push it up the sales charts combined with developer pressures in having to create a game from scratch in a short amount of time mean they usually sell well but play poorly. The Incredible Hulk certainly looks hurried, its graphics on the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 appearing as though they’re little more than a port of a PlayStation 2 version but the game has good ideas that keep it from being a complete wash out. The benefit of a lively New York city to mess up between missions can’t be underestimated.

Each task is preceded by a short narrative interlude told through static screens or via a Dictaphone recording. It’s hardly inspiring stuff but, as these sections can be skipped, it’s clear the emphasis is on relentless action and, in this regard the game fares a lot better. The aim of the game is to save Manhattan (ironic as, during the course of the game even the most conscientious gamer will destroy pretty much half of it thanks to Hulk’s ungainly, heavy-handed bulk).

The Manhattan of the game is a mixture of real New York and that of Marvel’s own mythology and the gameplay mechanics work in a similar way to the well-received Hulk: Ultimate Destruction game of a few years back. You’ve a punch button and a ‘wield’ button that allows you to pick up almost anything, from concrete debris to pedestrians to tanks, smash them on the ground and then hurl them off into space. Hulk also has a long jump move and can scale buildings like Spiderman, meaning the game send you off to do missions vertically as often as it does horizontally.

These missions (which can be tackled in a non-linear order) are mostly concerned with taking something or someone down or protecting something or someone and, while the wanton destruction is fine initially, it soon becomes repetitive. In addition, the glitchy graphics and buggy engine, which really reveal the game to be only barely finished, make matters worse.

There is fun to be had in the new Hulk game and it will certainly quench boredom on a rainy afternoon, but as a full-price, summer blockbuster release, it fails to come anywhere close to the stature of its hero.

3 out of 5