The Incredible Hulk

It’s so bad it’s almost comical. Quite how Incredible Hulk has turned out so bad is a bit of a mystery, especially considering Hulk: Ultimate Destruction was quite an enjoyable title and that this new version has been afforded the benefit of ‘next-gen’ technology. Perhaps it was due to the change of development team. Perhaps it was rushed to meet the movie’s imminent release. Most likely it’s the team of people who were responsible for allowing this out of the door and caring more about profit over quality.

I would say that business model won’t sustain them for very long, but then I’d be lying to myself and everyone else. For years now I’ve wondered how many more times the buying public will allow these developers and publishers to get away with such gaming atrocities. Just as I think that we’re reaching a point where the tide will turn and people will wise up, out comes another turgid excuse for a game (in recent years usually a Superhero movie tie-in) that takes all of the fun out of gaming and charges you £40+ for the pleasure.

Going to the cinemas and watching an awful movie is bad enough. It normally costs the viewer upwards of £7.50 and a couple of hours of their life. Paying £40 for a game that is so bad it’s actually offensive is very hard to take. Today is Saturday. This game was released yesterday. There were already six pre-owned copies available in my local Gamestation this afternoon. Six. In only 24 hours. In one store! Six!

Everything about The Incredible Hulk is shambolic. The voiceovers are provided by the original cast but they are phoned-in and delivered in such an unenthusiastic fashion I expected them to slip-up and dip into a real life conversation; ‘What do you mean he’s tearing down the city? Get the armed forces over…Sarah…SARAH! Put the dog down this instant!…ahem…sorry, where was I?’

Despite the enhanced technology on offer, The Incredible Hulk manages to look worse than Ultimate Destruction that was released in 2005 on the PS2. From identikit enemies to poor lighting effects, buildings that pop up only a short distance away, textures popping in for tea and featuring more clipping than your average toenail clippers, you’ll end up being very appreciative of the limited vision you have, courtesy of the fog that’s descended over New York like some homage to 9/11. Even the cut-scenes are disgusting to look at, although thankfully they only last a few seconds before they abruptly cut and you’re presented with a loading screen which gives you just long enough to wonder what the hell that cut-scene was all about and whether it has actually ended or if the PS3 has just crashed.

Then we have the gameplay. Or rather we would if The Incredible Hulk wasn’t completely devoid of any. The main part of the game is clearly the ability to level New York, but it is so easy to do that it quickly becomes tiresome within just a few short minutes. You can even level a building without meaning to, thanks to a camera that can never decide where it wants to be, what it wants to look at and invariably ends up pointing in the wrong direction which leads to you doing a ‘Grrr, Hulk smash’ to a building instead of a tank. It’s quite ironic that in trying to protect the city from nefarious villains, you actually do more damage yourself.

Most of the missions involve you protecting or escorting somebody or something and oddly, as long you keep them/it safe, it doesn’t matter how many buildings or innocent lives you take in the process. ‘Thank you for saving me Hulk. It is a shame you killed 712 people and levelled 27 buildings in the process, but I’m sure you’ll be heralded as a hero all the same’. Obviously the authorities don’t take too kindly to you levelling the city, so they send out tanks, helicopters and some of the most mindless soldiers ever seen to destroy you. Having adopted a similar ‘wanted’ system from the GTA games, you could be fooled into thinking that you’ll have to run for cover quickly or else be killed. Not at all! Due to Hulk’s ability to heal himself you can quite literally spend hours on the highest wanted level without dying. You really have no excuse for dying at all. As long as you casually glance at your health meter once every few minutes and use your regeneration ability, you’ll be fine.

The special ability system is the only thing that Incredible Hulk does right. Rather than providing you with experience points to spend on abilities, you earn abilities by achieving goals, such as total distance covered in air or other similar achievements. The ability afforded to you is relevant to your achievement, which, if the game was better and not so pointlessly easy, could lead to a sense of achievement. Other than the distribution of abilities however, Incredible Hulk is second to Ultimate Destruction in every way.

It doesn’t even have the humour of Ultimate Destruction. You won’t be lifting taxis and rolling them up into balls and bowling down soldiers here. It’s so far short of everything Ultimate Destruction offered (which in itself wasn’t amazing or unsurpassable, just a fairly entertaining superhero romp) that I just fail to see an audience for this. If you’re lucky enough to have one of the 60gb backwards compatible PS3 models and really must have a Hulk fix, you can pick up Ultimate Destruction for less than a tenner. Not only is it much more accomplished, bigger, more amusing, better looking and so much more enjoyable, you’ll also be sending a clear message to the developers and publishers that this sort of thing just isn’t fair anymore. Of course many won’t. Many will just walk brainlessly into their local store, see this on the shelf and pay full price for it, only to then trade it in for ‘Need For Speed: Burberry Bites Back’ a day later.

But being the ‘glass is half full’ type of person I am, I want to end on a positive. It’s better than Iron Man!

Our rating

3/10