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Latest News Review - The Incredible Hulk | Review - The Incredible Hulk |
| Written by Adam Tewkesbury | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Wednesday, 18 June 2008 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
 Movie Tie In. Official movie tie in, no less. For gamers of even limited experience the alarm bells will already be ringing loud and clear. Most will draw the following conclusions: The game will be simple: It will attempt to ride the current gaming trend by stealing a popular template and hoping the licence fits: It will rely on cinema hype and association to drive sales: It will be rushed out to meet the film release in spite of any bugs: It will probably suck. You lot are a cynical bunch. So, to The Incredible Hulk, yet another sandbox-type game set in an open city environment. Resplendent with varyingly successful actor likenesses (Tim Roth looks like Tim Roth, whilst Edward Norton looks like Rodney Trotter), badly rendered game-engine cut scenes (it’s the official game- why not use actual film footage?!), and successfully released a fortnight before the movie tries to cash in on summer holiday pocket money, this is a game that merrily ticks all the boxes for a cynical franchise cash-in. Of course it sucks, and here’s why. Firstly we have the setting. The moderately engaging opening level gives way to good ol’ NYC, providing a smattering of recognisable landmarks and precious little else- comparisons between the environments, terrorised by the Hulk and a certain Mr Bellic are impossible, because it is instantly obvious that the titles occupy completely different ends of the gaming spectrum. Precious little back-story is offered to explain your setting (presumably you’re expected to nip to the cinema first), but you really won’t care that much. The Hulk isn’t about enjoying the scenery, more knocking it down and stomping on the rubble. Secondly, we’ll cast a beady eye over the game mechanics. A generous critic might be tempted to describe the presentation, graphics and animation as below average and somewhat basic; in practice, large portions of the Hulk would’ve received little praise on last-gen hardware. On the Xbox 360 version at least, textures are painfully thin and relentlessly repeated, characters are clunky and without expression, and the destructible scenery falls apart in big chunks with very little input from the player (if any at all- the collision detection sucks too). Draw distances struggles over a New York block at ground level- don’t even consider climbing a building and admiring the view- and the lakes of central parks deserve particular abuse; it’s been a while since water was so simply and unattractively rendered. This is cross-format programming at its most heinous, forcing a sub-standard product out on as many pieces of hardware as possible with n scant regards to the strengths and weaknesses of each platform  It isn’t as if the base technology is to blame, either. The Havok engine poster boy of last year was the severely underrated Crackdown, maligned as a GTA rip-off/vehicle for the Halo 3 beta demo, but actually providing a cracking good game of genetically enhanced superhero cops and robbers. With 12 months to tinker with the engine, Edge Of Reality have managed to produce a buggy, ugly, simplified copy, shamelessly repeating ideas with little of the verve shown by the older game (which thrifty shoppers can, nay must, find for about a tenner on pre-owned shelves the country over). Even the collectable ‘orbs’ dotted around the environment have been stolen, but the upgrade system that encouraged Crackdown agents to hunt obscure corners of the map has been robbed of its subtlety, instead coming across as a familiar gimmick to try to bleed some longevity from so basic a main story. The missions in Hulk are painfully familiar, rarely straying from “go there, break stuff”, “escort NPC” or “fight big annoying boss”. Whilst this has become the staple diet of superhero movie tie-ins, the Hulk as a character fits slightly awkwardly into the role; the biggest word on the back of the game box is still ‘Hero’, but this is a title that sits more and more uncomfortably as the game unfolds. I guarantee it is actually impossible to move around in the game without heroically flattening innocent pedestrians, valiantly smashing holes in random buildings, intrepidly breaking buses full of New Yorkers over your knee in your quest for the greater good. Forget Bruce Banner and the Jekyll and Hyde relationship with his stretchy-trousered alter ego, any opportunity to explore the complexities of the characters is ignored in favour of OTT carnage (in fact, most missions start with Bruce talking to a NPC, with no explanation given as to why he becomes the Hulk when the player resumes control) and more, the game rewards careless GBH and destruction; nuts to GTA4 and morality issues surrounding the player as an antihero, Hulk is a hero who squashes innocent people for fun- not the intention of Marvel comics, I’d wager. And yet, despite all the above, there is the merest whiff of fun to be had from the Hulks antics. Maybe it’s an affinity for the character, a childish love of comic book destruction or the bare bones nature of the game structure, but the simple act of running around causing havoc is, for a short while, mildly entertaining. The Hulk can pick up most debris (and enemies) with a range of actions attached to each- use a girder as a bat to thump baddies off skyscrapers, a slab of concrete as a shield, or simply slam a bad guy face first into the tarmac- and for the very brief period that the novelty lasts this is enough to gently amuse. As the missions progress with a shameless lack of originality or variety, however, attention is drawn to the drab design and shoddy presentation, and even the most ardent Marvel fans are likely to look elsewhere pretty quickly. Aside from the evident frailties of the game in isolation, there are a couple of franchise issues worthy of mention. Whilst the new Hulk movie is supposedly different to the Ang Lee 2003 version, the new Hulk game shares a lot of elements with the ‘Ultimate Destruction’ game released in 2005 on PS2/Xbox/Gamecube (including the open world layout), and falls short of the successes of the older game in terms of setting, storyline and content. More troubling still is the age rating- the Hulk is only available to those over the age of 12 (due to moderate violence, apparently), whilst the movie is a 12A. Sidestepping arguments that game age ratings are ignored, and given the simplicity of the game, this would appear to leave the Hulk unavailable to a significant proportion of its target audience…  Score: 3/10
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| Last Updated ( Wednesday, 18 June 2008 ) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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