Hulk

I think most gamers can agree on one thing: Movie based games usually don't work.  There have been a few exceptions, but most seem to fall into the category - "it's cool because it's from a movie".  Would the Spiderman game be as cool if it were "Flyboy"? Or would Lord of the Rings be fun if it were "The search for the missing banjo strings"? Probably not.  The same goes for the "Hulk" game.  The game wouldn't be nearly as rad (or hyped) if it didn't include the big, green, badass Hulk-man. 

With that said, when I play any game based off of  other media (movies, comic books, anime, etc.), I always set my expectations so low that I'm bound to be impressed by something. 

As Rick and Clay reported in their most excellent (Wild Stallions!) E3 coverage; the current gaming trend seems to be leaning towards a third person perspective style.  I personally don't mind this out of body perspective, and The Hulk truly does it quite well. 

Since the movie hasn't been released yet, I was hoping that the story line and movie plots wouldn't be too precise.  To my surprise Vivendi kept the story line as vague as possible without losing play interest. 

There are two types of gameplay within The Hulk.  The first mode lets you play the role as the big green hulk and while the other lets you play as the timid Bruce Banner.  During the Hulk levels, you are given an objective and basically you obliterate anything and everything in your way until you complete the level.  While playing a level as Bruce Banner, you are given an objective as well; but this time you have to go into stealth mode.  Of the two choices, the Hulk levels are hands-down the meat of the game.  During Bruce-mode, you have to crouch and sneak around, push and pull levers and blocks, and eventually trigger an event.  During your pseudo Splinter Cell antics, you don't wanna get po'ed or you'll turn into the Hulk and have to start over.   

Since Bruce-mode (I coined that term, btw) is basically filler as an attempt to elongate the game; most will find it to be uninspiring, dull and some will find it even downright tedious.  The whole process was just silly, but a necessary evil in order to round out the game play.

As mentioned, the bulk of the game play and enjoyment comes from taking the role of the Hulk and laying the beat-down on everything in your path.  For newbies this may seem like an ingenious thought, but for old-schoolers like myself I've seen this done plenty of times.  In fact, I just couldn't stop thinking about Final Fight and I just kept waiting for a yellow-coated biker to fly by me and give me a whack.  Those were the good 'ole days, and games like Double Dragon and Final Fight still show their impact on the industry when looking at The Hulk. 

Playing as the Hulk is quite satisfying, nonetheless.  Nearly everything is dynamic, and the environment is fully interactive.  This is a nice trend in current video games, and just about anything can be affected by something else.  Jumping and landing creates a nice cracked surface, and throwing objects into walls provide realistic damage.  Tying this in with the great physics is probably the greatest asset of the game.  Orchestrating this chaos by controlling the Hulk-meister is a total breeze.  I personally suggest investing in a decent PC game controller (I recommend Logitechs Wingman) while playing The Hulk.  I tried using the keyboard, but it was truly a lost cause.  In other words, this game was meant to be on a console. 

The control layout is quite simple.  Your primary attack button is used old-school style to pound your opponent.  Hitting in succession causes different "combos", which in turn inflicts more damage.  Each foe also has a health meter, but really ends up being an obligatory gaming standard.  You also have the option to "charge" up your blows, by simply holding down the button and releasing it.  The second button used is called the "gamma" button.  Your gamma button does a variety of things.  A single button press causes a wave of energy to pound into your opponents.  While not very effective damage-wise, it still gives a much needed break when the action intensifies.  Your third button is the "grab" or "action" button.  This allows you to pick up bad guys and a variety of objects lying around.  Most of the satisfaction comes from this arena.  You can literally pick up anything around you and once lifted you can either use it as a weapon, or throw it.  Using these three buttons in different patters, also gives the Hulk a new set of "combos" to wield.  Probably the coolest, yet least important button is the good 'ole jump button.  Jumping sends the Hulk soaring with some sweet reactions once he lands.  Hitting an action button once in mid-air also causes Hulk to land a few air to ground attacks. 

To stay in the mindset of today's gamers, there is also a little used "targeting" button as well as a first person perspective view.  While the targeting feature is standard fare, I rarely used it.  This was a slight flaw by the developers, plainly because there's no real easy way to scroll through possible targets.   This makes the efficiency quite useless.  Even if the targeting system was more robust, in a straight-up beat-em-up, it's pointless.  Lastly, the first person view freezes the Hulk and allows you to look all around you (a la Zelda).  This was used even less than the targeting system. 

The developers also tried to add some more substance to the game by adding a "rage meter”; which added to the fun.  By picking up red "balls" or by fighting, your rage meter increases.  When you are enraged, you can pull off the games coolest moves available to you.  To execute one of these rage moves, one must hit either the punch button and/or the action/gamma button(s).

As you complete levels and save your game, you can also "unlock" a handful of "mini-games".  The mini-games were a nice touch if you just wanted to kick some quick butt and not worry about story lines and objectives.  As far as longevity is concerned however, this is what really hurts the PC version...  The game consists of maybe 30 levels, and 20 of them are in Hulk mode.  Sure the pace of the game is near perfect butit ends far too quickly.  This seems like an anathema that most movie based games are plagued with.  If I had to estimate, I would guess that the main "adventure" part of the game was completed within five hours.  This also includes the uber-cell shaded/water colored cut-scenes (which are a nice touch btw). 

Aside from the addicting gameplay, probably what impressed me most about the game was its overall performance.  When testing PC games, I always start off low and move up on the PC scale.  I started off on my trusty 933mhz Celeron with a 16MB GeForce2 card running with 512MB of RAM.  The game played flawlessly.  I never experienced any slowdown or frame loss from start to finish.  To make things even better, load times were astonishingly fast.  I would estimate that load times were all done in less than ten seconds...  if that. 

Visually, this has to be one of the most appealing games that I've played all year long.  While there is little to no vector rendering (lighting, reflections), the overall detail was awesome.  Blowing things up is just fun to watch, and the graphics fit the mood perfectly.  The environments and levels were quite linear, but the detail was perfect when it came into play.  Since the impressive physics impacted game play so much, the same has to go for the visuals.  Things just had a nice "feel" to them, and as unrealistic as it is; it still had a "real feel" to it.  Kudos to the development team on this aspect that many developers overlook.... 

Aside from the longevity issues, what hurt Big Green the most was the horrible sound development.  While much of the sound effects fit the bill quite nicely (crashes and explosions), the rest were just awful.  And while I didn't expect full voice-overs for the characters, I did expect some better sound effects.  The endless army of foot soldiers and their monotony was just painful.  Fighting them triggered one of two different events.  If you just button mashed their response would be something like: "You've got nothin'".  Now if you did a combo with gamma you would get a much different response...  something like: "wh-wh-wh- WHAT ARE YOU?"

-yawn-

Honestly, it was just so silly that I would have rather them not speak at all.  And to top it off, the Hulk wasn't much better.  In fact, he never spoke at all.  I kept waiting to hear the famous "HuLk SmAsH", but it never came... 

Unfortunately for us PC gamers, renting games are just out of the question.  Buying the game, however,  is truly a toss-up.   If the game was $40-$50, I would say forget it, but the game is only $30.   To me, it's worth the 30 clams because of the fun factor...   Not to mention the tons of "goodies" you get regarding the movie.   So, for any Incredible Hulk fans out there, they shouldn't have a shred of buyer’s remorse.

What would have made the game better? Even if the sub par audio was fixed, there are still longevity issues.  I think if Vivendi would have taken the whole "Final Fight" thing a step further and made a multiplayer; this could have been a lot more fun.  It would be great to team up with another hulk (remember when the Hulk was gray?) and just romp through the levels causing serious damage to anything in your path. 

The bottom line here is that the game was meant for consoles, and renting.  It's seriously fun and additive....  for a few hours.  The game loses its flavor quicker than a pack of Fruit Stripes gum...  It’s colorful and packs a ton of enjoyment at first, a few minutes later it turns gray and tastes like a rubber eraser.