	The Incredible Hulk
	Developer: Edge of Reality Publisher: Sega Release Date: Out Now Players: 1	Words By:
No doubt the latest Hulk movie is showing at a cinema near you right now. Starring big names like Edward Norton, Tim Roth, Liv Tyler, William Hurt and Tim Blake Nelson the movie really meant business, and has widely met with critical acclaim. So can the console version compare? Well for a start the in-game likenesses of Norton, Roth, Tyler, Hurt and the big guy himself are all recognisable, if a bit lacking in detail, but Hulk is extremely well animated and has a lot of moves, including jumps, grabs, slams, and of course, punches. You can also lock onto a target with the ‘L’ trigger and throw cars, buses, trucks or army vehicles at it to cause massive damage. Being green, 9ft tall, incredibly strong, being able to leap and bound clean over buildings while having the whole of Manhattan to explore is quite a heady experience. It may not be as detailed as GTA IV’s Liberty City but there’s a lot of traffic and pedestrians, as well as little touches like pigeons that fly away as you land crunchingly on a rooftop. Before long you’ll have caused enough peripheral damage (even if you’re not trying to) to attract the attention of the Enclave army, who will constantly chase you with their annoying machine gun-mounted Hummers, APCs and even soldiers in mech suits that are about the same size as you, but nowhere near as tough. The gameplay is a mix of smashing stuff up, smashing soldiers, Hummers, tanks etc up, smashing buildings up and the occasional escort mission in which you will no doubt have to smash some stuff up along the way. If you don’t like smashing stuff up I’d stop reading now. This particular Hulk is more incredible than any I can remember in previous games because he actually feels as powerful and as indestructible as he should. You have two things to worry about to keep Hulk fit and well; a health gauge and a rage meter. As you smash things, be they buildings, hot dog stands, vehicles or soldiers you build up rage, and if you sustain a serious wound you can use up some of your rage to heal yourself. This is a brilliant idea because Hulk really does feel as tough as he should, and it means that it’s entirely possible to finish the game without dying once, although some of the enemy attacks are so vicious and multidirectional that you probably won’t. The gameplay is unsurprisingly quite similar to the previous Hulk game Ultimate Destruction (if it ain’t broke don’t fix it) and you can grab, throw, punch and smash up just about everything, in fact there are achievements for knocking down landmarks like the Empire State Building or levelling an entire neighbourhood! The damage modelling and Havok physics do an admirable job, and decent flame, dust and smoke effects mean that all the mayhem that you cause is well represented – when you go raging it can look truly spectacular. Naturally the game doesn’t follow the plot of the movie, but features key moments from the film, as well as additional side-plots and characters from Marvel’s massive comic-book universe. Hulk’s nemesis, The Abomination, shows up, and the game allows you to unlock various other hulking characters (including Joe Fixit and the original Gray Hulk) to play as should you get bored with the original big greenie. There are also several minigames to play alongside the story mode like checkpoint races, smashing buildings against the clock and ‘Hulk taxi’ (grab a taxi and carry it to its destination – like Crazy Taxi, only crazier). Even with a few variations the gameplay does get repetitive, but it’s always good destructive fun - it plays a lot like last summer’s Transformers game. But even with some nice flame and smoke effects, and the impressive Havok physics, which allow for massive carnage, the game sometimes looks PS2-ish and weak, with anything any distance away being removed of any detail, presumably to keep the frame rate up. Some control issues could have been sorted out better too; control over Hulk isn’t as tight as I’d have liked it to be and sometimes he seems to have a mind of his own – to compound this feeling of being like a rhino in a china shop, the targeting lock-on doesn’t always work. The Incredible Hulk might not be an incredible game, and doesn’t really do anything that the last Hulk game didn't, but it gave me more than a few hours of fun; smashing stuff up is, at the end of the day, a great way to relax! A few sections where you actually played as the Hulk’s alter ego Bruce Banner might have given the game more variation and the Hulk gameplay more impact, but I seem to remember they tried that with the official game of the last movie and failed miserably, so maybe that’s why the developers didn’t bother this time. As repetitive as it is, I kept coming back to the game for more, and none of its flaws made me angry – just as well, because you wouldn’t like me when I’m angry...

Best Bits
- Massive destruction!
- Hulk really feels like a superhero
- Flatten New York City!

Worst Bits
- Targeting doesn’t always work
- Some graphical glitches
- Samey gameplay
- Limited draw distance


by: Diddly