4 out of 4 people found this review helpful.
The Bruce Banner missions killed it for me
Date of Review: Jun 1, 2003
The Bottom Line: A good title with a few major flaws. Hulk fans should enjoy, but are they willing to endure the Bruce Banner mission?
Purchasing "The Hulk" was kind of risky due to the fact that most super hero based games suck. It's a fact of life that games based on movies or comic book heroes are mostly average at best.
Well "The Hulk" doesn't suck at all, but it certainly needs work.
Gameplay:
"The Hulk" is a comic book style beat em up action game, with a shallow story line.
As the Hulk you can smash, thrash and bash everyone and most anything. You can deal some serious punishment on the human enemies in particular. Bashing the hell out of anyone who dares oppose you. There are so many different ways to make dog meat out of the humans that I won't even list them all. That you can find out for yourself, it's part of the surprise. But playing as the ultra powerful hulk is a fun experience. The bosses will give you a bit of a challenge though. This is where the Hulk will meet his match. Even the first boss will best the Hulk in hand-to-hand combat. The only way to beat him is to throw things at him, or hit him with a giant water pipe. You can throw almost anything at your enemies. You can pick up a car and just fling it. Overall, the Hulk experience is not bad and should satisfy most Hulk fans. The thing about the Hulk missions is that they can become a bit repetitive. Doing a one-handed body slam for example is not going to be as fun the 50th time as it was the first time. Like many mindless beat em ups, "The Hulk" begins to loose it's freshness after awhile. I guess the developers tried to remedy that by introducing some Bruce Banner missions (the Hulks alter ego). I'm not sure, it's just a guess.
You have to play through the Bruce Banner missions in order to progress further in the game. The Bruce banner missions didn't go well with me. What's so ironic is, that the Bruce Banner missions revolve around stealth, and not getting caught. If caught, you're a dead man. Don't even think of Splinter Cell when I mention stealth here. These missions are nowhere near the quality, and frankly, they don't seem to fit with this type of a game. And if your going to make missions based on stealth, at least have decent camera so you can see what's in front of you. These missions, though not completely bad, can best be described as tedious. I just got done playing Splinter Cell, and I know what makes a good stealth game. In order for Bruce to hack into a computer, he has to play some silly, pointless minigame, where he has to match symbols. These silly puzzles go on in almost every Bruce Banner mission, and what they have to do with "The Hulk", I don't know. I dislike doing puzzles, and hate doing them with a time limit. After one puzzle, too many I said "this is stupid" and I turned off my XBOX, and I probably won't play the game again. Those Bruce Banner missions killed it. Another minus is this game is on the short side, and if I pay $50 for a game then I would like to get my money's worth. But hey, it's still a good game, and it's worth taking a look at.
Graphics:
What disturbs me about most multi-platform games these days is that they are designed to work on the lowest common denominator. That means PS2 technology for all three systems. So basically, "The Hulk" for the XBOX is a cleaner looking PS2 game. That's all. The XBOX's cleaner version might look good for a PS2 game, but looks about average here. But the characters have a nice cell-shaded look that fits well with the theme. And the Bruce Banner missions don't look too bad. Now the cut-scenes look great, and are a reminder of what an XBOX exclusive Hulk game might look like if done right. These Graphics might have looked good some months ago but technology has improved so much since then. But I will admit that the Graphics do get the job done.
Sound:
The sound is OK. It's as loud as it should be, the destruction sounds cool, and Overall it's decent. Bruce Banners voice does get to my nerves after awhile. Not that I don't like the guy, but I get tired of him saying the same thing when he fails a puzzle
Conclusion:
"The Hulk is a slightly above average game, with a few flaws that cannot be ignored. It's not at all a bad game. If anything it's good. With some, more work in the developing process, and ditching some, Bruce Banner missions. Anyway, it's worth a look, at least.
