The Incredible Hulk
Review
The Hulk takes down New York, one building at a time
by ffanxii4ever
reviewed on X360
Hulk Smash!
Dealing with an Incredible Hulk game, you would expect that destruction, to a ridiculous degree, would be an integral part of the game. This is achieved as several missions are focused on destroying entire buildings or bases. The destructive mayhem can get quite over-the-top, as there is little in the world that cannot be destroyed by the Hulk. Buildings, trees, and even roads can be razed to the ground, and the rubble can be used as a weapon. Also interesting is that if you do not leave the immediate vicinity of your destruction, you are able to completely level a city block, which is extremely satisfying to do. Also a way of making the player feel good is the constant rewarding of feats and achievements. The feats are nice because they go and award the player for everything from running for a distance of ten miles, sticking ten cars into the sides of various buildings or reducing a building to rubble in every neighborhood. This constant sense of achievement infuses another aspect of excitement into the game.
However, with the good comes the bad, and there is a fair amount of bad in this game. The minigames in The Incredible Hulk are very hit-and-miss. Some can be quite fun, such as destroying a certain amount of the city’s property, or demolishing a certain number of vehicles, in a specific time frame. But for every one of these enjoyable minigames, you have a minigame that isn’t even nearly as much fun.
For example a foot race or a jumping challenge. The fast travel system is very iffy. While it is definitely useful for going from one side of the city to the other (if you have enough nodes unlocked), but painful having to search for each and every subway entrance because there is no indication of where they are except for a tiny, unobtrusive icon that appears on the minimap when you are within a few blocks of the entrance. The story is also mediocre; it is a mix of the plot from the movie and various arcs from the comics. There is nothing really wrong with the story, but there are also no real highs either. The only reason the story even exists, is to provide some sort of loose framework for the Hulk’s wanton destruction.
There are also a few outright problems with the game, mainly with the game’s physics engine. The most noticeable and also most jarring glitch is when you first encounter it, is how lifted objects like to get stuck in midair, right where you lifted them up. You are still able to throw them too, and then the enemy goes flying off like a rocket; this is very annoying when you are in the middle of extremely chaotic fighting environment. Another problem, though it could be a conscious decision, is that it seems like all enemies and a lot of the thrown objects, are made out of rubber, and just bounce around like a superball. This can be fun, as it is neat to see foes acting like they are in a pinball machine, and they go wild bouncing off the buildings in the immediate vicinity. Overall, the gameplay is very fun, and action-filled, though it can definitely get repetitive at times.
All in all
The Incredible Hulk for the Xbox 360 and the PS3 is a decent middle-of-the-road game. While it does have some very fun parts, including interesting action, and significant entertainment value in destroying massive skyscrapers and notable landmarks, the fun of these acts is reduced to rubble when you come across annoying glitches. Very poor graphics, slowdowns and frame rate stutters. Luckily most of the problems are either infrequent or can be overlooked if you are looking for a brief, fun, and destructive romp through New York. If you’re the kind of person who’d enjoy that, then I would recommend renting or purchasing this game, but if you are looking for a deep, engrossing action game, then move one as this game is not for you.
7.0
fun score
No Pros and Cons at this time
