Graphics

Lighthearted Mass Murder

All that sounds pretty good, doesn’t it? And it is…although there are a few serious problems that get in the way of all that lighthearted crushing and killing. The Hulk was designed for console systems, not the PC. This fact is hammered home by a weak control system that is almost wholly reliant on the keyboard. While you use the first-person WSAD template to move around, the mouse is of use only in menu screens because all of the attack and function buttons have been mapped to the number pad.

Hulk hate Ford

Time for a prayer

Batting practice

Some keys can be remapped, though this functionality is limited. Furthermore, making changes is pointless since the only real improvement would be to map the attack keys to the mouse, and that’s not allowed. Being stuck with this system isn’t completely a bad thing, thankfully. It’s a little clunky, making it hard to maneuver the Hulk on occasion, but it rarely matters since the game design doesn’t call for many precise movements. Still, Radical could have done a better job with the control setup.

Cel Damage

Another issue, albeit a minor one, is presented by the cel-shaded graphics. The Hulk has been given a cartoony look, probably to play up the comic-book connection, although it is ineffective because it doesn’t go far enough. This might have been a good idea if Radical had taken the graphics all the way and made a game that looked like a cartoon, but the artists didn’t sacrifice enough realism for the exaggerated style that cel shading calls for. As a result, the visuals look unfinished. A lack of color makes things even worse. Radical intended The Hulk to be something of a gritty game, with few bright colors apart from the big guy’s green skin, and this greys-and-browns technique doesn’t show the cel-shading off very well. Characters end up with something of a black-and-white appearance and pale blotches that make bare skin look like clothing. Banner, for instance, appears to be wearing long white opera gloves, and parts of his face seem to have been bleached.

Cower all you want

Won't do any good

It never does

Other aspects play up the game’s console roots, for good and bad. Cheat codes allow you to unlock nifty features like a grey Hulk who actually has the power of speech. Challenge mode is a sort of smash-as-you-go option where you have to meet set goals in time limits. The only drawback is that you have to complete the Story mode campaign to unlock them all. Save points take the place of save-on-demand, and there are a limited number of continues that allow you to restart your game from the midway points of a level. There are enough niggling problems here to irritate the more persnickety PC gamers, although the negatives are outweighed by positives at almost every turn.