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The Hulk Review June 13, 2003 Brett Todd |
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Summary: ... and here we have Brett savoring the subtle, thought-provoking Hulk experience without feeling as if the subject matter is pretentious or out-of-touch with the real world. Take note of Brett's delight in discoursing on heavy philosophical and political subjects with the jolly green guy, as Brett's carefully phrased and planned logic traps are deftly deflected by the Hulk with his absolutely perfect use of minimalist contentious conversation ethic. This may be the first time in history that a debate about the meaning of life has been resolved with two words - HULK SMASH!
 Overview | Page:: ( 1 / 5 ) |
Excelsior!
Yes, as a matter of fact I am a comic-book geek. I’ve been a Marvel Comics true believer since 1974, when my mother got me a large format reprint of Spider-Man taking on the Sinister Six. That book is still part of my comic archive, which has grown over the past 29 years to include some 20,000 issues. And it’s still growing, to the tune of $20 a week on new books at my friendly neighborhood comic shop and whatever else I spend on trade paperbacks at eBay. Okay, so it’s a bit of a sickness.
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But it’s a sickness that a good chunk of the world has picked up of late. Marvel movies have dominated the box office the past few years, with the X-Men and Spider-Man franchises giving the comic-book creators a veritable license to print money. The latest addition to the ever-expanding list of Marvel heroes making their silver-screen debuts is the Hulk, who of course gets a computer game just in time to goose the box-office receipts. Surprisingly, the game does just that. Where monstrosities like the recent Enter the Matrix and last year’s mediocre Spider-Man have practically driven people out of theaters, Radical Entertainment has done a great job moving the not-so-jolly green giant from big screen to monitor screen. It may be a simple beat-em-up with an occasionally annoying control system, but it perfectly captures the spirit of the old Incredible Hulk comics.
Hulk Smash Axl Rose
That spirit is best seen in Story mode, which follows scientist Bruce Banner as he continues to flee from the US military a year after the events depicted in the movie. In a desperate ploy to rid himself of his verdant, XXXXL-sized alter-ego once and for all, he meets a former co-worker who claims that the gamma radiation can be removed from his body. Of course, the whole thing is a trap, and Bruce’s supposed pal uses the situation to take the gamma rays for himself, turning him into a Hulk-like creature called Ravage. At this point, you turn into the Hulk and go after him, setting off a merry chase through many levels that causes more destruction than even a cancelled Guns ’n’ Roses concert. (What decade are you living in, old man? -ed.)
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Games don’t get any more lightweight than this, although it’s hard to complain too much when you’re holding bad guys with one giant mitt and bitchslapping them with the other, and throwing Buicks into helicopters. That’s pretty much the game in a nutshell when you’re controlling the Hulk, who has to smash and bash his way from Point A to Point B in every level. There isn’t a whole lot of finesse to playing this game, which is probably as it should be considering the subject matter. One button punches, another grabs the nearest baddie, another activates a special gamma-radiation move, and another jumps. You can string together some rudimentary combos by quick-tapping certain buttons. Two meters need to be watched. One shows your current life force, which can be bolstered by picking up gamma power-ups left by defeated enemies, and the other your rage level. Top up the latter and the Hulk goes into a frenzy, opening up access to special attacks and making regular attacks more powerful.
SIDEBAR: Personally, I (ie, Jakub) think that the Hulk lost some of his character when he gained a brain.
| Gameplay | Page:: ( 2 / 5 ) |
Green Man of Alcatraz
There are some neat frills, however, like being able to throw enemies, clap your hands causing a sonic boom and pound the ground causing a seismic shockwave (just like in the comics), and employ whatever you’ve got in your hands as a club. Just about everything in the game can be used this way, from soldiers to metal pipes to cars. I shouldn’t have to add that this is a lot of fun. I couldn’t stop laughing the first time I used a sedan as a battering ram, or raised my arms for a gamma-powered thunderclap in front of a cowering soldier. Battles aren’t always easy, though. The sheer number of soldiers faced, even early in the game, can be daunting, as they come with electrified shields, rocket launchers, and machine guns. Later on, you have to fight irradiated gamma dogs and other monsters straight out of the comic books, usually with some sort of gimmick that forces you to think before you do the old Hulk smash stuff. Foes are also pretty bright, in that they will try to flank you or will simply run away if directly approached—and what could be smarter than that?
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Fighting is at a measured pace, so you can lumber about the levels at will, clobbering everything in sight. This is a very good thing, because the floating third-person camera has a tendency to obscure enemies. It will often rotate to face you, which results in some great cinematic angles where you can’t see a damn thing. Thankfully, because of the slow pace of the action sequences, the camera only gets in the way during some boss battles. The camera does do a good job showing off the almost completely destructible environments. You can break windows, batter down big metal doors, blow up drums of radioactive waste, shatter crates, break pipes off the wall for use as clubs, and so on. Level design isn’t thrilling, with most of the missions taking place in industrial settings like military bases, factories, and Alcatraz prison, although events move along so quickly that it’s hard to get bored with the scenery. Enemies include a lot of military men, some military hardware, and comic-book baddies like master villain The Leader. There’s a nice mix of gritty, urban-style warfare and over-the-top comic-book battle royales against out-there creeps like Half-Life, an energy-sucking Nosferatu you can’t touch.
Bruce Banner, Milquetoast
Of course, the Hulk is also milquetoast Bruce Banner, who wouldn’t be much good in pitched battle with a brigade. So during those times when you revert to Banner, you have to sneak to your objectives rather than simply wreak havoc until the bad guys say Uncle. Radical should be applauded for attempting to include these missions, as Banner’s weakness is an integral part of the Hulk mythos and apparently a big part of the upcoming movie. But they just don’t work very well.
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Slinking through the shadows and inputting codes into computer security terminals can’t help but seem dull right after you’ve pounded two dozen soldiers into the ground and smashed more masonry than the US army just did in Baghdad. It’s not realized all that well, either. There aren’t many challenges when playing Banner, mostly because what you’re supposed to do is always obvious. Alcoves are always perfectly placed, as are crates. Hiding spots couldn’t be any more obvious if they were illuminated with neon signs. Even choking guards unconscious is easy, as you’re always in the perfect position to send them to la-la land.
SIDEBAR: Ang Lee doing the Hulk? Isn’t that like Ridley Scott doing Dumb and Dumber?
| Graphics | Page:: ( 3 / 5 ) |
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.
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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.
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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.
SIDEBAR: Brett said WSAD? In earlier days, that might have been grounds for a holy war between the WASD and WSAD crowds. On a completely unrelated note, it seems like Radical should have taken Hulk’s graphics in the direction of XIII.
| Ballistics Report | Page:: ( 4 / 5 ) |
Pros
Hulk Smash!
Destructible environments and anything-goes destruction is played up perfectly here
Comic-Book Atmosphere
Plot and level design are reminiscent of an old-school Incredible Hulk saga from Marvel
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Goofy Graphics
Cel-shading is overdone, to the point where every character model looks sun-bleached
Crazy Controls
Using the keyboard makes your rampages less than entertaining in spots
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SIDEBAR: Bananas, in pajamas, are bouncing down the stairs, bouncing here and there.
| Final Verdict | Page:: ( 5 / 5 ) |