What's that thing in the sky? Is it a plane? Is it a flying saucer? Nooo! It's The Incredible Hulk holding 30 bucks heading to the nearest shop to buy the PC version of his game. I hope they still have a copy or Hulk is gonna be pissed.

Fortunately, I have a copy of the game and thought I might share the newest SEGA title with all the Hulk fans out there. The Incredible Hulk somehow follows the story from the movie but with some additions. Bruce Banner roams the streets of New York, a city that is fully destructible. Because Hulk is the mean machine, we wouldn't expect any other type of city.

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The missions vary between the main missions to find Hulk's cure; destroy the Enclave, a secret society who wants to take over the city; missions in which you help Rick Jones and of course the mini-games.

The mini-games missions are the ones I had the most fun with. You need to destroy xx vehicles in a certain amount of time, race through checkpoints as quickly as possible, defeat as many soldiers as possible, etc. All these will be awarded with a bronze, silver or gold medal, depending how fast you completed them. I said that I had the most fun with the mini-games because Hulk is meant for destruction. And the types of mission you need to escort/ protect are a pain because you really don't care about others life as long as you're invincible.

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When completing missions, you unlock special features for Hulk to use like battle combos, jump higher, run faster and so on. For example you must kill 1000 soldiers to get a new feature. No matter what missions you'll complete, this feature will surely come fast.

Missions are presented with the simplest cinematics ever; a tape recorder with Banner's voice on it. On the other hand, when completing a mission, we get cinematics that are obviously ported from next-gen consoles… sadly, it last about 3-4 seconds.

Hulk mainly travels either by jumping from building to building or sprinting through the streets of NY. Jumping up and down is a really cool feature and never grows too boring. But the thing is, when running in the streets, Hulk will destroy anything he comes in contact with. And this is waaay off the edge. Any car in his path will explode, even cars just passing near him. And should I mention that 90% of the cars are yellow cabs? Even if this is New York, that is a bit too much. Among the rest of the cars you can see a random police vehicle, an ambulance, fire and garbage trucks.

To receive bonus content, sometimes requires to destroy buildings like the Square Garden, NY City Hall, The Twin Towers (?! They're already down) up to a total of 50 buildings. The destroyed buildings have weird physics as they don't collapse or blow into millions of bricks or something, they just go down into the ground like they are sinking. If you're on top of it, Hulk will remain suspended until the building is down. And you don't even have to care about the public opinion, because no one seems to give a damn that you just wiped out half of the city. As long as you keep the threat meter low, (you don't destroy the city very fast) you'll have no problem. That's kinda hard thinking that even if you want to run to a mission or there's an urgent place you need to go, you raise the threat level as you will bump into cars or hit people.

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When the meter fills, the army will come after you. First there will be only light armored soldiers and some humvees. If you keep fighting them, more powerful technology will be used against you. Soldiers shooting with beams, soldiers controlling robot suits, tanks, even helicopters.

You can make it go away if you enter a mission or travel through the subway.

Bonus content is represented by artwork with the destroyed buildings, artwork of the game in general, movies and new playable characters. Even if there is a lot of artwork available, the quality of the images is very low like they are resized from a 320 x 240 picture size. At least this is something that will keep the gamer playing for a while.

imageIf I had to guess, I'd say that like most of the games following a big blockbuster from Hollywood, they usually give the feeling like it's unfinished, and in Hulk's case, it certainly is. The game will surely catch the eye and spirit for a while, but because of the many things that indicate the game is a total letdown, it is probably to make angry even a Hulk hardcore fan.

 

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Gameplay: 62

There are some fun elements like jumping around the city, messing with the army and the mini-games. But soon they lose the charm and the game becomes incredibly boring.

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Graphics: 53

The game looks ported from the PS2 version and surely isn't something to catch the eye. The textures look bland and the buildings are flat. Minimal shadows were implemented only to Hulk and like a game completed in a hurry, there isn't a lot of diversity to the people, the cars and buildings that all look alike. The game also features a blue fog that is present everywhere, but the draw distance is very near, the city is lost about 3 blocks away and if you climb the highest buildings there's nothing to see just a blue fog instead.

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Sound: 60

I'm sorry that the actors from the movie lend their voices for the video game, because it doesn't bring a plus. Bruce Banner seems very bored, maybe he's tired to find his cure or maybe just bored because of the game. The FX sounds and music are nothing to shout about.

Multiplayer: N/A

Hardware: 65

Lots of bugs and some occasional framerate drops, moreover, the game freezes once in a while.