The story follows the plot of the latest released movie that is currently doing the rounds on the big screen. Dr. Bruce Banner, a physicist, was unfortunately accidentally exposed to gamma radiation during a test of a gamma bomb he created. Bruce now possesses an inner fury with that of his alter ego which will emerge when Banner becomes angered. The Army and other local law enforcements are now hunting Banner down and want to use him and his new abilities as a weapon of which they seek to control. Banner must travel throughout New York in the game, fight back against those that wish to bring him in or take him out, and ultimately must find a cure for his raging curse. Dr. Bruce Banner and his alter ego, the Incredible Hulk, have hit up the Xbox 360, and this time it's another one of those summer blockbuster movies to turn to video games. Does the Incredible Hulk offer a worthy experience that compliments the movie of the same name, or is it rather just another flat game cash-in to coincide with the latest flick based on this large green behemoth? I wasn't expecting much from this game, as it's hard to expect anything from a movie turn video game, as the past has generally shown us that most of these games are rather dire when it comes to getting a couple of hours worth of entertainment value out of them for your money. The Incredible Hulk is by no means a great game, but that doesn't make it a terrible one either, at least not entirely. While it has many faults, the core gameplay feels very familiar to some other more popular titles, and this in a sense will make it more approachable to gamers looking for some quick thrills as everyone's favourite angered green giant.

Gameplay:

Upon first playing the Incredible Hulk, you are on the run as Banner as you're being hunted down by the army, as far as they are concerned, you are now their property to be used as they see fit. Dr. Banner becomes cornered and very, very angry, thus transforming into his alter ego, the Hulk. This is where the player first takes control as you must force your way through a rather large factory taking out a bunch of enemies, and smashing everything in Hulk's view, not everything is junk though as practically everything can be used as a weapon when wielded by Hulk. It's not until escaping this factory that you actually reach the outside and have New York available at your big green fingertips. This is quite frankly the highlight of the Incredible Hulk, having this city to explore and stomp your way around is quite intriguing. It's here that when given the time to run, jump and smash a few enemies faces' in, Hulk style, that many gamers will likely pick up instantly on the similarities to another free-roaming action game. The Incredible Hulk plays very much like that of Crackdown, for those of you reading that have played Crackdown, just recall having your character's abilities maxed out, now imagine that character looking like he is ripped as if he has steroids with his Weetabix every morning, and has accidentally fallen into a massive tub of green paint. Got that image in your head? Good, well this is what the Incredible Hulk pretty much looks and plays like as regards to getting around on foot, jumping insane heights and more so in the Incredible Hulk, rapidly climbing tall buildings within seconds. Though obviously you won't see Hulk driving any vehicles or wielding any flimsy guns; as far as weaponry goes its all cars, buses, tanks and just you know, pretty much anything big enough for the Hulk to hit or throw at his enemies, as well as of course, his big green fists. It is extremely easy to cause damage to the environment, Hulk bulldozes through vehicles and generally most other objects, all of which can be used as weapons, including civilians, who Hulk can grab and throw at his enemies. The general idea is to throw enemies at other enemies, but it's nice to have the choice anyway. Also similar to Crackdown and more specifically the Grand Theft Auto series, is the presence of a wanted rating or as it's known as in the Incredible Hulk, the Threat Level. This meter will go up as you cause significant damage to the environment and to that of the local armed forces that may be pursuing you, the more you fight them, the higher the Threat Level goes and the tougher the fight will become. An in-game map is accessible from the pause menu, this enables you much like GTA, to mark way-points for you to visit, such as underground subways which are primarily used to get rid of that Threat Level and to quickly move Hulk to another location on the map (you pick a different subway and have a loading screen before spawning at the location). This map also contains landmarks which are relative to the Marvel Comics universe which are featured in this fictional New York City, such as Stark Towers and the Daily Bugle, both of which I'm sure will ring some bells with Comic/Superhero fans. I mentioned causing significant damage to the environment previously, about as extreme as this gets is the ability, with some time, to demolish any and every building featured in New York, though leaving and returning to the game does reset all destroyed buildings to their original state, Hulk can also speed climb up to the very top of some of the tallest buildings featured in the city, including the Empire State building and get to key locations in this manner which may be relative to the progression of the game's story. And with a mention of the Incredible Hulk's campaign, this is sadly where all the fun ends. The way missions are implemented and the structure of some of the later missions is borderline tedious. Some scenarios with boss battles can at times become over-whelming, while some of these scenarios are more challenging than expected for what is essentially a game aimed at kids; these moments become tedious and frustrating very quickly. The missions are do-able in the end, but the repeated process of having to retry some of these, which should be much easier than it is, this aspect, which is a big one, is most certainly not an enjoyable experience.

Graphics:

There are a couple of nice touches here and there in the Incredible Hulk, but the stuff that matters most is certainly below average. Texture pop-in is very noticeable as you're playing, running and jumping around to different areas, even things like running around the park, all of a sudden tables and chairs may just appear on the grass. The draw distance is ridiculous, Hulk can quickly scale up to the top of tall buildings, and for next generation hardware you expect a relatively nice view from up high. The city has a lot of buildings filling the area, though apart from a couple of the closest buildings to Hulk's location, every other building shockingly has no texture, all you can see is basically the shape of the building, but it is completely blank until Hulk makes his approach, at which time the textures will finally pop-in. There are some very brief cutscenes during missions, these scenes here are certainly poor with very little in the way of motion for the most part, there are a couple more action-oriented scenes, but these are few and far between, there's no excuse for this really, if the developer was unable to come up with something of satisfactory quality, perhaps they could have gone for a more comic book approach for the cutscenes like some other Marvel games have opted for in the past, such as X-Men: The Official Game.

Sound:

Nothing here particularly stands out, sure there's the expected sounds and generally speaking it fits particularly well when you might want to take Hulk on one of his mad rampages around the city, destroying buildings, bad guys, and generally just causing chaos by sprinting and jumping everywhere. I have mentioned my gripe with the games rather painful cutscenes, the audio featured in these cutscenes completely kills the overall experience further. You have the the rather un-entertaining cutscenes as it is, but with the addition of appalling voice-acting by the films main star, including some others, then this just makes something that was pretty bad and turns it terrible. Some of the lesser known stars actually pull out more of a convincing performance as regards to anyone who is not Banner, nice work on Hulk's groans though! There's even these horrid tape recorded voice messages of Banner talking before each mission that just drive me insane, some how these manage to be even more dire than the cutscenes, thankfully they're relatively short in length. The recorded phone messages combined with the cutscenes makes me angry, you wouldn't like me when I'm... OH FORGET IT!

Longevity:

There are some nice touches here and there, but these are dragged down by the quality of voice-acting and more importantly the missions, which are just incredibly tedious. There are quite a few unlockables in the Incredible Hulk, which may mean you have to endure playing through and doing specific 'Feats' to unlock the plethora of unlockable characters which you can play as, as well as unlocking concept art and comic book covers. This Feat System also unlocks new abilities for Hulk including the likes of the patented thunder clap, as well as a rather slow way to regain your health among others. The gameplay is what makes the Incredible Hulk quite entertaining, it's just the quality of the content within the game that severely dampens the overall experience. The game Crackdown has been mentioned a few times here, the Incredible Hulk also features mini-games, one of which can be instantly associated with Crackdown. One of the mini-games is a timed race, where the Hulk must leap from and scale buildings while passing through marked hoops and completing the objective in time to get a Gold, Silver or Bronze medal. There are several different mini-games to play through, which should add some degree of longevity when added with the title's free-roaming and destroy everything mentality. Quite frankly this is nowhere near enough, the lack of a decent campaign is sorely lacking here. Should we end up with another Hulk game at some point in the future, I hope the gameplay very much remains the same if only evolved a little more, but there needs to be more of an emphasis of a campaign that is fun to play, with perhaps some more development time on a possible next title this could be accomplished and fans would get a new game that would do the Hulk justice.

Overall:

I've had a few awkward moments with this game as regards to glitches as well as the occasional random Xbox 360 lock-up which is mainly during one of my rampaging moments where I just decided to obliterate all items, building and enemies in my path. I also came across a rather horrendous glitch, which I thought was a one off, though I've now done it in different locations and it seems to happen every single time. What I'm rambling on about here is the water, if Hulk jumps into the water, he immediately jumps back out and lands on his feet, all the while jumping another three times automatically while shaking, and the first time he lands on the floor it sounds like he's landing in water, when he's actually on the ground – I've no idea how this never got fixed! It's not really a big deal, but I find it hard to believe that during the development of the game, no one bothered to attempt to see what would happen when jumping into the water? This doesn't really indicate good things about the development time or QA testing phase, which might explain why the game generally has a rather rushed and unpolished feel to it. If you absolutely must play it, then I'd recommend nothing more than a rental. I think as far as enjoyment goes, the Incredible Hulk offers a limited amount of that. The Incredible Hulk is more entertaining in small doses, just jumping in and rampaging around the streets, demolishing buildings, bad guys and vehicles - that is rather entertaining. Though it's very much a one trick pony as this is the only thing the game really has going for it, playing through the campaign will at times infuriate, and ultimately just becomes a very lackluster experience. It's no wonder that Banner sounds so lethargic and his alter ego, the Hulk, is so angered.