The latest move to game adaptation is here, and this time around it’s in the form of The Incredible Hulk. From the second blockbuster film comes the second Hulk game. The first film may have been a monumental flop, but the videogame was of a decent quality and The Incredible Hulk had a lot to live up to. Unfortunately, most of these expectations are missed by miles.
The basic plot of The Incredible Hulk is that you need to save New York City, predominantly Manhattan, from the grasps of the Enclave, which are some form of ultra powerful group with huge weapons. There is then the occasional spin to this plot, which will involve saving Rick from someone in the Enclave, which prohibits the continual assault on New York. These little missions will normally only last a short period, but after completing each mission the option of completely destroying the surroundings becomes open to the player.
This complete destruction is the most enjoyable thing in The Incredible Hulk. Almost all of the buildings can be raised to the ground and the majority of the bridges and other important areas of the town are fully destructible. The more of the city that the Hulk destroys, the more his “Threat Metre” goes up, and as such it means that various Enclave and Army robots and soldiers will appear to try and kill the Hulk. Though, it would be nice to see that the Hulk is being killed or the city that is being destroyed. Throughout the entire game a thick “gamers fog” has been applied throughout -- where objects far away cannot be seen until they pop into view as players get close enough -- this may have been acceptable ten years ago in Ocarina of Time, but even then, this level of "fog" would have been questioned.
To further add insult to injury, the huge levels are obscured not only by this fog, but also by terrible graphics. The textures of the buildings are all of a sub-N64 quality and in some places the “joins” can be seen between textures. This is not only in contrast The Incredible Hulk: Ultimate Destruction from the Gamecube, but also in contrast to the textures used for the sky and grass in the game, which all look distinct and vibrant.
The mishmash of quality continues to the cut-scenes and the menu selections. All of the cut-scenes in The Incredible Hulk are of a high visual quality. It looks like the developers have simply lifted the cut-scenes from the Xbox360 and the Playstation 3 versions of the game, yet the actual content inside of these cut-scenes is abysmal. They very loosely follow the film and are normally so short that they aren’t worth watching. Similarly, the menu selection screens look good, but in reality give very little information and are actually fairly hard to gain access to as the introduction to the game comes before being allowed to select what you want to do.
Speaking of which, the controls are very prohibitive and will restrict the Hulk’s movements greatly. Simply because this is a game that’s been designed for a traditional controller, with more buttons than the Wii can accommodate for, there are some problems. So to try and fix this, the developers decided that it would be a good idea to incorporate the "Wii Waggle" wherever possible. This would be a great addition to the game and a good way around the limited buttons if there were some form of movement recognition. Unfortunately, it’s very hit and miss and a perfectly timed attack can lead to nothing happening at all in the most extreme circumstances.
The icing on the cake is the camera angles. Throughout the game the option of moving the camera angles exist; however, they’re not simple and easy to use but require the player to press the – Button and then to move the camera around with the Wii Remote. Sounds easy, but it really isn’t. Although, if one left to the game’s camera angles to their own devices, the Hulk would end up being killed from behind.
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