The Incredible Hulk

The Incredible Hulk - (Multiformat)
Developer: Sega
Format: Multiformat
Genre: Arcade

He's big and green but the gameplay's lean

Take one dynamic free roaming world, a gigantic green wrecking machine, a money spinning movie licence and you should have yourself the recipe for a successful mainstream game. Except that in the case of Sega and The Incredible Hulk, things haven't worked out quite according to plan.

The game largely follows the film storyline. You play Dr David Banner a peace loving boffin who goes on the run to avoid giving General "Thunderbolt" Ross the formula for genetic mutating soldiers that can strengthen the US Army. Talk about selfish.

Banner has kept another small secret to himself - the fact that he can transform into The Hulk and wallop seven bells at all the army can throw at him, as he makes his way to New York. But once he hits the Big Apple then all bets are off as now not only does he have the might of Uncle Sam to contend with but also a shadowy group called Endave and their own mutant soldier called Abomination.

The city is where the real fun happens. Throw cars like they're toys, hell, you can rip them in two and use them as metallic boxing gloves! Toss soldiers in the air like confetti; destroy buildings with a couple of well aimed punches. So far, so good. The problem lies in the gameplay.

The Hulk is often predictably surrounded by soldiers - yet the lock on system is fatally flawed as you can only lock on to your nearest enemy when they are directly in front of you on screen. This makes the control method both fiddly and clumsy and you end up taking more damage than is necessary.

The other downpoint are the missions. There's a little too much repetition for our tastes - with some missions so plain hard you just have to continually rinse and repeat to make progress. Missions involving protecting buildings are the worst as through jumping around you tend to do more structural damage than the enemy sent to destroy the target!