The Incredible Hulk (2003)

"Bongo SMASH game!!!!"

In the year 1962 (I did research :D), Stan Lee and Jack Kirby created ''The Incredible Hulk'' comic book. The comic features a man by the name of Bruce Banner. The story revolves around the incident the occurred when Bruce got caught a Gamma Bomb accident. The Gamma radiation soon mutated Bruce, this mutation allows him to turn into the green monstrosity, known as the Hulk, whenever he gets angry. As the Hulk, Bruce has unlimited strength, the ability to jump great distances, accelerated healing, and high physical resistance. In the sake of an upcoming movie release, publisher Vivendi Universal has sent Pocket Studios out to create a GBA game starring the Hulk. Movie licensed games are generally bad; The Incredible Hulk is no different.

Really, the only thing players have to do in The Incredible Hulk is to get from Point A to Point B, and beat up endless armies of bad guys. The levels are made up of various places seen in the movie, places like jungles, laboratories, and cityscapes. Each level has a good amount of things to smash up, and the enemies to destroy. In order to progress through the games 33 stages, players can use a variety of Hulk moves. The main moves the Hulk has includes a punch and the standard jump. Players can hit the L button to have the Hulk charge forward, much like Wario in his respective series. At certain points in the game, the Hulk can learn up to 3 new moves. These moves basically just allow the Hulk to kill more things on the screen. The more enemies the Hulk destroys at once, the more points the player earns.

The developers did a good job in bringing all the classic moves and details of the Hulk to the small screen. If the Hulk takes damage, then the Hulk will slowly gain his health back. The Hulk, along with a life bar, also has a power bar that is used in conjunction with the special moves. If the Hulk does a special, then he loses a certain amount of power. To regain his power, the Hulk must attack and destroy enemies in what could be considered combos.

The control of the game is what I really dislike. The Hulk lumbers around the screen too slowly; often taking away the feeling of action that should swarm the game. The game is also viewed at an isometric angle, like Diablo, at 3/4's perspective. Because of this angle, it makes the game control awkwardly. By hitting the up button on the directional pad, the Hulk moves diagonally up instead of just up. This takes some time to get used to and really takes away from the game.

Players can use a GBA link cable to fight each other as different colored Hulks, but really, this isn't all that great of feature. Since the game controls so poorly, it is really not that fun at all.

Graphics found in the Incredible Hulk are nothing too special. It is easy to spot the breakable walls and whatnot in the game, things roll around all over the place with a simple push, the enemies can't aim right, and the animation is pretty horrid. Much of the Hulk's animation relies on scaling, and that, sometimes, can be a bad thing. The scenery of each stage only seems to change every 3 or 4 levels, and much of each level looks all the same, save for the enemies placement. The Incredible Hulk doesn't have that great of sound going for it either. The music is rather redundant, and the sounds all the same throughout the entire game.

With all this said, you can plainly see that The Incredible Hulk for the Game Boy Advance yet another game rushed to the market in order for Vivendi Games to make a cheap buck or two. I wouldn't suggest the anyone purchase this game, instead help a smaller company, such as LSP, and get Iridion II or something.

Reviewer's Score: 5/10, Originally Posted: 07/23/03, Updated 07/23/03