The Incredible Hulk review

The controls initially feel slow-to-respond, but they get better once you build up the Hulkster's speed and jump attributes. Upgrades are doled out constantly as you accomplish feats like sticking 25 cars to buildings or knocking down an entire neighborhood. A checklist gives you hundreds of such feats to work toward, which means you don't feel like you're just aimlessly destroying the city when you're not tracking down mission markers.

Throughout it all, there's no blood or gore. The violence is limited to crazy comic book fisticuffs and explosions, lots of explosions. Comic fans can geek out by visiting the various Marvel buildings sprinkled in among actual NYC landmarks, including the Daily Bugle, Stark Tower, and the Baxter Building. Movie-goers, meanwhile, will appreciate that stars Ed Norton, Tim Roth, and Liv Tyler lent their voices to the numerous scenes that appear between missions.

Hulk and his adversaries are nicely detailed. New York City looks especially great in the PS3 and 360 versions of the game, where the streets are bustling with people and traffic. The insane view distance also lets you sit atop skyscrapers and see forever. Unfortunately (and expectedly), the graphics aren't nearly as impressive in the PS2 and Wii versions. They feature less traffic, weaker explosions, and fog that limits the surrounding view to roughly the end of the street.

One particularly nasty flaw we noticed in every version of the game is that it'll sometimes lock-up, forcing you to power down and restart. There's no rhyme or reason to these freezes: sometimes they happen constantly and sometimes hours will go by between them. The auto-save feature means you won't lose more than a few minutes of progress when you do have to reset the system, but it's still a major buzzkill to have the game stall right in the middle of a mission.

While annoying, the lock-ups don't really do much to dampen how outlandishly fun the game is. If you like the Hulk and you enjoying destroying things, you'll enjoy your time with The Incredible Hulk, even if you have to reset the system from time to time.

Jun 10, 2008