The Incredible Hulk

As the story goes in my family, when I was a toddler I had a certain affinity for The Hulk. Apparently, equipped with a special pair of green Under-Roos, I would tromp around the house flexing my muscles and growling. This is one of those stories that my mother will never grow weary of telling, even though the particulars are lost to even myself.

Thirty years later my wife found herself in the same situation: I was tromping around with my toddler, flexing my muscles and growling at any cat, dog or mother-in-law that dared get in our way. It’s a memory that I imagine will get passed on to the next generation, although if they’re anything like me it will make them flinch every time they hear it.

My son is too young to have a movie length attention span, but he did spend a fair amount of time watching me play The Incredible Hulk on the PS3. After a few hours playing the action-adventure smasher, he would point excitedly to the television and scream “Smash! Smash!”.

I’ll spare you the “most movie licensed games are crap” rhetoric and jump straight to the point: Edge of Reality did fans of our green superhero a favor when they laid down the code for The Incredible Hulk. The game blends the large environment of a good sandbox game (in this case all of Manhattan Island) with the characters and villains of the latest Hulk movie.

My usual complaints about a third person action title are nowhere to be found in The Hulk. The camera is reasonable, the storyline and cut-scenes are voice-acted by the cast of original actors from the movie, and the game objectives are tuned so a persistent almost-teen could enjoy them without becoming frustrated.It’s a perfect example of how a movie tie-in should work: take a genre that makes sense for the title and make it fun.

Aside from the choose-your-own adventure storyline that pits the Hulk against a variety of villains and do-gooders out to catch him, players will also be rewarded in the pursuit of a number of in-game achievements (we played this title on the PS3, but we imagine that these are the achievements from the 360 version) to add to the already lengthy gameplay time.

As you work your way through the game, avoiding wrecking up too many buildings (the environment is almost completely destructible) and hiding in subways to evade the army, we only found one complaint: The villainous AI was a little too artificial, and we found it easy to complete objectives faster than the developer may have intended.

Fans of The Incredible Hulk, whether comic, TV or movie will find this title a safe addition to the collection — just make sure you keep your toddler out of trouble after playing.

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