The Incredible Hulk – NDS – Review

“Find your inner hero and unleash incredible
fury.” That’s quite a tagline. Though it immediately clicks and easily rolls
off the tongue, it doesn’t do much for gamers jaded by the quality-deprived
genre that is the movie-licensed game. They’re big, they’re scary, and not
just when starring The Incredible Hulk.

Which is why it’s always refreshing to play a
title that, while seriously flawed in the ways you’d expect from the average
third-party DS game, still manages to bring elements of the comic to the
really small screen. Two of them, to be exact.

Beat ‘Em Up, Up and Away

The Incredible Hulk is another side-scrolling
action game. Are you surprised? It seems the DS’s 3D processor has been
abandoned by most developers. You will notice a few three-dimensional
backgrounds and characters, but they’re below PSone-quality and won’t turn
any heads.

Unlike the big-screen adaptation, however,
Hulk’s strengths on the DS are not in the visual spectacle. They are,
however, literally tied to his strength. In this game, you never go without
power. Bruce Banner won’t be seen outside of a few CG sequences (not from
the film but appears to use the same actors). You won’t have to spend hours
hunting for precious items to keep your Hulk abilities going. Tanks are no
match for him, buildings crumble at his wrath, and even helicopters will be
sorry they took a shot at the little (big!) green man.

Hulk’s controls are smooth and distinctly
potent; though his flesh is vulnerable to missiles and gunfire, he is
otherwise a walking time bomb. It reminds me of the last Spider-Man game for
DS, and in a weird way, Donkey Kong Country. As you make your way through
each stage – most of which are designed as a vertical/horizontal maze
that’ll have you moving up and around the same large area – there are tons
of Hulk-sized objects to destroy. Many of them reveal satellites that can be
used as a slingshot to fling Hulk around the environment. It’s strange and
makes no sense to this reviewer, who has yet to see the new movie. Based on
the previews, however, I’m betting this is a game-exclusive feature.

The slingshot puzzles aren’t too extreme, and
are downright simplistic (and sometimes useless) in the first few stages
they’re encountered. There are 30 stages total, and toward the last 10
you’ll begin to get that Donkey Kong Country feeling. First you’ll have a
couple of satellites – two directly apart from each other (vertically,
horizontally or diagonally) – and must slingshot from one to the next to
reach the next area. Buildings are destructible but are limited by varying
degrees of destructibility. You may be able to bash your way through several
floors or merely bash through the first and come out the other side. But
when a building is made of something more solid (adamantium, perhaps?),
you’ll have to look for another route – hence the addition of satellites.

As the satellites pile on, you’ll slingshot
across three, four or five of them before touching the ground – a gameplay
feature that closely resembles the barrel-hopping of Donkey Kong Country.

Hulk is also gifted with hints of Sonic the
Hedgehog inspiration. With every ounce of destruction, Hulk earns points on
his power meter. When full, the player can unleash a strength-enhancing
ability that allows him to plow through everything that’s destructible. He
can do that without the power-up, but that’s not why it’s cool. When first
unleashed, the power rolls off his body in a giant circle, destroying all
nearby enemies. By pushing the attack button, he’ll continue to destroy
enemies and objects within his range. If you do this fast enough, his extra
power will not deplete, allowing you to rush through the level by running
and without much enemy interference – just like Sonic the Hedgehog.

Fury or Furious?

The Incredible Hulk is a lot of things. It’s
part action, part adventure, part exploration… Individually, these features
work well. The mechanics are fairly refined and are generally suited for the
Hulk universe.

But as three parts of an entire game, they
don’t always add up to a seamless and entertaining experience. Though it’s
fun to bash enemies, it is not fun to die prematurely when a microscopic
bullet hits Hulk in the leg. His life meter isn’t very large, and health
replenishing items don’t appear too frequently. To make matters worse, there
are no checkpoints in this game. You could make it all the way to the end of
a stage and have to start over just because of one lame death.

And though the game isn’t very difficult,
lame deaths are a recurring phenomenon. In addition to the near-invisible
size of enemy gunfire, some enemies shoot continuously. This wouldn’t be an
issue if you were playing Contra or Metal Slug. But as Hulk, a man – no, a
beast – without any weapons, you have to get up close to attack. If an enemy
is firing continuously, the odds of reaching him without getting hit once
are not good.

If you can stomach these tiny droppings,
there is one more thing to consider: The Incredible Hulk is incredibly
short. Most stages can be finished in a couple of minutes – a goal you may
not reach thanks to the array of bullet specks, but have the potential to do
so nonetheless. Even so, judging by the film’s length, you’ll probably be
able to finish this game faster than you can watch the movie.

That brings us to the final point of
consideration. At 30 bucks, you’re essentially paying one dollar for
every stage in the game. At a few minutes per stage, that isn’t too
different from what you would have spent if you were in an arcade. Of
course, it isn’t an arcade game, it’s a major licensed game packaged for a
Nintendo handheld. All you have to do is decide if the arcade pricing is
worth it.