Set one year after the events of the film (COMING SOON TO A THEATER NEAR YOU), The Hulk brings all of the fearsome strength of the not-so-jolly green giant to your fingertips in a game that actually does justice to the license. Does the Hulk run with the big boys, or does it eventually run out of steam?

The Hulk starts off strong, giving you the opportunity right off the top to start running around smashing the crap out of everything in sight. The developers at Radical Entertainment made some great design choices when it came to the level of destruction allowed - nearly everything that you can see, you can smash. Walls explode in a maelstrom of concrete fury as your fists connect with them. Leaping through the air will cause the ground to shake and tremble upon impact. You can grab soldiers and fling them around like footballs into each other or the nearest edifice, where they'll slide to the ground with a satisfying thump. Of course, due to game design restrictions you can't destroy everything you see, but even the items you can't destroy show some damage effects. Very, very cool and a great training level to start off the game with.

Now, smashing everything in sight, while great fun, could definitely get tiresome after a while without the opportunity to mix up the gameplay a little bit, and this is the Bruce Banner portions of the game come into play. Every few levels or so, you will enter a situation where it is imperative for Bruce to sneak around government bases, avoiding detection from enemy soldiers and generally skulking around like Splinter Cell Lite. These scenarios provide a welcome respite from all the carnage, and are spaced evenly enough that just when you're tired of sneaking around, the opportunity to transform back into the Hulk and make some soldiers your bitches is provided again. Of course, some gamers might prefer nothing but a Final Fight 2003-style game, but I liked this particular set-up much better. In fact, most of the dialogue that drives the storyline forward comes when Bruce Banner is in a lucid condition to understand it, as opposed to a gamma-induced rage.

Speaking of which, the voice-over work from Eric Bana - the actor who portrays Bruce Banner in the film - is absolutely top notch and makes the story much more interesting than a title that involves smashing things should have any right to be. Even during gameplay, Banner will talk to himself, giving the occasional hint as to what you should do next, ponder what is happening to him, and having a professional actor deliver these lines makes you care about the character to a far greater extent than you'd expect. The anguish in Banner's voice as he realizes his betrayal by another character early in the game is clear for anyone to hear - all licensed games should take a page out of The Hulk's book.

The art style, in my opinion, really makes The Hulk stand on its own. It's not quite cell-shading, more of a flat variation of your typical comic-book style, but it is quite unique and eye-catching. A few friends came over while I was reviewing this title who aren't huge game players but do love their comics, and their reactions upon seeing it were those of disbelief at how flat-out cool The Hulk looks. It really does have a style all its own, and while the background graphics aren't as detailed as I'd like, the main characters leap off the screen.

Not all is well with this title, however. Towards the latter portion of the game, the pacing that was so well done at the beginning starts to fall apart, and it seems that the designers just decided to make it harder by throwing wave after wave of soldier baddies at the Hulk. Some are stronger than others, to be sure, and the different variations are well-designed, but their introduction is much better than their final implementation as the game progresses towards its end. The enemy AI is laughable, with only the boss characters showing any real sort of personality. It's all too easy to draw enemies into the crossfire of their mates and let them do their dirty work for you - and if this was a natural byproduct of you overcoming good AI, it would be a much more satisfying ordeal. As it stands, though, they're so dumb that you don't gain any real satisfaction from it, it's just a matter of BASH BASH BASH ok here come some more guys BASH BASH BASH and some more BASH BASH BASH oh look here BASH BASH BASH that guy's got a cattle prod ow BASH BASH BASH hey super soldiers BASH BASH BASH repeat ad nauseum. Again, this is a real problem towards the end of the game, not at the beginning, and it feels like either the designers were running out of time towards the end or just got sick of the whole thing and put the enemy generator on auto-pilot. Either way, it's disappointing to see it visibly tail off the way it does when it started out so promisingly.

Game length is also a bit of a pisser - I polished off The Hulk in a day and a half, and that's with lots of backtracking and whatnot for the review. There is replay value to be found - it IS a lot of fun - and there are certain places in the game where you can input Universal Codes to unlock other secrets. The only catch is that you have to go see the movie and get the clues from there, so don't bother e-mailing me or going to GameFaqs for clues just yet.

The Hulk does the movie license game genre proud, at least for a little while. The polished presentation of the title makes for great fun, and the Banner sections make for interesting sidebars, the meat of the game lies in the Hulk's Gamma Slams and Sonic Claps, wreaking havoc wherever he goes. With a storyline that captivates, graphics that stand out from the crowd, the Hulk is a licensed game that certainly doesn't embarrass itself from a presentation standpoint. Of course, the movie license is a two-edged sword, and I have a sneaking suspicion that the upcoming release of the film forced this game out of the oven too early - it's palpably obvious towards the end of the game that the design so carefully laid out at the beginning got pushed... and that's a shame. A promising title like this deserved better - but for a while, at least, you'll find an enjoyable game that respects the license like all good movie titles should.