Ah… another summer, another slurry of big budget superhero movies and their obligatory videogame cash-ins. Sounds cynical, doesn't it? I know it does, but the truly sad thing is that such cynicism is not entirely unfounded. This is why I'm not going to launch into a rant about how The Incredible Hulk could have been better, or how the mighty SEGA are capable of delivering so much more. You already know these things, and, in all honesty, neither you nor I expected any more, did we?

In fairness to Sega, the game is not terrible, not by a long shot. We've seen terrible superhero games in the past (stand up Fantastic Four and Iron Man, and hang your heads in shame) and Hulk does manage to distance itself from such dross by great big, green leaps and bounds. Set in a "massive open world", the first thing you'll notice upon hitting Start New Game is that if there's one thing SEGA didn't go for, it's subtlety. The game opens with a fight scene that sees you picking up soldiers and chucking them at each other, and then lobbing Tim Roth around an abandoned military compound for a few minutes. This is the tutorial and it makes for a nice introduction to a game that takes destruction to a satisfying high.

From there it's off to New Yoik City for some general superheroing action, which mainly involves battling against the evil Enclave, a dastardly organisation who pop up every now and then to cause trouble for the city-folk. The game follows the plot of the movie fairly closely, only veering off at certain points with other Marvel-universe-based missions. The cut scenes are not particularly well rendered and any plot gaps they don't plug are filled by static screenshots and radio transmissions, which have "lazy" written all over them. The voice acting doesn't add much to the proceedings either; though some people might argue that it adds authenticity to have the stars of movies provide the voices in the videogame tie-ins, there are so few cut scenes that it might as well be any Tom, Dick or Harry providing the voices. But we're not here to talk about plot and cut scenes all day - this is an Incredible Hulk game after all.

Playing the big guy himself can't be called anything but fun - at least for the first ninety minutes. Huge, lumbering, and incredibly powerful, SEGA capture this comic book legend perfectly - perhaps a little too perfectly. I say this only because he is so utterly, uncompromisingly destructive. You can raze entire buildings to the ground, pick up cars and hurl them at random pedestrians - later on you can split a car in half and use it as a kind of steel pair of boxing gloves. Even during the more intense fights when you're taking a pummelling you don't feel like you can be stopped. Who can stop someone who can literally level a city just by running into things? However, this is a bit of problem, because without a real sense of peril, consequence or purpose it's far too easy and seductive to just wreck stuff. But, oh, what fun you'll have…

The beauty of The Incredible Hulk is not in the storyline, it's not in the cut scenes or the gameplay or the slightly bored voice acting by Ed Norton and various other stars of the movie. The beauty of The Incredible Hulk is smashing New York into tiny pieces. Just about everything you see can be broken, picked up, thrown, shattered, crushed and pummelled until you've satisfied the crazy little madman inside you. Only one thing distracts from the apocalyptic glee; for some reason you can pick the same citizen up over and over again, hurling him into walls, off buildings and into oncoming vehicles and, every time, the little blighter gets back up and limps away. I'm not condoning the violent murder of random sprites, of course, but it does sometimes pull you out of the moment. Although, when you've just reduced a building to a pathetic steel skeleton half-buried in a pile of shattered rubble and used a bus to take out a tank, you won't be complaining.

It seems apparent that SEGA intended to do with The Incredible Hulk what Activision did with the Spider-Man tie-ins, which isn't a bad benchmark to shoot for. But whilst Activision gave us a beautifully rendered NYC complete with pretty skyscrapers we could skydive off and busy, task-filled gameplay, SEGA have really just given us lots of stuff to destroy and no real motivation to do anything else. Yes, it's an 'open world', but when the whole world looks the same then why not just annihilate the bit you're in and save yourself the bother of travelling? Well, possibly because getting around is actually quite fun. Hulk can climb pretty much any building, aided ably by the double-jump system and, once you reach the rooftops, traversing the city is just as enjoyable as smashing it up. Leaping off buildings and leaving a great big crack in the concrete never really loses its appeal.

Graphically the game looks okay; the draw distances are nowhere near the best I've seen and frankly the identikit bad guys get a little bit boring on the eyes after a while. Strangely, I even noticed a certain amount of slowdown during play, something that really shouldn't happen in a game this simplistic. The only thing that's really detailed is the Hulk himself, as SEGA clearly spent as much time as possible on his animations and special moves.

This brings me nicely to the combat, of which there is a lot. When faced with puny humans and their little guns it's all you can do not to cackle with manic abandon as you effortlessly squish them with whatever is closest to hand, but it's not all ridiculously easy; the annoying flying robots will test your patience after the 987th one that you destroy, and if you're like me then you'll be ticked off that you can't pick up the army tanks. Why can't you? You're the Hulk for goodness' sake! The special moves you can open up do make for some interesting alternatives, but once you've got your favourite tactics you won't vary them much and the game won't force you to - which is a shame, given what the Hulk is capable of.

What you have in The Incredible Hulk is a game that's a lot of fun unless you actually play it. Bounding around NYC like a 5,000lb gorilla is great. Picking up random vehicles and throwing them at other random vehicles is also great. Unfortunately, that's where the game falls down; yes, there are secret characters to unlock, as well as lots and lots of comic-book artwork and other geek-pleasing goodies, but everything in the game that doesn't involve citywide vandalism or leaping from tall buildings onto unsuspecting, gridlocked cab drivers feels somewhat lacklustre. The Incredible Hulk is the kind of game that you play for the hell of it but never really manages to blow your mind. Fun, flawed, clumsy, and effortlessly violent, Hulk does exactly what you'd expect and if wanton destruction is what you're looking for then give it a whirl. If you're a cynic like me on the other hand, avoid it - or you'll just give yourself more reasons to instantly mistrust future comic book movie tie-ins. And, one day, one of them really might deliver more than we expect.

Reviewed by Mick Fraser for AceGamez (All Rights Reserved).