The Incredible Hulk

Smashing stuff is brilliant. Not people's faces, of course – we're a nice bunch here at Pocket Gamer (with the exception of the bosses, anyway). Nor do we like breaking priceless antiques, although again that's largely because we couldn't afford to pay for them and we're not very good at running away.

But those heated arguments, those tantrums, those otherwise indescribable destructive urges – everyone has them. Show me a boy who hasn't dreamt of working in demolition and I'll show you a girl with some socks down her pants and a questionable attitude to body hair. Nothing is finer than seeing an object break into tiny pieces by your own doing, the bonds between molecules shattering as Newton's force hits its nemesis, the immovable object.

Which is why, three paragraphs in is when we finally get around to our point. The Incredible Hulk is awesome. He's big, he's green, he smashes stuff and, unlike his closest big green relative, he doesn't promote sweetcorn. He smashes, he bashes, he crashes – sprinkle in a bit of sex and he'd be the Ultimate Primordial Human.

Or, again, one of the PG bosses.

So, why is the Hulk so angry this time around? No idea, is the answer. There's barely a few words of background information given to you at the beginning of The Incredible Hulk game and, besides two or three interstitial cut-scenes dotted about the later levels, there's not really any exposition at all.

Maybe what he's pissed off about is that, like every DS game based on a licence, he's been dumped into a 2D platformer. "HULK NO LIKE CLICHE! SMASH!" he'd say. But, actually, The Incredible Hulk is a surprisingly solid game, forged to feel like the old-skool tough platformers of yesteryear while still appealing to the younger demographic so predisposed to buying this thing.

Although I've just said it's a platformer, don't be expecting any pixel-perfect jumps or even, er, much platforming at all. It's more about beating up the bad guys dotted around the level, either by punching, uppercutting or bumping them on the head, usually only once. And while that doesn't really give any room for strategy or gameplay, it's their shooting patterns that remind me of the past.

See, almost every enemy carries a gun, and every type has an identical firing pattern. One may use a flamethrower every couple of seconds, another type will dispatch shots in groups of three. One type of enemy fires shells in identical geometric arcs. Each has tick-tock precision, and it's through the combination of several different types of enemy – or, rather, the combination of several different attack patterns – that the real mechanic, bullet dodging, reveals itself. And, given the size of the Hulk, that's not a trivial – but yet quite an enjoyable – task.

Another particularly satisfying facet is how much of the environments can be destroyed. Each level is made up of blocks – a fact not hidden by the in-game map that takes up the bottom screen during play – and almost every single one of these can be smashed, either cosmetically or as a way to reveal new paths. And while you can deliberately bash them in by punching or slamming into them, whacking enemies and sending them flying often results in them crashing to the ground, not only crumpling themselves but also shattering nearby windows and denting doors. It's a tiny thing admittedly, but it feels right, and gives real weight and force to this digital Hulk.

Graphically, the game is average, however, comprising low-poly character models sat atop pixellated 2D environments. Aurally, the game is also average, featuring only one or two songs per world (of which there are three, each with ten levels, giving a total of 30). In fact, in pretty much every way, The Incredible Hulk is average.

And yet, for some reason it's not quite as bad as its individual parts. It's clearly your typical limited, hurriedly developed licensed game, sure, but actually the overall experience ends up a bit better than the norm. It's hard to recommend other than at a bargain bin price point, then, but movie tie-in fans should know they could do significantly worse.