The Incredible Hulk: The Pantheon Saga
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The Incredible Hulk: The Pantheon Saga is a video game that was developed by Attention to Detail Limited and Silicon Dreams and published by Eidos Interactive for the PlayStation, Sega Saturn and DOS in 1997. The single player, side-scrolling action game is loosely based on storylines from the early 1990s issues of the Incredible Hulk comic book series.
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[edit] Storyline
In the 1990s, the Incredible Hulk comic book series featured the Hulk (now with the brain of Brucer Banner) being kidnapped by the Pantheon superhero team/family, in which the popular comic book hero is kidnapped and eventually agrees to lead a family of superheroes called the Pantheon, and eventually agreeing to lead the team to combat global problems such as terrorism, war in the Middle East, and even the AIDS-HIV pandemic. The video game only loosely draws upon the Pantheon storyline, borrowing characters but not plot elements from the original comic book.
The video game begins with the Hulk begin captured by the Pantheon and breaking free just as their cargo ship lands in the Pantheon's mountain headquarters. The brief intermission exposition scenes between the levels do not explain much of the storyline. In the first four levels, the player battles inside the Patheon secret headquarters, until the Pantheon members Atalanta, Ulysses, Ajax and Hector are located and defeated. After defeating them, they become your allies, and can temporary appear on screen to help the player. The storline shifts to several more side-scrolling levels where the player battles supervillains such as Piecemeal, Trauma, Lazarus, the U-Foes and the Maestro. There are a dozen side-scrolling levels that are loosely based on the comic book series, although the game does not bother to try and connect the levels to a cohesive storyline.
[edit] Gameplay
As the Hulk, the player can jump, punch, kick, and pick up certain large objects to throw as projectiles. Aside from the normal health bar, the Hulk also has a gamma energy bar that is depleted whenever the Hulk uses one of his special fighting moves. Along with the traditional side-scrolling arcade-style action, several levels often require the Hulk to solve a puzzle (i.e. locate and smash control panels in a certain order) to proceed in the level.
The game is fairly difficult to defeat, and as many of the enemies and bosses are quick and often have ready access to various projectiles. Adding to the challenges are the certain puzzles that must be perfectly solved in a game, or else you are stuck. The game is almost impossible to defeat in the "hard" mode without the aid of a device such as the GameShark. However, the game does include a password feature.
[edit] Criticisms
While Eidos was well known for its popular Tomb Raider series, video game critics generally panned this game for its weak graphics, sound, and playability. While the game did have some decent 3D graphics rendered on the Playstation, most video game magazine critics panned the game for its average sound, poor hit detection and playability. The dozen levels in the game often do not seem to follow much of cohesive storyline, and this was a similar complaint made with the Fantastic Four video game released for the PlayStation 1 that same year [1].
Fans of the Hulk comic book also criticised the game for having little to do with the comics' Pantheon storyline.
