Prerelease:Hulk (Windows, Xbox, PlayStation 2, GameCube)

This page details pre-release information and/or media for Hulk (Windows, Xbox, PlayStation 2, GameCube).

Trailer

In the trailer of the game we can see, that soldiers had bigger and more circular shields. Also the targeted enemies had some blue target texture instead of a green one with arrows.

By the way, both these old target icon and circle shaped shield are still left in the files of the game:

Making Of The Game

In the making of the game video you can see many gameplay footages of different prerelease versions of this game. The game looks quite unfinished overall, but there are some significant changes. For example, some old variations of Hulk's HUD. Looks like Hulk's health and rage initially could be green and blue. At some point health could be blue instead and the rage would be green. The pic of Hulk's eye was changed too.

Also combo inscriptions did show the exact attacks and actions you used. In the final game it just shows a hit counter and adjectives describing these hit counts.

Screenshots

Some prerelease screenshots were found on the internet. They show some old visually unfinished locations you could notice in the making of the game, but it also shows some another (third!!!) version of the Hulk's HUD. Can't begin to imagine how many more other variations they tried. Also no enemies have eye icons in their HUDs yet.

Manual

In the manual some interesting things about the game can be seen as well. For example, it says Bruce could fight using some weapons he would find during the gameplay. However, Bruce can't pick up anything at all and there's literally nothing quite like this. Is it a mistake or the devs really cut this possibility in the last moments? At least there's still unused tazer inventory item left in the files of the game near other inventory vials from that Chemical Effect Banner level.

Official Strategy Guide

Sadly the official strategy guide screenshots didn't have any really significant differences from the released game and the information about the gameplay or levels doesn't reveal any cut or changed content.

However, the guide has interviews with the most important members of the creative team that made this game. These interviews are mostly just fun to read and all about the same, how they wanted to deliver the best Hulk experience and make everyone feel like they are Hulk and not just playing as Hulk. But some questions about cut content were asked though and the devs even answered them!

Interviews

So, Brian Brandt (gameplay programmer) said there was a much more complex grappling system between Hulk and large characters (bosses, gamma guards and etc) that was cut due to gameplay slowing down and needed much more time and work to be really finished. It's really hard to understand what would it be like, but still good to know.

On the other hand, producer Tim Bennison gave a lot more info about the cut content. There were full levels and characters that were made and almost completed, but then cut out! He also said about some combat with some helicopter gunships feature that didn't make it to the final build too. Yeah, it's really hard to tell what characters and levels he told about and the early prototype build could possibly give much more info, but it's still a valuable piece of information. Maybe we'll see the prototype one day, it's not a bad thing to try and ask the developers about it now.

Another good thing in this strategy guide is the fact that it has many concept arts and cutscene storyboards with a lot of interesting things to notice. The concept arts were placed in a separate section, because there are some additional concepts were found on the internet.

Cutscene Storyboards

The storyboard for the opening Inner Torment cutscene is showing a completely different reason for Bruce to transform into the Hulk. And it's pretty iconic, because this is exactly the same as his first transformation in the original Hulk TV series and movies. Many developers of the game told they watched this series and read comic books about the character, so the inspiration comes from them. Maybe they decided to stay closer to the movie and not use so much TV show references.

This storyboard demonstrates a completely different conclusion for the Inner Torment level. Some telephone rings and distracts the Hulk. At the same moment tanks surround him and explode the gas station. Hulk goes out the fire unharmed and well. Then some chopper sends a missile down Hulk's throat while he's screaming and not seeing it coming. I guess this original version of that cutscene has many unnecessary and unrealistic elements while the final version is very cinematographic and you get no idea that's a dream until Bruce wakes up.

Storyboard for Desperate Measures cutscenes are really very close to the final version. Some small differences can be seen, but this is a typical thing for the early storyboards. Also Bruce looks like in the comics and not Eric Bana yet.

On this Beneath The City storyboard you can see that Dogs of War initially looked just like in Incredible Hulk (Vol. 2) #14 (May, 2000). It's unclear if these dogs were modeled or they got their movie appearance already on the stage of modeling the characters.

A Different Breed storyboards are different from the final cutscenes of the level and also use comic Half-Life design. Doesn't it look awesome? I still don't get why they needed to change the design of this character... They could at least use more "decomposed" version of Half-Life without this golden metal armor...

Looks like Infiltration cutscenes weren't really changed, however the intro cutscene looks really simple on this storyboard.

It's hard to tell what exactly happens on these storyboards. Looks like cutscenes from the Chemical Effect level. And the basic idea is pretty much the same.

Yet another Hulk concept art can be seen and the storyboard is definitely for One And All, but it's really hard to see anything here. Looks almost the same at the first sight.

Concept Art

10 character concept art were posted by IGN in 2003 in one of their articles about the game. More concept arts were found in the Official Strategy Guide. Some concept arts (like Hulk, for example) are not really interesting (and they shouldn't be), but some enemy concepts really give a good piece of information.

So, Hulk, Ravage and Ryker made it into the game almost exactly as they were on these concepts, though Ravage here has a look much closer to his comic appearance and it's fine, because the inspiration for all of these villains came from comics.

Crawford had a different clothing color in the game, but the clothing itself is very similar to his comic version and it was added to the game without any significant changes.

Comic Madman had gold and silver collars and it's a gold one on the concept, but silver in the game. The pants on the other hand doesn't match neither his comic version, nor his game model.

Flux on this concept is 100% the same as he was in the comic books and he was changed for the game both in terms of clothing and his tumor positions.

Things get much more interesting with Half-Life. On the concept he looks like his comic version, but for some reason he was entirely redesigned for the game. This old comic Half-Life can even be seen in the cutscene storyboards and he looked pretty badass there. By the way, this Half-Life concept with the design from the game you can see transparent on the background was used in the Strategy Guide, but not fully. That's all you can see of that art in color...

The situation with the Leader isn't less interesting. You can see some unique design on this concept art. This design is not from comic books (at least I never saw this one) and the game version is completely different. But Leader had some more design variations. This pencil sketch version looks pretty similar to Leader's version from The Incredible Hulk comics of that time (where Dogs of War and Flux came from).

For some reason military robots are called "Leader robots" here and in the game files. Well, not like it matters. The original robots from this Incredible Hulk 343 really might be Leader's creations, but devs just decided to leave them for the army base. The robots itself look a bit different, but still very close to the final iteration.

And Gamma Guards concepts really almost doesn't have anything in common with their final versions. On this pencil sketch you can see how big they could be - even bigger, than the Hulk. I think their final design really fits the overall art style of the game and much better, than these concepts.