| The Incredible Hulk: The Pantheon Saga | |
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 North American PlayStation cover art | |
| Developer | Attention to Detail |
| Publisher | Eidos Interactive |
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| Composer | Des Tong |
| Platforms | PlayStation,Sega Saturn |
| Release | April 10, 1997 |
| Genre | Platform |
| Mode | Single-player |
The Incredible Hulk: The Pantheon Saga is a 1997video game developed byAttention to Detail and published byEidos Interactive for thePlayStation andSega Saturn. The game is based on theMarvel Comics superheroHulk, who must traverse through a series of levels and destroy enemies with an assortment of offensive and defensive maneuvers. The game features visuals created onSilicon Graphicsworkstations and a plot based on thePantheon storyline from the comics. The narrative revolves around the Hulk joining the titular superhero team and fighting such adversaries asPiecemeal,Trauma, and theU-Foes. The game was negatively received for its gameplay, controls, visuals, and music, and has been ranked among the worst superhero-based video games.
The Incredible Hulk: The Pantheon Saga is athird-person game set in three-dimensional areas.[1][2] The player controls the Hulk, who can walk, run, jump, grab and carry objects, and perform a number of offensive and defensive maneuvers against enemy characters.[3] The game consists of five levels that are divided into three stages, with the exception of the final level.[4] Progress is reserved with passwords, which are given upon the completion of a level;memory cards are not supported.[5] The game's difficulty level can be set to "Easy", "Medium", or "Hard".[6]
The Hulk'shealth is represented by a meter on the upper-left hand corner of the screen. The meter decreases as the Hulk sustains enemy attacks, and automatically regenerates depending on the difficulty setting. Below the health meter is a gamma meter, which indicates how much power the Hulk has reserved to perform special moves. Different special moves cost more gamma than others, and this cost is also dependent on the difficulty setting.[7] Items can be collected to restore health or gamma, as well as temporarily double the power of the Hulk's attacks. Also collectible are calling cards that can summon a member of the superhero team Pantheon, who will assist the Hulk for a limited time.[8]
Nuclear physicist Robert Bruce Banner is caught in the blast of an exploding gamma bomb while rescuingRick Jones. The massive dose ofgamma rays alters Banner's genetic structure, causing him to transform into the Hulk, a monstrous being with superhuman strength. The Hulk is taken prisoner by members of the Pantheon – a superhero team that specializes in tactical missions – so that their leader Agamemnon can convince the Hulk that his powers can be used to benefit mankind.[9] As Pantheon members Paris and Ulysses transport the Hulk into their secret base, the Mount, their ship crashes, freeing the Hulk. After the Hulk fights through the Mount and bests Atalanta, Ulysses, Ajax, and Hector, he is assigned by Agamemnon to stop Piecemeal, who has taken hostages in a Scottish castle. The Hulk then rescues Atalanta from Lazarus and Trauma in Antarctica, and thwarts a siege of the Mount by the U-Foes. The Hulk is suddenly transported to the Future Imperfect, where he battles theMaestro – an alternate version of the Hulk – and sends him back in time to the gamma bomb test. The explosion that created the Hulk destroys Maestro.
The Incredible Hulk: The Pantheon Saga was developed by British companyAttention to Detail and published byEidos Interactive. The plot is based on the Pantheon storyline byMarvel Comics.[10] Development was directed by Chris Gibbs and Fred Gill.[11] The graphics were created onSilicon Graphicsworkstations by John Dunn, David West, Vincent Shaw-Morton, and Richard Priest; West created and animated the models for the Hulk, Trauma, and Atalanta, while Dunn created Lazarus, and Shaw-Morton created Hector.[2][12] Lyndon Sharp and Andrew Wright served as the lead programmers, with Wright creating the game's graphics engine.[12] The music was composed by Des Tong and features Mike Hehir on guitar and vocals by Chris Warne. The voice acting was provided by Ian Wilson and producer Brian Schorr.[11]
Attention to Detail citedDoom as an influence in the game's presentation. The robotic nature of the Hulk's enemies was influenced by a proviso from Marvel forbidding the Hulk from killing anyone.[13] The game was unveiled atE3 1996, with a release set for the first quarter of 1997.[14] It was released for thePlayStation andSega Saturn on April 10, 1997.[10][15] APC version was advertised, but not released.[16]
| Aggregator | Score |
|---|---|
| GameRankings | 44% (PS1)[17] |
| Publication | Score |
|---|---|
| AllGame |    (PS1)[18] (SAT)[2] |
| EP Daily | 5/10 (PS1)[19] |
| GameSpot | 2.4/10 (PS1)[15] |
| IGN | 5/10 (PS1)[20] |
| Sega Saturn Magazine | 15% (SAT)[21] |
Reception toThe Incredible Hulk: The Pantheon Saga was generally negative, obtaining an aggregate score of 44% onGameRankings.[17] Ed Robertson ofGameSpot and Stephen Fulljames ofSega Saturn Magazine declared it to be among the worst video games they had recently played; Fulljames further condemned it as "an embarrassment to Eidos, to the developers, to Marvel, and to the Saturn in general."[15][21] The gameplay was deemed repetitive and tedious,[1][20][18] with Robertson saying that the game's straightforwardness resulted in an overly easy difficulty.[15] The controls were considered rough and sluggish, and Victor Lucas ofElectric Playground cited the Hulk's tendency to get stuck in corners as a major flaw.[18][19][21] Fulljames and Jonathan Sutyak ofAllGame complained of difficulty in determining the Hulk's position and lining up attacks, with Fulljames singling out the airborne enemies as "nigh-on impossible to hit".[2][21] Sutyak regarded the level design as uninspired, repetitive, boring, and padded out by simplistic puzzles involving switches and crates.[2] Fulljames accused the game's license of completely ignoring the Hulk's immense strength and abilities, questioning the necessity of activating doors and lifts when the Hulk should logically circumvent them, and finding the aspect of the Hulk taking significant damage from a profusion of robotic enemies, mines and turrets "preposterous".[21]
Numerous aspects of the visuals were regarded as poor. The environments were criticized for their flat and blocky construction,[2][15][19][21] bland and grainy textures,[2][15] and shortdraw distance, which was said to obscure details such as switches.[1][2][19] The Hulk'ssprite was faulted for its choppy animation and small head,[15][18][21] and the enemies were dismissed as dull.[2][21] Lucas felt that thecutscenes were "nice looking",[19] while Robertson deemed them no better than the in-game graphics.[15] Reactions to the audio were lukewarm, with the music being described as "spacey, pasty synth music and a relentlessly bland three note guitar riff",[19] "a generic brand ofhard rock",[18] "an irritating blend ofdance music and wanna-begoth-rock",[15] and "appalling 'rawk'".[21] While Lucas considered the plot somewhat interesting,[19] Sutyak and Robertson regarded it as weak and confusing.[2][15]
Henry Gilbert ofGamesRadar+, Ben Browne ofScreen Rant, and Mason Segall ofComic Book Resources have rankedThe Incredible Hulk: The Pantheon Saga among the worst superhero-based video games; they criticized the repetitive combat, awkward controls, fixed camera, bland environments, under-defined Hulksprite, poor cutscenes, and dull and confusing story.[22][23][24] Carl Jackson ofComic Book Resources ranked the short-lived villain Piecemeal among the strangest characters to appear in a Marvel video game, remarking that he does not hold up in hindsight against the villains Maestro and the U-Foes, who also appear in the game.[25]
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