PlayStation© updating its Hulk video game, Hulk Force. Various control buttons manipulating PlayStation Hulk into approximating his real-life leaps, punch with his right hand, with his left, kick, run, lift things with both arms, catch an imaginary missile, throw an imaginary missile, head-butt. They’re able to digitally recreate these actions by affixing numerous motion sensors to Hulk’s body, Hulk aping these various actions in the foreground of a green screen. Hulk runs through the aping with expediency, a little too much expediency, impatient from standing still as the production assistants attach all the motion sensors. He throws a punch, hops straight up in the air about twenty feet, landing with a heavy thud that creates a spider web of cracks in the concrete floor, throws a forearm shiver. When they ask him to repeat these actions he grunts and walks off, pulling free of the sensors like cobwebs in a musty basement. As he’s walking out the studio bay doors, “did we get enough footage?”
“Barely.”
“Should be able to make a go of it, boss.”
His opponent at the highest level in the new Hulk video game is the Kraken. Defeat the Kraken, conquer the level. There is no real-life Kraken for him to oppose, only the multi-tentacled, fearsome creature forever reaching into his pockets known as modern-day capitalism.
PlayStation© sends him a complimentary copy of Hulk Force and it sits on a shelf, until a Sunday full of idle comes along, and on a whim Dr. Banner buys a PlayStation and gives it a go. It takes time to get comfortable with the controls, to know what each button does and to use it instinctively. When he gets to this point he realizes seven hours have elapsed. He finds himself knowing what Hulk would do in each situation, a blip of a realization, and finds Hulk’s instincts don’t translate to the game at all. PlayStation Hulk has restrictions. Or more accurately, the game has complex patterns accounting for how PlayStation Hulk can react.
His favorite level is level three, PlayStation Hulk under attack by MQ-1 Predator Drones.
Initially they attack one at a time and are easily repelled, PlayStation Hulk catching a Hellfire missile and sending it back from whence it came, Dr. Banner deriving a certain satisfaction imagining he’s costing the Department of Defense $4 million per drone destroyed. The initial ease of the level is designed to draw him in, to keep him from being discouraged too quickly. Past a certain point Predator Drones attack en masse and are difficult to fend off.
The game doesn’t think, though it’s designed well enough that it seems like it does. The game’s programmers have developed sophisticated patterns of attack and counterattack and there are only two options for success as predetermined by the programmers. As long as he keeps playing he’ll figure out the patterns. It’s what he does.
