Hook
Arcade
Nostalgia Factor:
One of the coolest things about emulation is the ability to play games that I had never known existed before. Hook is one of those such games. I’m familiar with the movie Hook, of course, and I’m not surprised that there is an arcade game out there based on the movie. It’s just funny that I had never encountered this arcade machine out in the wild anywhere, much less heard of the game before.
There’s probably a reason for that, though. Hook isn’t great. I can’t see bowling alleys or video game arcades in the 90s scrambling to add this game to their repertoires. But let’s not get too ahead of things, here. Read on for my full thoughts.
Story:
The game itself doesn’t do much to push its story on you. Basically, Peter Pan is all grown up (like in the movie) and he’s been brought back to Neverland to battle Captain Hook and save the day. If you’ve seen the movie at all, you should have no problem following the events of the game. And if you haven’t seen the movie, the game’s story probably won’t matter to you. This is a beat ‘em up. Who plays these games for their stories?
Gameplay:
I just said that Hook is a beat ‘em up, so that should explain how about 95% of this game works. You walk left to right on a 3D plane. You punch and jump kick enemies. You smash barrels and boxes that contain health items or projectiles to pick up and throw. You fight a boss at the end of each of the game’s six stages.
Blah blah blah. I’ve played sooooo many beat ‘em ups lately I’m getting sick of explaining how they work. Hook is pretty standard fare as far as beat ‘em ups go. There are no surprises to be found here.
What’s cool is that you get a choice of five different playable characters, and each one of them has their own different method of attack. Peter Pan is obviously going to be the best, most well-rounded fighter. The other characters you can pick from consist of the following Lost Boys: Rufio, Ace, Pockets, and Thudbutt. Honestly, none of them were as good as Peter (in my opinion) but I’d suggest trying them all out for yourself and seeing which one you like the best.
Each character has their own special attack, which is good for clearing out enemies when you are surrounded. To activate this attack, simply press the jump and attack button at the same time. The downside to using this move is that it costs you a little bit of your health each time you use it.
Once you make it through all six stages, you fight Captain Hook at the end of the game. Defeat him, and the game ends.
This is a very, very basic entry into the beat ‘em up genre. Literally nothing you see in this game you haven’t seen before a countless number of times. It isn’t that Hook is necessarily a bad or poorly made game, it just brings nothing new to the table.
Graphics:
This game looks okay. Some of the characters look pretty nice and are immediately recognizable from the movie. Some of the animation is pretty fun. Many of the stage’s backgrounds are rich in detail. On first glance this game looks pretty decent.
That’s about all the praise I have for this game’s graphics, however. The whole time I was playing this I couldn’t help but feel that everything was very drab and "same-y", each stage looking exactly the same in color scheme as the next one. Compare this with the Simpsons or Turtles in Time and you’ll immediately see what I’m talking about. This game looks ten years older than either of those games, and it came out around the same time they did.
I won’t say the game looks ugly – but much like its gameplay I would use the term uninspired. There is literally nothing special to see here.
Sound:
I like that they tried to translate music from the movie Hook to this arcade title, but I feel as if the effort fell flat. Yeah, sure – the Hook theme is at least recognizable. But it just doesn’t sound good to me. Again, compare this game’s music to that of a contemporary like Turtles in Time or The Simpsons and you will see exactly what I mean. It’s lazy and uninspired, just like Hook’s graphics and gameplay.
Overall:
Of all the beat ‘em ups I’ve played lately, Hook is easily one of the worst (the crown of the absolute worst still goes to Ninja Gaiden, however). Everything from the graphics to the gameplay to the music is completely generic and uninspired. I was about to hit this game with a below average review score when I stopped to think: what exactly does this game do that’s below average? It plays fine. It’s easy to pick up and enjoy. There are multiple characters to pick from. It’s not overly difficult or overly easy. It's not ugly to look at. I played solo, but it seemed like the kind of game that would be a ton of fun to play with a friend.
While this game may seem generic and uninspired, it doesn’t necessarily do anything poorly. It is the absolute definition of an average video game. It’s not good, but it’s not poor either. It does EVERYTHING middle-of-the-road. In fact, Hook is almost admirable in its apparent desire to be a completely average game. It’s like they set out to be as milquetoast as possible, and completely succeeded in that goal.
For that reason, I believe giving this game anything below or anything above a C would be doing it a disservice. This game and the word average are meant to be associated with one another forever. Congrats, Hook. You earned this!
Final Score:
C
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