Hook

"Hook, Line 'n' Stinker"

The game Hook was released under the rights of the same '91 movie based on Peter Pan. Pleasingly, the game's story doesn't follow the movie's, (let's face it, the movie may have been good, but would have been extremely boring game to play) but you will still recognise the characters as their movie counter parts.

Gameplay:

Hook allows the player to take control of Peter Pan and traverse 10 relatively long stages. Thankfully, the trademark ability to fly for short amounts of time has been included and made replaying stages more bearable. The game can be finished in one sitting (and without a save feature was fully intended to be) but it is annoying if you want to play a certain stage or take a break and play a different game. The stage designs range from a constantly straight moving stage in the tree tops to a cavernous cave that gives minimal rewards for exploration (eg health restorative items, a life). There are two varieties of weapon in the game; dagger or sword. The sword easily being the better of the two follows suit of the Master Sword in Link to the Past. It shoots beams out to attack enemies at long range, but the first damage you take renders you sword-less and fending off enemies with a measly dagger. Although the game isn't hard through the most part, it is certainly more fun to be blasting enemies at long range with the sword. Hook's general difficulty is relatively easy, but occasionally the game delivers a fast ball that makes things a little harder for the player that may enrage younger gamers or those with little patience.

Story:

Seen Hook? Then you already know the basic plot. For those of you who haven't seen it, the story is basically this: Peter Pan left Neverland, grew up, got married, had children and forgot Neverland and all his Neverland friends. His kids get kidnapped by Captain Hook one night and Tinkerbell, an old fairy friend of Pan's, finds Peter and convinces him to return to Neverland to save the children. There is little plot from past the first stage or reason to go to certain stages. At least it didn't involve the drab, drawn out scenes in the movie that rendered it intolerable to its target audience.

Graphics:

Cartoony rather than realistic, the characters bear little if any resemblance towards their actual movie characters. However, this could be seen as a good thing in many respects. The stages are all generic platformer graphics style; nothing outrageously fantastic or terrible. Smaller details are nice to notice, but not nearly enough to keep one interested if graphics are the thing they are after.

Sound:

Pretty good and thankfully not generic ala the graphics. Those familiar with the movie will recognise several soundtracks present in the game. Each level has music well suited to its theme (Icy Mountains, Lagoon etc all have music to fit the scene) and is pleasing to listen to. The sound effects are repetitive, but unnoticeably so to most, including the swish and clank of the sword, the sound enemies make when they are defeated or projectiles shooting through the air.

Overall:

Hook is a game that belongs in a very very large pile of generic platformer games produced on the SNES. A must-have for die hard fans of the movie, but in this day and age, who is? With the new Peter Pan movie coming up, this game might be dug out of a few gamer's closets, brushed off and given another play through, but not my copy. I wouldn't recommend buying it if you had a choice between it and another game.

I give Hook a 5/10. Nothing horrible as such or enough to be classified as a total let down, it's just common by anyone's standards. It certainly isn't the worst licensed game in the market.

Reviewer's Score: 5/10, Originally Posted: 12/07/03