"Peter, my name is Tink, and I'm here to make you suffer."

Oh man, how does this ever happen? Hook, which wasn't that good of a movie to begin with, has become an absolutely painful Nintendo game. I don't know why I even bothered to play this festering pile of crap, but once I hit the start button, I should have known I was in for a heap of crap. Once this came on the screen, I almost lost it:

PETER MY NAME IS TINK...
YOUR CHILDREN HAVE BEEN TAKEN BY CAPTAIN HOOK
ONLY YOU CAN RESCUE THEM FROM HIS SHIP...
FOR YOU ARE PETER PAN...

Really makes you wanna download the ROM to this game, doesn't it? Okay, now imagine the text above blown up a bit in size and placed on a blue screen, while what looks like some failed attempt to combine Pat Benatar and a moth flies all over the screen, overlapping the text so you can't read it. That's what you first see when you fire up the game. Unfortunately, it doesn't get any better. You are then taken to the most poorly-done world map imaginable (with Peter in the center, shaking his fist at you for playing such a crappy game. Shame on you!) And oh, what's this? There's a compass in the bottom-right corner of your screen. Pick a direction on the compass (out of eight) and it'll take you to a world. Now, can somebody tell me why they have this compass? Especially because most of the time, seven out of eight directions end up taking you to a red screen with Tink the Freak telling you that you cannot go that way?

Now, here's where it gets good. The game starts out as a horrible excuse for a side-scroller. Might I say, the character you control looks nothing like Peter Pan. He looks like some powdered elf who carries a short, fat pacifier with him wherever he goes. It's supposed to be his sword, but it doesn't go past his face. Now, normally, this wouldn't be so bad, if not for the fact that Peter Pan apparently didn't grow up enough to tell the difference between ''a pointy thingy that hurts people'' and ''a not-so-pointy thingy that doesn't even scratch someone nearly 99% of the time.'' Somebody shoot me. What's more, the music is annoying. If someone made a compilation of the most irritating MIDI files ever made, he or she will undoubtedly include at least four of the tunes from this game. The sounds are your regular bland blips and bleeps that also get annoying after awhile. And the enemies, oh man, the enemies! I understand the pirates, but come on. Old Hindu men who float around in circles can kill Peter Pan? How about mummies who not only hurt you when you come in contact with them, but they make you walk the other way for about five seconds. And plunger-arrows harm Peter Pan too? That's just sad, but not as sad as the fact that bodies of water (even if they're about as shallow as a kiddie pool) harm Peter Pan for reasons we'll never understand.

Your first task is to get the magic sword. You get it by battling one of the Lost Boys, who doesn't think you are Peter Pan. Who can blame him? Once you slash his shirt off (literally, don't ask,) you get the magic sword. Once you get the magic sword, you can fly. The flying level is in first-person view, and you have to collect marbles to stay in the air. And of course, there's dynamite you might want to watch out for. And apparently, Peter Pan is weak against clouds. If you run into one, you get electrocuted before you fall to your death. Dumb, isn't it? Oh, and you don't get to actually USE the magic sword. Instead, you use the same crappy white rod you always use. Again, for reasons they have yet to explain to me.

All these reasons are surely enough to give this game a 1, but here's the biggest reason why it sucks. There's nothing quite like finally getting to the end of a grueling level, only to find out you can't go to the next one. Why? Because you didn't collect enough cherries. They will not let you advance to the next level until you accomplish some task that clearly has nothing to do with the plot, like throwing all the basketballs into all the hoops, or collecting enough cyanide-flavored cupcakes. Why?

Whoever made this game should walk the plank.

Reviewer's Score: 1/10, Originally Posted: 04/03/03, Updated 04/03/03