Hook

It's hard to believe that Hook was the disaster it was. Between the amazing cast (featuring Robin Williams, Dustin Hoffman, Julia Roberts, Bob Hoskins and even Phil Collins), a director that can do no wrong (Steven Spielberg) and a popular children's story everybody knows and loves, Hook was destined to be another sure-fire hit. But it wasn't. It was trashed by critics and made significantly less money than anybody anticipated. Although it would eventually go on to make money, it's clear that everybody involved looks at this 21 year old movie as something of a sour note.

My expectations for Hook the Sega CD game were significantly lower than Hook the movie. Developed by Ukiyotei (makers of both Meta Slug games for the Neo Geo Pocket, among other things) and published by Sony Imagesoft (the company that eventually became Sony Computer Entertainment), Hook is a generally fun movie adaptation with strong platforming gameplay and some truly awful voice acting.


You play Peter Banning, an older version of Peter Pan. After his children are kidnapped, Peter must return to Neverland and rediscover what it's like to be a magical flying elf. His path doesn't come without a few perils, though. Early on you have to fight the Lost Boys through their forest dwelling. Later it's off to the mountains to go head to head with pirates. You'll also play through skull caves, waterfalls and more forests before finally meeting Captain Hook fake-to-face on his evil pirate ship.

Hook is as straight forward as you get, offering only two buttons to work with. Most of the time you're doing little more than jumping and attacking, though there are a few instances when you'll take to the sky and fly (for a few fleeting moments). Once you rip away the floating, you're left with a game derivative of so many other 16-bit action games. As a result, Hook doesn't feel especially original. Then again, it does a good job of capturing the location and atmosphere from the movie.


The game offers cut scenes directly from the movie; because that's the kind of thing you can do with CD technology. Much like the video found in The Terminator, the effect is grainy and only takes up part of the screen. These moments also work to highlight how bad the voice acting is in the game. This was an era before major actors took part in the tie-in products, so don't expect anybody recognizable in this game.

Hook isn't a bad action game, but it's also not very original. The visuals are mostly solid, even with the FMV is a mess. The soundtrack is spectacular, featuring music taken directly from the movie. Unlike the film it's based on, Hook the game manages to do what it sets out to accomplish. Too bad this wasn't more ambitious.