Review: Super QuickHook
Rating: 2 out of 5 stars
Price: $1.99 (Download here)
Version: 1.0
Official Site: Rocketcat Games
Super QuickHook is the equivalent of Michelangelo sculpting the Statue of David out of Play-Doh. It’s like giving your long-standing girlfriend a cell-phone strap wrapped in a Tiffany’s ring box. It’s like serving cocktail wieners at a formal dinner party.
Sure, it can be done, but why the hell would you?
QuickHook is a tiny game outfitted in baggy clothes at the Big and Tall store. It definitely dresses the part of an action-platformer, but underneath its pomp and spectacle, it’s just a measly little timing game that’s been stretched way out of proportion to cover the scope of a bigger game. Like a midget on stilts, don’t be surprised if it falls flat.
Walking on stilts is a good way to describe how the game plays. Your character can’t jump, so instead, you rely on his prehensile, tentacle-like hookshot to get around.
Moving involves firing out your hookshot, latching onto a surface overhead, and swinging forward repeatedly. It feels a lot like walking on stilts — only upside-down — as you take long strides across stalactites and entablatures while keeping up your momentum to prevent yourself from falling.
The environments you swing through are rendered in painstaking detail, as is most of the non-essential aspects of the game, but they come across as superfluous rather than complementing the gameplay. Pretty much all there is to do in these levels is fall. There are coins to gather and the occasional hidden path, but most of your time will be spent swinging between identical looking pillars and falling off them.
The game removes any penalty for poor performance, motivating the player to improve through passive means such as speed-runs and leaderboards. These types of goals are fine, but tend to work best when they emerge naturally from a game, not when you’re expected to do them because they are the only source of mental stimulation provided.
The de-emphasis on punishment might have led to the lazy level design, or it could be a perfect storm of banality, but either way, what’s left after the smoke clears is a cute mechanic which is fine for a mini-game but fails to carry the implied weight of a full game.
QuickHook creates such an elaborate mirage of the game that it wants to be that it’s hard to appreciate it for what it really is. It’s an unfortunate victim of expectations — not expectations hoisted upon it by players, mind you, but expectations brought about by its own will to be more than it actually is. It’s a noble aspiration, if inherently flawed.
Via fingergaming
E3 2010 Wrap-up: Photo Gallery
What a week! With eight years of the E3 Expo under my belt, there’s no doubt in my mind that this year was an E3 high point and perhaps the most exciting, inspiring show I’ve personally attended. For me, the highlights included experiencing stereoscopic 3D in games like Killzone 3 and Mortal Kombat (seeing is believing), sampling the various PlayStation Move games (the precision and gameplay versatility were on full display), and the much-anticipated return of Twisted Metal from Eat Sleep Play. Oh, and Kevin Butler.
And of course, games, games, games: From heavyweights like MotorStorm Apocalypse, LittleBigPlanet 2, Gran Turismo 5, SOCOM 4, inFAMOUS 2, and God of War: Ghost of Sparta to head-turning PSN titles like Dead Nation, Journey, and PixelJunk Shooter 2 — this year, the games did all the talking. And don’t get me started on the third-party lineup, with Dead Space 2, Assassin’s Creed: Brotherhood, Medal of Honor, Marvel vs. Capcom 3, Crysis 2, Mafia II, Portal 2, Scott Pilgrim…I could go on all day and I’d run out of breath before I named them all.
This is an excellent time to be a gamer. It’s also an excellent time to have access to a camera, as this year’s E3 booths were bigger and bolder than I’ve seen in years. I wanted to give PlayStation.Blog readers an inside look at some of the most inspired booth layouts we spotted on the show floor. It’s by no means a complete look, but I hope you enjoy the eye candy.
And if you were overwhelmed by the onslaught of E3 PlayStation news this week, no worries — I’ll be back tomorrow with a comprehensive PlayStation Recap column to get you up to speed. And trust me, it’s gonna be a doozy.
Enjoy the pics! And see more PlayStation E3 2010 photos on our Flickr Photostream.
Lego Harry Potter: Years 1-4 for PS3
Assassin’s Creed Brotherhood for PS3
Homefront for PS3
Killzone 3 in stereoscopic 3D for PS3 (so popular it averaged a one-to-two hour line wait)
Left: Castlevania: Lords of Shadow for PS3; Right: Yakuza 4 for PS3
MAFIA II, coming to PS3 with exclusive bonus content
Mortal Kombat, coming to PS3 with Stereoscopic 3D
Red Faction Armageddon for PS3
Lord of the Rings: War in the North for PS3
TRON Evolution for PS3
Left: Marvel vs Capcom 3 for PS3; Right: DC Universe Online for PS3
Via playstation
E3 2010 Sonic Mega Round-up With Gameplay Footage!!!
ifmenhadwings writes “Ok folks we are into the final days of E3, and SEGA boy here has been trailing the net hard to bring all you wingnuts footage of all Sonics up and coming titles that have been announced. So to get things started hit the play button at the top to see footage of Sonic 4 Episode 1. For more surprises continue reading on.”
PlayDevil: Lost Planet 2 PS3 Review
Was PlayDevil lost in Lost Planet 2?
Here is a snippet:
“The single player is now basically removed for a Monster Hunter style co-op game, with only a basic story to hold together the levels. This sounds fine in theory, but in practice, Capcom have made some awful design decisions.
When I first started playing, its immediately noticeable that theres no drop-in/ drop-out co-op, which is annoying whilst you wait for a lobby to fill (you can only play as far as you have played before). “
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