Hook (Ocean) - 1992

This review is part of the “Let’s Adventure!” series. See all reviewed games sorted by rating here.

There have been several video games based on the 1991 film Hook. A side-scrolling platform game for the Nintendo Entertainment System (NES) and Game Boy was released in the United States in February 1992. Subsequent side-scrolling platform games were released for the Commodore 64 and the Super Nintendo Entertainment System (SNES), and an arcade beat ‘em up by Irem later in 1992, followed by versions for the Sega CD, Sega Genesis, and Sega’s handheld Game Gear console in 1993.

A graphic adventure point-and-click game, developed and published by Ocean Software, was released for Amiga, Atari ST, and DOS in 1992 - which is what this review focuses on.

Peter Banning is an ordinary suburban dad with two kids - or so everyone thinks. What not even his family know is his past as Peter Pan, scourge of Captain Hook in JM Barrie’s children’s fiction. Captain Hook gains revenge on Banning by stealing his two children, so Peter must return to Neverland, return to eternal childhood, and get them back.

It’s a point and click adventure, and the pirate setting ensures that it recalls the Monkey Island games. The top 2/3 of the screen features a visual depiction of the area Peter is in, which a row of icons along the bottom can be selected to alter the function of a mouse click. These include looking at an object, picking it up, talking to people, using objects to solve problems (often in combination with others), and giving objects to others.¹

Like most good Amiga disk file based games you can find on the internet, this one was cracked by one of the notable cracking groups of the time - Fairlight. Though I don’t condone piracy (and a number of FLT members got caught during Operation Fastlink a decade later), for these 30+ year old games you need hardware emulators to play … I’m willing to “bend” the rules a bit …

I know of touched on this in previous reviews, but for those of us revisiting some of these ripped/cracked copies of games after 30+ years there is definitely a sense of nostalgia when you see a familiar cracktro.

With the rise of services like GOG and Steam, quick and convenient access to digital copies of games is no longer an issue, so these demo scenes inserted into cracked binaries are now just an artifact of the past.

There’s a great collection of Fairlight’s demos at DEMOZOO for anyone that may be interested.

Since this game is based on the 1991 Steven Spielberg movie “Hook”, I assumed the plot would sort of follow the film’s (which I believe it does, but I haven’t seen the movie in a very long time). You play as Peter, your kids have been kidnapped and you need to get them back. You’re secretly Peter Pan, but since you grew up you’ve lost the sense of wonder and magic that would allow you to fly - and this is what you’ll need to get your kids back.

The game starts off with a brief cinematic sequence which sets up the main story. Hook has your kids, and to get them back you’ll need to make your way back to Neverland - which Tinkerbell fills you in on, wraps you in a blanket and carries you off.

A bloody hacksaw and a bucket of blood? I don’t trust this dentist …

Once you land in the pirate town, you’re sort of on your own. There’s no indication what you’ll need to do or where to go, so you sort of just start wandering around. What I found frustrating almost immediately is that you can’t move your cursor around and surface hotspots; not you need to select the LOOK action, then click on things randomly.

This gets annoying really quickly

If there’s something to look at, it’ll tell you - otherwise you get a generic message. This is frustrating because the game de-selects the magnifying glass icon after you use it, so you have to click it again and click back on the screen as you go pixel-hunting. If you TALK to Tinkerbell, she’ll occasionally give you hints as to what you can do next, so that’s helpful.

Thankfully this game only has a couple dozen areas you can visit, so there’s really not all that many locations you’ll have to do this at. Most of the time it’s fairly obvious that there’s an item you can pick up or interact with … but not always.

To advance the story you’ll have to interact with the various NPCs scattered about the game. There’s a very basic conversation system that involves right clicking to select what you want to ask, then left clicking to ask what you’ve selected. Typically there are only 3-4 options to choose from, with one being a hint as to what the fetch quest you’ll need to perform for that character will be.

For such a short game, there are a lot of items you’ll need to collect. It’s usually not too difficult to figure out which character needs what, but there are also unused items you’ll collect. This was frustrating as I found myself backtracking near the end game trying to use these items on various characters to see if I’d missed anything.

Your goals in this game are pretty simple. First, you need to find Captain Hook - but to do this you need to dress up as a pirate to get on his ship. Then, once you meet him, he challenges you to a duel, but you need to become Peter Pan again. To do that you need to get your memories back, which the Lost Boys can help you do.

That’s basically it. Getting the pieces of pirate clothing is surprisingly frustrating, as it’s really not obvious how many pieces you need, or once you have them how to put them on (this was walkthrough-checking territory for me).

For example, to get the pirate hat you’ll need to build grappling hook from an anchor and rope. When you get up to the location where you should use this, Peter tells you he’s not going to do this TWICE, before he actually throws it and swings. This is frustrating as the game really makes it appear as though you’re doing something wrong, so why would you KEEP TRYING?

Once you do swing to the other side of the town square, you actually need to time it properly to snag the hat of the pirate walking back and forth. This ALSO isn’t obvious, and you’ll miss 99% of the time. Peter doesn’t indicate he was trying to grab something and missed, so it’s easy to just swing over and back without realizing you’re supposed to grab a hat at all.

The story will progress through the Neverwood and into the Lost Boys hideout, where you need to get your memories back so you can remember a happy memory that will allow you to fly. Tinkerbell helps you get there, but first there are a whole bunch of item combination puzzles and fetch quests you’ll need to complete.

Make sure you examine everything you pick up, because a few times the items aren’t useable, but they actually conceal another item you’ll need - such as the fishing net, which you only need a piece of string from to make a bow.

Once you remember you’re Peter Pan, a cutscene will play out and you’ll fly back to Hook’s ship to challenge him to a duel. This plays out similar to Monkey Island’s insult sword fighting, but with much lower stakes.

If you pick the right answer, you push Hook to the left (towards the plank), and if you pick incorrectly, he pushes you to the right. You can’t lose though, so if you pick wrong, just keep trying until you eventually make him walk the plank and win the game.

Hook is not bad, but it’s nothing special. The graphics are decent, and the sound effects and periodic background music enhance the experience sufficiently. Though there’s no points system in this game, when you solve various item combination puzzles you’ll see Captain Hook get REALLY angry in the lower left of your screen.

He’s big mad that I figured out how to build that bow

A lot of the story progression is based on you having prior knowledge of Peter Pan, so the game doesn’t really fill too much more in for you. The Lost Boys are sort of just there, and act as basic NPCs to nudge you along your journey, but don’t add any depth or value beyond that.

The Adventurers Guild did a great review of this game that I’d highly recommend. It’s also how I learned that the game’s designer Kevin Oxland has a book out on game design (called Gameplay and Design) that I might just have to check out.

Game Information

Game	Hook
Developer	Ocean
Publisher	Ocean
Release Date	1992
Systems	Amiga, Atari ST, DOS
Game Engine

My Playthrough

How Long To Beat?	3.5 hours
Version Played	Amiga via vAmiga
Notes	Walkthrough

Score

See here for a refresher on how we’re scoring these games.

Graphics (15)	8
Sound (10)	5
Plot / Progression (25)	10
Characters / Development (15)	5
Gameplay / Experience (15)	7
Replayability (5)	1
Impact / Impression (10)	4
Bonus / Surprise (5)	2
	42%

Gallery

Footnotes

1. Description from Moby Games ↩