Hookbots Review

It’s hard these days for an arcade game to get good attention. With all the third dimension worlds and battle royales, its easy to get lost and not see what potential smaller indie games have to offer. Games like these take me back to the table top gameplay of Asteroids or Centipede, and it’s nice to see they still have the fun and action of a big game packed into a small and simple package.

Welcome to Hookbots, the four player competitive 2D game that packs a brutal punch – or should I say hook – to the face. The action is a fast paced mix of platformer battle and multi-player mayhem, which is highly addictive and worth a good look at. Brought to you by the fine people at Tree Interactive, Hookbots has burst onto the Xbox scene and I can see it getting some popular attention from gamers old and new.

OK, so why is Hookbots fun and addictive you say? Well, think back to the days of Mario 3 on the SNES. Remember those 2 player battles jumping around frantically trying to stop the other player from getting the most points? This is that in a nutshell – but a far bigger nutshell. You start out like most games, choosing a character from a limited selection to begin with. Progress through the game, or a run through as I’d like to call it, doesn’t take long to complete. You take on a set of missions involving the A.I. or other players in an effort to dominate and become the winner. The game is based on levelling up, so many playthroughs are necessary to achieve more items, upgrades and so on.

So, from the get go you’re taught how to play the game, and depending on what difficulty you have selected, you are pitted against A.I. characters which have no remorse. These A.I. characters will have you bouncing around more than you’d like to admit, and won’t go down without a fight… at least until you get to grips with the game. There’s a definite challenge that you realise straight away with a heavy learning curve, but this is nothing compared to the onslaught of the multi-player mode. Oh… look at me forgetting about the whole premise of the game: Hooks.

Hooks are your main weapon in battle. Your hook springs out in whatever direction you have your stick aimed and can be used for many things, though mainly damaging your opponent. A hook to the face isn’t good, and can smash your opponent into literal pieces over the platform map. In return, this can also totally damage your opponent leaving them helpless to defend. Using it to grab onto platforms to get you to a higher advantage also helps. Along side this you also have special abilities depending on your character selection. For example, I’m a fan of the Hunter. His character looks awesome and has this ability to make his hook fling out in an X shape, killing all enemies that it touches – good for quick kills.

Hookbots has many modes, including multi-player and party mode for those streamers out there just looking to bounce in and take on a player or two. You can also enjoy what seems like at first a 32-bit sound track, but after listening has a bit more of a vibe to it and, well, metal is never a bad thing is it? Haha. Character selection can be interesting also, with a variety of different abilities and personalities. Everything from robots to samurais and even a T-Rex comes into play (my favourite), giving you the ability to fight as whoever you want.

Conclusion

All in all, Hookbots is an unreal, action packed fun machine and gives players a chance to be vicious in a fight that will bring clubs, feuds, and challenges for all. Bringing arcade action back in this fashion is necessary in this day of age. Albeit challenging for beginners, Hookbots will have the lounge room in an uproar quicker than you can score a goal. A definite plus for quick game players and achievement hunters.

This game was tested and reviewed on Xbox One. All of the opinions and insights here are subject to that version.