My first review, Super Quickhook.

So I bought Endless Ocean: Blue World today, I picked it up for $30 at target, and it was bundled with Wii Speak, which is used for online play, if you and a friend care to go diving together, you can talk while exploring (although I can't imagine ever using it). The strange part about that is they had the standalone version of EO without Wii Speak and it was the same price. Anyway I only played the first few levels so far, but it's pretty fun. It's pretty immersive, and the areas open up quite a bit. It seems, so far, that you explore different areas of the ocean, and check out the different marine life that inhabits it. Here's a trailer for it if you're interested (don't mind the horrible example of Wii Speak at the end)





Aside from that, I've been consumed again by Super Quickhook for the iphone.
I know I've briefly reviewed SQH before, but allow me to go in depth and truly show you the awesomeness of this game.

Alright, so there's a lot of things to do in SQH, so I'm going to break it down and show what SQH is all about.

First and foremost, the object in most games it to clear the levels. In SQH, there are 25 levels to play (they often add more in updates). All you need to do is tap the top right or top left of the screen to launch your hook, and the little dudes will start to swing. You also have rocket boots that can be used 3 times just in case you mess up and are about to fall in a pit, which gradually recharge as you keep going through a level. The levels have different environments as the game gets harder. The first few levels are in a forest area, the second area's are cave levels, and after that there's snow levels. The only danger in these levels are falling in pits. Nothing is really different other then they get progressively harder. As you can see, the art style is very pixelated to give a retro feel, sort of like a game you would see on a 16 bit generation console, although, it feels a lot more polished then a game of the 90's.

 The "forest area" that comprises the first 4 levels.










After those 3 areas (which make up the first 10 levels) you unlock the last 15 levels that get pretty hard over time. Those are the; fire levels, mushroom levels, and spike(?) levels. In the fire levels there is usually lava and very little ground, you can touch the lava for about 2 seconds but if you don't get out by then you will explode. The mushroom levels are the same but instead of lava there's acid, which will kill you in less then a second so you have to get out fast.

The Lava levels, not a lot to hook onto and very little ground.











Now after you complete the levels the game really gets fun. There are 2 "endless" modes called "avalanche" and "eruption". In these endless modes you are being chased (either by an avalanche of eruption) and the game generates random areas. Avalanche generates from the "forest, cave, and snow" levels, and eruption (which is much harder) generates levels from the "lava, mushroom, and spike levels".

Avalanche Mode

   Eruption Mode











Now lets go back to the normal 25 levels again. Aside from beating them there are 3 things to do in each. The First is collecting all the coins in a level. This is self explanatory, there's a certain amount of coins in the level and you need to get all of them on one run to complete this. It's not too bad as even if you die and restart at the checkpoint you keep all the coins you've collected.

The second objective is to find all the secrets in a level. This one is a lot of fun but also pretty tough at times. Most of the secrets are just unique things hidden in a level like a giant bunny, a gnome, and even a bear wearing a red shirt (Winnie the Poo).

Swinging by this ancient skull will get you the secret in this level.

Finding this slug is one of the secrets in this level.





The last few levels have the most ridiculous secrets, as you can see in this youtube video:



These are the last few levels in the game, and those spikes kill you instantly if you bump into them. Most of these levels have only one or no checkpoints at all, so if you mess up, its back to the beginning again.


The 3rd objective in each level is to beat the developers score. Oh boy, this is where it gets rough. Basically, you have to clear the level as fast as you can AND collect all the coins, because a quicker time + coins get your overall score pretty high, and the developer scores are really hard to top. So far I've gotten all these objectives done in the first 10 levels or so, but I have yet to do the harder levels, and even though I've played avalanche mode about 100 times, I still have yet to beat the developer score on it.


The last thing to discuss is all the unlockable, achievements, and upgrades. When you complete a level or play the endless modes, you get a certain amount of money based on how you do, and how many coins you collect. With this money you can go to the "lodge" and spend it on hundreds of items. There's characters you can purchase once you meet the requirement to unlock them in the store. This includes about 5-6 human characters, a robot, a goose, a gnome, and a vampire girl. Aside from this you can chat with the characters in the lodge making some very humorous dialogue. All the robot wants to do is crush things and wear sandwiches on its head, all the main character wants is ice cream, all his cousin wants is different hats, and all the goose does is quack. Depending on who you are at the time, the dialogue changes.

There's numerous upgrades, like how many times you can use your rocket boots, how long they last and how quick they recharge, sliding distance, increased coin magnetism, etc. Along with those there are about 30 hooks and possibly around 100 hats. Hats have been a "perk" since SQH's predecessor was around, Hook Champ. They do nothing really, but there often comical and fun to wear. For example, you can buy a Santa hat, a dwaven beard, a slug that rides on your head, a top hat, crown, sunglasses, an alligator hat, a cooking pot, a sandwich and tons more. If you scroll back up and look at all the pictures in this review, you can see the different hooks and hats.

                                                       "Suave Lumberjack"


Thats pretty much all there is to say about Super Quickhook, I will add that there's multiplayer mode but I haven't tried it out yet so I can't really comment on it and there's also about 70 achievements on openfeint (think gamerscore but iphone's version) . Overall, if you have an iphone, or ipod touch, you really should download this game. Really, I've put about 40 hours on it so far and its only 2.99, you really can't beat that.