Energy Hook

Having put many hours into the alpha and beta builds pre-steam, my overall impression is a good one.
Pros:
+ The game is tons of fun. Seriously, if you've ever messed around in a Spiderman game, or just wanted a sort of parkour type arcade game, this game is so for you.
+ Maps are large, expansive, and varried. There's tons of challenges to do, leaderboards to challenge others on, and hidden collectables. It harkens back to an older feeling generation of games.
+ Tall skill ceiling, but very satisftying to learn. You will struggle at first, but there is always noticable improvement. And there is also always room to improve.
+ Feels as good, if not better on mouse and keyboard as on controller, so don't feel as if you need a controller.
+ Game just plays so well. It's a simple concept exicuted very well. The game's physics have improved since alpha and feel very satisftying.
Cons:
- The game built by a single buy, and it does show. It is not hard to find yourself clipped between a pillar and a wall, unable to escape. Graphics are also not cutting edge.
- Camera can be wonky, especially on controller.
- A passable tutorial at best, I would say unintuitive. My advice is go into all the pillars in the tutorial level. They will introduce basic game mechanics. And try all the buttons to see what they do.
This is a game clearly developed by one man who loves what he does, and is very good at it. It is all apparent. This game harkens back to the old Spiderman games, as well as classics in general. It is very much a make your own fun sort of game. You have to know how to entertain yourself, even with the world challenges/leaderboards. A true open world game, with ideas exicuted well for this little seen parkour genre game. I would highly reccomend it to anyone who reads this and goes "hmm this game sounds enjoyable".

I need to preface this review with a warning. Energy Hook is still in a state that looks and feels early in development. Putting this aside, it's already very fun to play. I backed it on Kickstarter and, as such, have some play time that's not displayed on Steam.
Energy Hook is a cross between Tony Hawk's Pro Skater and Spider-Man, namely the second and best iteration of movie adaptations for the latter. Its developer, Jamie Firstrom, is the creator of the famed swinging mechanics in said movie adaptation, but if you've read anything about this game, you probably already know that. The reason why this is becomes apparent as soon as you hop in-game, as it is the single biggest attractive of this game.
The meat of the game is organized in different levels, each of which containing various challenges ranging from "time attack" to "highest score" style affairs. You move around by running on the ground (which was just updated to feel, well, good, finally) and swinging with your... energy hook. While in the air, you can perform tricks and, as expected, string along swings to produce the best scores possible, gain amazing speed and increase the rate at which your jump and boost meters refill. Hitting a nice sequence feels great, but be aware, there are many times where you'll find yourself in an endless string of colliding against various buildings and terrain. It might just be that I am awful at it, too.
It's fun. It's not at all perfect, there are still various bugs and the odd crash to desktop (in my case these are rare and often when exiting the game), the menus are rudimentary and performance on your machine may be iffy. It's fun though, and the issues that the game does have get significantly less relevant (or existent) with each update.
All in all, this game gets a "eh, yeah, why not, give it a try, it's pretty fun" from me.

The game still looks and feels rough, in particular when it comes to collision detection and camera controls (on a gamepad, at least), but once you get somewhat used to the controls it becomes a lot of fun.
Out of the three levels i played so far, i feel the mechanic is by far at its best in the second level, a city of skyscrapers. Here the experience becomes more like the Spider-Man 2 you may remember, as you can just swing about and have to care much less if you're in range for your hook. Exploration in this level was an absolute joy for me and it was where i spent the majority of my time. By contrast, levels 1 and 3 require more precision and didn't feel nearly as much fun to me, though to be fair i don't have a lot of practice yet.
From what i've seen so far, the game still has plenty of room to grow, but it is already fun in its current state and has a lot of potential. Worth checking out.

A comparison:
I 100% completed Marvel's Spider-Man on PS4. It's a really fun, ultra-refined, beautiful looking game that deserves the acclaim it got on a mechanical level. I don't know enough about the Spider-Man IP to talk about it as an extension of that but the overall smooth, pleasing feel of swinging around and beating up thugs was compelling enough to push me through every speck of major content. Now that it's coming to PC, Energy Hook is bound to suffer in comparison. It's a humble, barebones game, not in itself a flaw but it has led to a few frustrating moments with out-of-place ledges and high speed swings that send the player flying off the small maps. A huge title like Spider-Man doesn't have these issues and the overall experience is far more beginner friendly because of its unobtrusive flow and easier controls. So why write about a six-year-old game with very few reviews? Because, despite its rough elements, Energy Hook needs more attention for what it gets right about the web-slinging conceit now that its glossy, expensive counterpart is making its way to Steam.
As good as the web-slinging in the new Spider-Man is, its just a hair off of perfect in my opinion. Peter's weight and speed will often level out when travelling around the city, meaning his momentum doesn't build and effect the speed of his swings. There's almost a cap on how fast and wild you can fling yourself around because, once Spidey attaches his web to a surface, his downward momentum won't factor in as strongly to the proceeding swing. It's like his fall quickly halts so the player can't go ludicrous speeds and smack into every wall in New York. Energy Hook is far less automated in this regard. It is entirely player-dependent, and getting good means becoming intimately familiar with the angle of your upcoming swing, the charged jump you'll make, what structures are in your way etc. It's more demanding on the newcomer, and I can see some people giving up because its not as easy to learn.
But Energy Hook understands the appeal of this gameplay hook (pardon the pun) better because of how satisfying it is to feel like a heavy subject at the end of a rope, launching into the air and barely making that perfect follow-up swing. The boost especially helps in maintaining control of the player character, as it is propulsive enough to counteract any powerful swings you may make, and when combined with that speed and weightiness can lead to beautiful executions of stunts you weren't sure you could pull off. It also leads to those share of moments where you awkwardly collide with a nearby building and have to reorient yourself, but that's what makes the flawless swings more special. Nearly every swing in Spider-Man is a flawless swing, and it despite it being a very good version of the concept it gets old in a way that Energy Hook doesn't even though there's not really a whole lot of tasks or content in the latter.
So, even though most people will pay full price for Spider-Man when it comes out, I would invite anyone who spent time bumming around in Spider-Man 2 on PS2/Xbox/Gamecube to buy this as a comparison point. You may like it, you may get frustrated by its shortcomings, but I'll proudly call this my webslinging game of choice for its exceptional, uncompromising gamefeel. Spider-Man has the wider appeal but Energy Hook takes its core and exceeds what the huge, talented team at Insomniac could manage because their game had to be more accessible. I'd say that's worth ten bucks.

Simple enough: It's the Spiderman 2 web slinging only with environments that take advantage of it rather than an open world city that just uses it to get to point A to point B.
It's ugly. It's janky. The on foot movement is greasy, like you're in some sort of crazy momentum based skateboarding game with on foot patched in at the last second. The camera is almost nausea inducing and a near constant battle to control. Your character looks like a downie.
But it's pure grappling hook bliss, fun enough to explore aimlessly without an objective, much less do crazy challenges on. The whole thing feels like a one man project, and I am pretty sure it is close to one-man working on the basics, but different artists do each level, so each has a different feel. You got a sci-fi dockyard, a couple of cities, and a canyon to muck with. Stat upgrades, extra levels, and linear challenge levels are all had through completing these challenges though.
But this is the technical, no cloud grappling, pure web slinging game you've been hoping for. The price might scare you off but you get a good amount of content for your dollar and a game system that is worth exploring.

Swinging, jetpacking and wall-running in one long chain feels very rewarding in Energy Hook
A Gameplay & Review video showcasing the features I'm going to talk about:
The best thing this game has going for it, is its gameplay. Which is great, because that's the important bit. There's no story, or combat. Just traversing maps with your abilities. Energy Hook was created by the man behind Spiderman 2's Swinging system. So that system is brought over into Energy Hook, reworked and improved.
The Hook line you shoot shortens as you wrap around poles, gets pulled back by building corners, can be shortened or lengthened as you swing. Needless to say, the amount of depth is very cool. You've also got a jetpack at your disposal. You can tap or hold the jump button according to how high you want to go. The game also gives you a boost ability, which will use the jetpack to propel you forward, whether you're soaring through the air, or swinging. To recharge the boost meter, you need to land on you feet. Either by running on the ground, or running on building walls. It feels badass.
There are multiple maps, all done by different artists. It's cool because they've got different art styles, as well as play styles. Each map also comes with racing challenges and trick challenges. The race ones are where its at, forcing you to do quick turns, tight entrances and fly make some huge swings.
The trick system is a bit dull in my opinion. There are two buttons you can use to do a small spin, or hold onto you legs. In combination with those, you can manually spin your character forwards/backwards, and sideways. Although you can combine stuff like that, it's not much. The more interesting tricks are when it comes to doing stuff like Loop the loops, where you spin around a pole entirely, or similar tricks.
Overall, it's a great game. It might take a bit to learn how the game works, but when you get going, it feels incredibly satisfying.
Recommended!

Energy Hook is a fast paced, high flying, traversal game that is being made by the inventor the the swinging mechanic from Spider-Man 2.
It took me a bit to get use to how the game controls. It was frustrating and I couldn't imagine trying to play with a mouse and keyboard. Luckily, my handy Xbox One controller worked perfectly well. You control your character via 3rd person and can jump, boost, and swing to complete each time trial or task.
It was actually rather frustrating until I decided to start messing with the settings. Buried in the settings is the ability to turn off "simulate wrap" or something to that effect. What would happen is when you were swinging the game would predict that direction the swing would take you and automatically turn the camera for you. By turning off this setting you are able to use the right thumbstick to manually turn your character and easily point in the direction you'd like to set up your next swing point.
Once you get going the game feels fluid and does remind me of the web swinging in Spider-Man 2. I would love to see a better tutorial down the road, however, as with most early access games you should take it to the forums for the time being. Tutorials aren't high on priority lists for games this early in development and is wasted time, especially if things are going to change.
The game is set up in levels with different color portals that indicate start points for different time trials throughout the stage. You walk up or swing over to the portal, step in and it will start the trial. You must swing and boost through rings in the order that they appear, trying to do it as fast as you can. There's also a leaderboard although I admittedly didn't take too much of a look at it.
You can really see what the developer is going for here. The proof concept is strong, the swinging mechanic is working well, and the gameplay is moving in the right direction. However, there is still a lot of work to go and the developer will be the first to tell you. Looking at the forums the dev has posted a lengthy Google doc with over 100 fixes in the works, ranging from bug fixes to gameplay changes. Having a developer dedicated to a project is key, so consider that when deciding to support a project.
The game is also a little pricey for where it is in the development coming in at $17.99 (Currently on sale for the random 12% off). I don't think this is a wholly poor decision though. Pricing a game like this will make sure the right people are supporting it and the feedback the developer will receive will be of a much higher quality. I usually scoff at such highly priced early access games, but that's usually for games with heavy multiplayer content where the price creates a barrier of entry for something that needs a lot of players for testing.
Overall, Energy Hook has a great mechanic backed by a seemingly dedicated developer.
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