Fortunately for me I have the pleasure of writing a review on Action Henk, a new indie title which is currently available on Steam but is soon to be multi-platform with it’s impending release to PS4, PS3, PS Vita, Xbox One and the Wii U. The release date for the Xbox One version is set at 4th March, however the PS4 is set at “early March” so I’d expect it to be a similar release date. The game is a 2D side scrolling racing game, think Sonic but with a bit more wackiness and without the genius flying fox or the douchbag red echidna (gotta love Knuckles though!). The game is still unfinished so there are a few things that could change but since it’s currently released on Steam it’s likely that it’s more or less the finished product.
The game was created by Rage Squid, and if you love the name then I strongly urge you to look up their company logo because it’s hilarious, the game was also developed by the Dutch Game Garden, their logo isn’t quite as hilarious but the name sounds good. I have to say they both did a great job, because I can summarize the game up in a few lines which is something I’m rarely able to do, of course if I did that then I wouldn’t really be reviewing this game, just more telling you to go and get it because it’s good. If you want the short version of this review then it’s this, if you want to play a really addictive and frustrating game, then get it.
The background story of the game is that you play as Action Henk, a previously awesome macho man who was adored by all but has now drank his weight in beer and sporting a very fashionable beer belly. If you’ve been keeping up with fashion lately then you’ll know that the ‘Dad Belly’ was in this summer so I think it’s pretty appropriate, especially since I’ve got a little beer belly myself, although it’s more of a pizza and Chinese takeaway belly. Anyway, Action Henk is a toy character in a kid’s bedroom and is reminiscing about the good old days of being awesome when his trophy, for what I can only assume is for chugging beer, is stolen from him by the protagonist of the game. It’s your job to track down this evil SOB and get your beer trophy back so you can go on living your days as a glorious fat mess.
As I mentioned before, this is kind of like Sonic, so Henk can move pretty fast and is expected to jump and butt slide his way up and down the obstacles of the courses in order to race to the finish line as fast as he can. The courses have a good degree of variability in them, at the beginning you are taught how to butt slide, jump and run, pretty much your basic abilities, but as the game progresses you are introduced to a few more mechanics such as falls with lava, loops, wall jumps and even a grappling hook method (which is really fun and addictive).
The maps are all laid out really well and as I mentioned before this game is hellishly addictive and frustrating. It’s had me swearing at the TV on more than one occasion which frankly isn’t that hard to do but most games don’t tend to get me that riled up. This is where some of the buttons come into play as you can use them to restart the entire map instantly as if it was a new attempt or reload from the last checkpoint, the only downside of the latter is that your time won’t revert back to that point as well, but it allows you to practice certain points of the map.
When you complete one of the races you are rewarded with medals which are then used to unlock other map areas where you can race more and experience more mechanics. I have to say though that getting the medals is incredibly frustrating and although you’ll soon get to know how to race effectively some of them require you to make no errors on the course at all, and will encourage you to even try and test out new and efficient ways to get to the end as fast as you possibly can. This is where the game gets more and more frustrating, it’s not a huge deal to get bronze medals on everything, in fact if anything it’s rather easy, but the downside is that to unlock the maps you need to do more than that and you will need to get at least silvers or golds on a few things in order to progress further, and trust me in the fact that getting those things are incredibly annoying.
Once you get a hang of the racing though you’ll find that by beating some of the courses and the challenges at the end of that areas races you’ll start to unlock new characters and new costumes which don’t really do anything apart from make you look sweet as, but there are some pretty funny and wacky ones that will certainly put a smile on your face.
Whilst the graphics aren’t great, the imagination behind it is and there’s a lot of thought into the game and the different backgrounds, objects and characters. One of the characters in particular (Betsy) is the most terrifying character I’ve ever seen since she looks like she’s just come out of a very serious grease fire, followed by what I could only assume is a stereotypical 70’s pimp which I decided was my main character because I liked pretending he was Snoop Dogg in toy form.
The sound isn’t half bad, but not great, but again it’s the imagination behind it. Each of the characters has their own little shout outs and taunts to the others and it gives them a bit of personality, there’s obviously a few sound effects and some background music which wasn’t too bad. I don’t know why but when I was loading up levels the music in the background sounds like an American Mall. It was kind of addictive and I can actually remember exactly how the music sounds in my head, so I guess that’s a tick when it comes to the sound.
To be completely honest with a game like this you don’t go into it expecting perfect graphics and sound because it’s just not one of those games. If you really want to have that then go play the new COD or something. What Action Henk offers is an actual fun experience which is based around a unique style of game play and a competitive nature. Also, since this game is still in development for consoles it’s likely that we could see an improvement made to the graphics of the game.
I need to mention that if you are an avid gamer then the huge number of references and cameos that are in this game will just have you gob smacked. When I actually started to realize the number of references in this then I started playing my own little game of how many can you spot and trust me there will be a lot, some of which will really make you laugh.
There is a multi-player mode, but unfortunately at the time of playing this there was only a handful of other reviewers playing it so I didn’t get to experience that part of the game in all it’s glory, although I can imagine it’d be pretty fun to get a few people together and race through the course, taunting and insulting everyone because they’re far too slow and you’re just too pro at the game since It’s now all that you play, since the game also has it’s own special taunt button when playing against others I would say that the game is designed for this. I wouldn’t mind going back on it once the game is released to experience the full amplitude of multi-player, not to mention gloat about winning some races.
To summarize, the game is good at the moment, I can’t really say it’s perfect because few games are in my opinion and if a game didn’t have flaws then we’d destroy all other video games in the world and only play on that. What the game lacks in graphics and sound (although this could change) it makes up for in it’s game play and it really is an exciting experience, albeit frustrating as hell. It’s also pretty addictive which is something that few games get right these days, I’ve recently been playing through my Christmas goody list and there’s few games that I’m particularly hooked on, although Witcher 3 has done a pretty good job.
If you find that you have a spare few pounds lying about when this comes out then I would strongly suggest you get it, not as something that you will play religiously but as something that you’ll stick on when you want a good laugh or just to change things up a bit from what you’re currently on, since unless your playing Sonic then this will be completely different. It’s not a huge game, there’s no real story and it’s not developed, but it’s fun and that’s really what should make the game.
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