Stay off the floor; it's made of lava.
The exploits of long forgotten about toys have been well documented (especially the adventures of those toys that go by the names of Buzz and Woody) but what about former “Toy of the Year” Henk? There is very little mentioned about him. That is about to change, courtesy of RageSquid and Curve Digital, as Henk is about to run, jump and butt-slide onto the PS4 with the release of Action Henk.
The story of Action Henk is that back in his heyday Henk was the fastest of the fast - the ultimate 90s action toy. Nowadays though he has slowed down a tad. His slender physique has stepped aside to give his potbelly some room to grow. He carries his “Toy of the Year” trophy around with him wherever he goes like a drunk nursing that last pint of the night. Disaster strikes for Henk when his long-time rival Dr. Kentony swipes his trophy! Now Henk must run himself back into shape so he can take on Dr. Kentony and prove he is still the fastest toy ever.
Set mostly in a children’s toy-filled bedroom, with the later stages set on a beach island, Action Henk is a side scrolling, speed running platformer where players must race as fast as they can along courses made of wooden blocks. It has been around for a while on Steam and many people have likened it to Sonic the Hedgehog because of its super-fast gameplay. Once you play it it’s easy to see why, but because of its use of momentum and physics it reminds me of Joe Danger and also Unirally for the SNES.
The first track introduces you to the game’s simple controls – the player runs with the left stick, jumps with X and butt-slides with L2. You will quickly learn that you can do a smaller jump by tapping X instead of pressing it and that butt sliding down the ramps allows you to pick up extra speed. From there it’s all about trying to find the fastest way to the finish line.
There are over 60 tracks to play and many of them need to be unlocked by earning medals. The faster you are the better the medal you earn, with bronze, silver and gold medals up for grabs. The tracks are grouped together in stages ending with a head-to-head face-off race against another toy. Beat them and they are unlocked as playable characters. Also, if you get gold medal on all tracks in a stage you will unlock a bonus level. The first of these bonus levels sees Henk in a rather fetching pink tutu. Here the game switches to an “against the clock coin collecting stage” where you’ll need to figure out the fastest way to collect all the coins before the timer expires.
Chase the rainbow
Not content with bronze, silver and gold medals, Action Henk pushes the longevity to the maximum with a local multiplayer mode, online global and friends leaderboards, and for the ultimate speedrunners out there - Rainbow Medals. These rainbow medals only become visible after getting a gold medal on a track - if you thought you were fast when you got your gold medal then you are in for a shock as you’ll need to be faster than Barry Allen and the famous blue hedgehog combined to obtain these bad boys. The rainbow medals require you to hustle through the tracks accurately, timing jumps and slides perfectly so you remain at the fastest speed possible. You can view the ghosts of any run, which helps when you are trying to shave valuable milliseconds off your time.
Graphically Action Henk has a lot going on. Not only does the game look and run slicker than a penguin sliding on ice there is a lot of eye candy going on in the background. As the gameplay is so fast you’ll be forgiven for missing these details while
Review - ps4
BY nelmano
36