Aban Hawkins & the 1001 Spikes: The Temple of the Dead Mourns the Living

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Description

1001 Spikes is a difficult platformer designed with the retro aesthetics of an 8-bit game. It is an enhanced version of Aban Hawkins & 1000 Spikes. It was remade entirely with an improved visual style, more than twice the levels, redesigned levels, additional modes and additional characters. The protagonist is Aban Hawkins who explores different environment in search for his father, the archeaologist Jim Hawkins, and the treasure of Poko-Mum rumoured to be behind a golden door. He travels through Antarctica and South America with locations such as jungle, caverns and lava temples.

The title references the amount of lives the player has to complete the game. These are needed to complete the hard levels filled with enemies and traps such as spikes, boulders, falling platforms, crushing blocks, etc. – requiring a lot of trial and error. Basic controls consist of movement, a regular and a high jump, and an attack move (both melee and ranged). It is also possible to talk to characters at certain moments. A large amount of characters and additional costumes can be unlocked throughout the game, usually by discovering gold skulls in levels. Certain characters have specific abilities. The character Ninja Aban for instance is able to brief hold on to walls and perform a wall jump, Tina Hawkins (his sister) can cling to walls, and President Thompson has a double jump. Other characters are variants of Aban such as Soldier Aban and Slayer Aban (a nod to Castlevania), or characters from indie games such as Meat Boy (Super Meat Boy), Nyx (NyxQuest: Kindred Spirits), Curly Brace (Cave Story), Commander Video (Bit.Trip) and a large amount from Super Time Force. There are also references to classic games such as Ghost 'N Goblins' Sir Arthur's white armour, Nathan Drake (Uncharted) for the PlayStation version and Mr. Video Game (Mario) for the Wii U and 3DS version. Each character has its own story elements, but cannot be swapped on the fly or between levels; they each have their full campaign.

Spikes are the common hazard to avoid and most levels have a key required to open the door that leads to the next level. For the first part of the game players have the ability to skip certain levels, but this locks off the second part of the campaign where this is disabled. That means that to complete the entire game, eventually all levels need to be completed, but it is possible to access a world map and return to any of them. The story mode contains 61 levels and the entire games has more than 100 levels. The game can locally be played cooperatively with up to four players and also in a versus mode. Next to the main story mode there are three arcade modes called The Golden Vase, Tower of Nannar, and The Lost Levels. The first is the versus mode where players fight each other to beat coins out of vase. These coins, also found in the story mode, can be spent in a shop for unlockables. The other two are additional campaigns for solo or cooperative play. The Vita and 3DS versions lack the arcade modes and multiplayer.

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Trailer

Alternate Titles

• "1001 Spikes" -- Nintendo 3DS, Wii U & Steam title

Part of the Following Group

• Aban Hawkins series

User Reviews

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Critic Reviews

Mouse n Joypad	Xbox One	Jul 02, 2014	94 out of 100	94
IGN España	PlayStation 4	Jun 10, 2015	8.2 out of 10	82
Pocket Gamer UK	PS Vita	Jun 25, 2014		80
Shacknews	PlayStation 4	Jun 06, 2014	8 out of 10	80
Digitally Downloaded	Windows	Jun 26, 2014		80
Gaming Nexus	PlayStation 4	Jul 03, 2014	8 out of 10	80
Polygon	PS Vita	Jun 24, 2014	8 out of 10	80
GameSpot	PS Vita	Jun 16, 2014	8 out of 10	80
Darkstation	Windows	Jun 24, 2014		80
IGN	PlayStation 4	Jun 08, 2014	8 out of 10	80

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Related Web Sites

• Wikipedia: 1001 Spikes (Article about the game in the open encyclopedia)