Android App Review: Hooked

Posted by Amy Eichelberg

Wednesday, April 18th, 2012

We’ve all witnessed the Android Market grow immensely over the last few years. Google has successfully transformed what once was merely an app store to what we now know as the Play Store, a media explosion of thousands of games, music, videos, and more. So with the ridiculous amount of new apps hitting the Play Store each day, how does one person decide which apps are the best to download? What about all the gamers out there, looking to stay on top of the hottest games the Play Store has to offer? What if there was an app that actually used your gaming preferences and statistics in a smart way to offer you personalized game recommendations? That’s where Hooked comes in and claims to do just that. We decided to take a closer look at the app to see if it really does offer intuitive and personalized game recommendations.

Pros

Can discover games from other players
View the latest real-time games
Option to save games to download later
Personalized game recommendation based on user’s ratings of current games played
Personal Dashboard: Track all your game play statistics
Access all your installed games
View how many games you have played
Access to “Critic’s choice”, “Games being played now”, Games being recommended now”, Most played games”
Saves time

Cons:

Had some loading issues and had to force close several times when trying to open app
Would have liked to see more recommendations
Free versions and paid versions of games are provided as separate recommendations, should be merged as one
App does not run in offline mode, any games played offline stats will not be recorded
Need country settings to avoid game recommendations that can not be downloaded in certain countries

Conclusion

I loved that Hooked was able to view the games I had downloaded on my device and asked me to rate each game. You can either rate a game with a double thumbs down, one thumb down, one thumb up, or double thumbs up. After I finished my ratings, Hooked provided 12 recommended games. I downloaded each one and was thoroughly impressed with each game recommendation. I enjoyed each game and was able to discover a few more games that I probably would not have downloaded on my accord. I did have some loading issues with this app, but see that this has been noted by the developer so hopefully a bug fix will be released soon. Overall, the app is successful at aiding in the task of app discovery for the Play Store, and I would recommend it to anyone looking for an easier way to find new games that they are likely to enjoy. Sure beats sifting through the Play Store.