Games
With Sekiro bringing the useful tool back into the spotlight, we embark on a swift round-up of definitive video game grappling hooks.
"Why do we climb?" poets, philosophers and mountain climbers ask, gazing meaningfully out the zipper of a weatherbeaten tent, watching a slow-motion sunset from the peak of a snow-capped mountain.
The only answer to 'Why do we climb?' in video games is because you haven’t unlocked the grappling hook yet. Whether it's a core mechanic, unlockable gadget, or XP-able skill, the pow-whistle-clunk of the wrist-mounted grappler is a straightforward solution to a straightforward problem that games have made their own – physics and bodily harm be damned. So stop reading books, finish reading this celebration of grappling hooks, and then play these games with grappling hooks in them.
Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice – Feudal grappling hooks
The grappling hook du jour is to be found in Japan (plausible) in the late 16th Century (less so). Disgraced shinobi, Sekiro the 'One-Armed Wolf', receives his grapple early in his hacky-slashy rescue mission, in the form of the Shinobi Prosthetic. It's a handmade metal prosthesis that can be upgraded to hide spears, axes and a handy weaponised umbrella – a murderously effective Swiss army knife for whether you're fighting demons or sunburn.
But the Shinobi Prosthetic's first and most jaggedly bananas gift is its built-in grappling hook. In a FromSoftware game where even the more generic enemies can expertly dice you into servings like a sushi roll, speed is everything – and the grappling hook is no exception. Leaping around the battlefield, the grapple uncoils faster than a striking snake and yanks Sekiro up, down and around so violently he should rightfully lose the rest of his arm at the shoulder. It's a tactical game changer in combat and, perhaps more importantly, a godsent escape button when surrounded by enemies with rubbish, non-grappling human arms.
Batman: Arkham Everything – Classic grappling hooks
Everyone knows the best way to fight crime is from above and to get above crime in a hurry, you need a grappling hook. How does one get hold of a grappling hook on the mean streets of Gotham City? The same way you get hold of a grappling hook in real life: by being an eccentric billionaire with too much time on your hands.
Like Sekiro's arm, Batman's grapple is multi-purpose, but primarily useful for zipping up to a rooftop, or strategically placed gargoyle to spam Bat's Detective Vision, which temporarily turns nearby goons into glowing blue skeletons that can be seen through walls. Alternatively, fling yourself around Gotham pummeling bad guys and stringing them up like burst piñatas from street lamps. Being a billionaire is great.
Spider-Man – Sticky grappling hooks
Insomniac may have bought into Marvel's conceit that what spurts out of Peter Parker's wrists is 'web', but we're not buying it. If Spider-Man really shot web out of his wrists with the tensile strength to trap criminals or swing off buildings (instead of grappling hooks, which is what he really does), how come they don't get irreparably clogged up the first time he uses them?
And before you say it, yeah, sure, his webspinners could be mechanical simulacra of the araneophagous round spider's piriform silk glands (which, true, both wrap up prey and don't get clogged). However, as everyone knows, the great araneophagousian trade-off is that extruding quantities of wider, stronger piriform silk to immobilise prey comes at the cost of spinning lighter and more elastic silk suitable for swinging or creating webs. Arachnology 101, guys.
The science is in, Marvel. You can swing, or you can tie up bad guys, but not both. QED: Spider-Man's webs are secret grappling hooks and he deserves a place on this list.
Just Cause 2 – Magic grappling hooks
The word grapple has many different meanings. You can grapple with people, grapple up something, or use a grapple to tie two things together. Rico Rodriguez's grappling hook can do all of these things and several more that stretch the meaning of the word, physics, common sense and sanity.
In fact, using Rico's hook-shot to grapple in any sort of conventional way does it a disservice. Of course, you can use it to jerk up onto a roof and tie up a gang of uppity paramilitaries, but why would you when you could instead grapple up onto one of a pair of hovering aircraft, string them together, and watch them helplessly tumble into each other and then land on top of said paramilitaries in a death-ballet of burning fuselage? All before landing safely by grappling onto the ground and nose-diving into it so fast that the laws of physics just give up and let you walk away dandy?
In the Just Causes, it's your imagination that's the limit and – pointedly – not the sky.
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