Mindhive

.//Hack Infection mini-review

The .//Hack (pronounce that however you like) project originally sparked my interest because of the sheer scope of it. The entire project was supposed to encompass several anime series, console games, and perhaps even books. The stories told by all these various aspects of the project were supposed to be complementary, intricately woven together like threads of a tapestry. Naturally, I understood that this was just a marketing ploy -- but still, I had to admire their megalomania. Plus, the story of .//Hack was rumored to involve virtual domains with not-so-virtual dangers, widespread data corruption, unchained entities lurking in cyberspace, and the weakening of the barriers between worlds... If you have paid attention at all, you would know that I love this kind of stuff almost as much as RIAA loves suing people.

Which is why I was so upset when I saw the first anime in the series, .//Hack Sign. This TV series consisted of nothing but still shots of two characters quoting a boring game manual at each other. I would say that this anime was low-budget, except that I don't even want to give them that much credit. I have seen fan-made trailers with better writing than that. However, despite my better judgement, I was still compelled to pick up the first console game in the .//Hack saga: .//Hack Infection. And, believe it or not, I actually finished it.

First, the good stuff.

.//Hack Infection has a very intriguing premise: it is a single-player PS2 game that simulates "The World" -- a ficticious massively-multiplayer RPG around which all the .//Hack stories are centered. So, it's a single-player multiplayer simulator. The setting is not bad, as well: in the not-so-distant future, "The World" is the most popular computer game of all time, and, perhaps, the most popular form of entertainment, period. In .//Hack Infection, you play the role of a high-school kid who plays a character named Kite.

.//Hack Infection does a superb job of emulating a real (or, should I say, virtual) MMORPG. As the game loads, you see the logos for the various companies involved in the making of it -- including a logo for the Cyber Connect (CC) corporation, which doesn't actually exist in our world. After the credits, you are presented with an Altimit desktop -- Altimit being the OS that runs The World. You can read your mail (using a realistic mail client), check the news, save or load data, or log in to the BBS (that's Japanese for "forum").

All the information you need to know comes to you in form of mail. The very first message in your mailbox is a spam from CC, which informs you of the changelog since the last The World version upgrade; naturally, the changelog describes most of the game's features, and how to activate them. When you meet new characters in the game, they sometimes send you off-topic emails -- regarding their favorite foods, the latest movie, etc. -- and you get to actually reply to them, and watch them reply back. Your news client is similarly realistic. Initially, it initially displays only a few articles -- a story regarding CC and the new version of Altimit, a reported Bigfoot sighting, and press release from Sony (ok, they don't call it Sony but we all know that's what it is) concerning their new VR goggles -- apparently, the new voice-recognition module is so advanced that it can automatically translate pauses as "..." . The news articles get updated as the game progresses; all of them are written in a style that you'd expect from cnet.com or Associated Press. Naturally, as you progress in the game, the news articles get updated -- and I found myself waiting anxiously for the next Bigfoot story.

This realistic experience is amplified tenfold when you log in to the BBS. The BBS contains a "locked" thread by Altimit which describes the rest of the game features (entitled something like "NEW: The World version 1.92"); but it also contains several open postings from random users, on a variety of subjects. Usually, some user will post a question about the game, and several others will reply. In addition to informative postings, you would see an occasional flame war ("Altimit is the perfect OS !" -- "What are you talking about ? Do you work for them or something ?"), old friends getting reacquianted, newbies asking stupid questions... It's everything you'd expect to see on a real forum.

The realism (er... virtualism ?) continues further when you finally log in to the actual game. There are many characters running around the town -- buying weapons and potions, saving, chatting with each other, etc. You can talk to any character and hear what he has to say; you can also trade with him for rare items which you can't find at the store. The characters have individual (and wacky) personalities -- some of them complain about the game being tedious, some of them beg you for items, some spout conspiracy theories about the latest idol singer, and there is even a guy whose connection is so slow that he can barely chat.

The players and the CC officials react to game events in a pretty natural manner. When the game servers start crashing, and the players start falling into comas, and a mysterious non-standard character is seen in the dungeons, corruption flowing in her wake... Then, CC releases an official bulletin: "The World has experienced minor server problems recently, leading to the closing down of some game areas. We apologize for the inconvenience". As the BBS lights up with flames, wild theories and eyewitness accounts, CC steps in and deletes the most interesting threads. Ah yes, this is exactly the kind of caring customer I have come to expect from the Everq... I mean, "The World" admin team.

Basically, it feels that whoever handled the MMORPG-simulation aspect of .//Hack Infection was a real gamer. The mail, news and BBS feel like a big in-joke, told by someone who knows what's up. I found myself playing the game just to find out what the next BBS flame war will be about.

Another good aspect of the game is the option to choose Japanese voice acting, with English subtitles. Very few games let you do that, for some strange reason... Anyway, the Japanese voice acting is not bad (ok, not that I can really tell), and the subtitles, while not great, are definitely above RiceBox-grade. Ok, that's not saying much, but still.

Ok, these were the good things. Now on to the rest of the game.

.//Hack Infection is an RPG. Every RPG out there basically rides on three things: system, visuals and story. The system provides tactical things for you to do: assign equipment, manage attributes, and, of course, engage in combat with the bad guys. The visuals let you enjoy the ride, and keep the combat from getting too tedious. The story is the core of the game -- it's the reason you're playing an RPG at all, as opposed to railing people in the head in Quake 3 or something.

There are basically two ways to handle combat in any game: real-time and turn-based. Real-time combat usually involves quick reflexes. You are supposed to press various buttons really quickly, and in the right order -- to hit the enemy when he's off-balance, to launch a combo, or to block/dodge an incoming death-nuke. Soul Calibur, Zone of the Enders and Devil May Cry are examples of games that use this style. The downside to the real-time combat style is that it can get repetitive to the point where all you do is just press square; Chaos Legion is an unfortunate example of this. The turn-based combat style, on the other hand, puts emphasis entirely on tactics. You only get to press one button (ok, maybe two if you want to cancel something), but you have to think carefully about the exact sequence of your actions, the weak/strong points of each monster, your remaining mana, etc. The downside to the turn-based style is that it can get boring if you know exactly what your tactics will be ahead of time -- especially if you have to sit through the same special effects animations each time you cast a spell or something. Fallout Tactics, the excellent Wizardry series (the real one, not the PS2 one) and Final Fantasy exemplify the turn-based combat style.

If you've heard me rant about .//Hack Sign, you know where I'm going with this. That's right. .//Hack Infection followed in its predecessor's footsteps, and implemented the worst features of all possible worlds. The combat in the game is sort of real-time: you get to run around with the analog stick and rotate the camera. Unfortunately, just like in Chaos Legion, all you get to do is press square. There is no blocking, no dodging, no combos... Just square. However, if you so choose, you can open the menu (which pauses the game), select a special attack or a magic effect from a list, click it, and then sit there and watch as it executes. The combat system is supposed to rely on an intricate system of elemental strengths and weaknesses; in practice, however, the only rule you need to know is "if an attack didn't work, try a different one". There are also several character classes in the game: Heavy Blade, Blademaster, Twin Blade, some other blade... All of them are exactly the same. The only different class is Wavemaster, which is basically a mage. Naturally, you don't get to customize the characters or adjust their stats at level up: the game does this for you. There are also several items which you can buy at the store or find in treasure chests; all these items do the exact same thing, with minor variations. In other words, the game simplifies away anything which could have made combat even remotely interesting.

Having thus embarked on the simplification bandwagon, .//Hack Infection slams on the JATO booster. The game basically revolves around discovering keywords for dungeons in the game, then going to these dungeons, exterminating all the monsters, and getting to the bottom floor. The dungeons are pseudorandomly generated, seeded with the keywords that you select. This kind of strategy worked extremely well for Diablo, because the dungeon-generation algorithm was pretty clever. Naturally, the dungeon-generation algorithm in .//Hack Infection is nowhere near clever. The dungeons consist of pre-programmed corridor sections (straight, L-shaped, T-intersection, etc.), which are stuck together so that they don't intersect improperly. I actually remember writing something like this back at community college, for my C++ class. It took me all weekend, because I didn't really know C++. I really expected something more advanced from professional game programmers -- but then again, this is .//Hack Sign. So, essentially, the gameplay consists of you going through identical-looking dungeons, using identical character classes, and pressing square a lot. Yeah, that's fun.

Squaresoft ran into a similar problem with their Final Fantasy series; they solved it by custom-designing every level, and by pouring a lot of cash into stunning graphics. Final Fantasy 9 almost makes you forget that its beautiful backgrounds are pre-rendered, and Final Fantasy X sets a bar for stunning full-scale 3d art that no console game has been able to beat since. .//Hack Infection, on the other hand, takes the easy way out. The graphics consist of bland, blocky textures, projected onto rectangular surfaces. Just like the combat system, the graphics seem to have been put into the game as just an afterthought.

All of which is, really, not all that important. As I mentioned earlier, what really makes or breaks an RPG is the story. If the story is good, then even the cheesiest graphics will fade into the background, so to speak. Unfortunately, .//Hack Infection doesn't have a main story. At all. Random things keep happening, all of which are somewhat interesting as plot hooks. However, they never actually hook anything. They just keep happening randomly. Here is some actual dialogue from the game (ok, it's paraphrased):

BlackRose: That was... pretty weird. What do you think it means ?
Kite: I don't know... something...
BlackRose: So, what do we do now ?
Kite: Let's just wait and see what happens.

Guess what happens later ? Some other random thing ! And what do they do ? They wait and see what else happens ! Gee, if that's not top-notch writing, then I don't know what is.

Basically, I think that .//Hack Infection is a game created entirely by marketers. It carefuly manages to include every single RPG buzzword: character classes ? We got that ! Spells ? Sure ! Items ? Yup ! They're all the same, is that a problem ? It also keeps feeding you interesting tidbits of information that might, just might come into play in the next release... Or maybe the release after that... Don't forget to buy the OVA, now ! The graphics and the actual levels have been put in as an afterthought, when the sales team realized that maybe they should actually have something to put in the pretty box. The only redeeming feature of the game is the excellent writing which went into the news/mail/BBS aspects; I am thinking that it must have been an accident.

So, basically, I expected a rich tapestry of digital wonder, a confection of data, silicon and emotion. What I got instead was a mass-produced burlap sack with a single gold thread running through it that someone forgot to downsize away. And you know what's really despicable ? With the kind of budget that I suspect the .//Hack project managed to snag, they surely could produce a great anime, or a fascinating game. Just one of them, but with actual graphics, gameplay and story. Instead, the marketing flacks chose to blow 75% of their money on commercials, and to spread the rest of it across multiple installments of the same story, filled with nothing but empty, generic plot hooks that go nowhere. It's one thing to try and fail; it's a wholly different thing to actually hold your target audience in contempt. I guess the MMORPG simulation is more realistic than I thought: the greedy and remoreseless Cyber Connect corporation represents the .//Hack team pretty accurately.

Posted by metabug at 2003/10/05 11:07 | TrackBack (0) | Categories: Games