.Hack//Infection

PS2

Bandai - 2002

Of all the games I picked up in February, .Hack impresses me the least. Don't get me wrong, the game is cool, and fun, and hip, and all that jazz, but when you also have Zelda: Master's Quest, Breath of Fire V, and Dark Cloud 2, .Hack gets placed in the background. So, needless to say, I still haven't gotten that far in the game yet. But I'll do my best to review it anyways.

First off, let's talk about the plot. This game is a zombie-MMORPG. That means it is a single-player, offline rpg where you play as a kid playing a Massive Multiplayer Online RPG. Follow that? Good. So don't expect to get online in this game. The plot plays out just like any old rpg, but the fact that you can "log out" of the game into chat rooms adds some dimension. Excepting of course that chat rooms only include how to play the game, secret levels, and plot. So basically you sign out, check your mail and the chat room, find another place to go, then sign on again. It's a great concept although I don't think it was done that well.

Next. I need to talk about the dungeons. To enter a dungeon you go to the hub world, then to this gate. You choose 3 words from over 100 or so. This randomly gives you a dungeon with preassigned enemy levels and such. Dungeons are 5-who knows how long floors, so expect to put a few hours in them. But with the random dungeon making system and the fact that while one dungeon looks the same all the way through, each dungeon varies quite a bit in backgrounds, textures or colors. So don't worry about wandering the same dungeon scheme over and over (a la Vagrant Story) thru the whole game.

Let's mention the menus. There are a lot since this game only lets you control the main charater. The (up to two) other characters are computer controlled, and to get them to do stuff, like heal or attack, you press the square button. It brings up a menu that says stuff like, change equipment, attack nearest enemy, heal, follow leader, spread out, or stick a pole up your butt and act like Raiden, which is what they are quite good at. The triangle button allows you to access your items, equipment, stats, and spells. The x button attacks. Yep. Only one attack button, for a hack and slash too! You are moving around on the battle field chasing enemies and you only have one attack button. Plus, you never get a good enough view to see if you are close enough to the enemy to attack, if you are not then the attack will not even register. So the basic plan of every fight is as follows:
1. Run at enemies with all your might.
2. Hit X wildly
3. Hope your "partners" are attacking the enemy, they have a better chance of hitting than you do since all you are doing is hitting X.
4. Watch your health and your "partners" and when they get low, heal.
5. Rinse, wash, repeat.

Yeah, sounds like fun eh? The good news is that mp replenish on their own and that... well there is no other good news.

So what's good about this game eh? (I'm Canadian) First off, I hear the plot is cool about half way thru the game. Plus there are 3 more games coming that run off the same characters, and hopefully you get to keep your character stats from the last game, which means fun leveling up before part 2 comes!!! The characters are cool and the voice acting is pretty well done (not as good as Dark Cloud 2 mind you, but acceptable.) Also, it has a cool premise and lots of tie-ins. (It comes with part 1 of 4 (collect the other 3 in the other 3 games) of an anime series, there is another series on TV right now, a comic book is in the works too!) Way too many tie-ins if you ask me. (Way too many uses of parenthesis by me too.)

What liked: Lots of good ideas. Fun characters, a zombie-MMORPG, a free anime, lots of tie-ins.

What disliked: The battle system (aka the hitting X fast game)

What to expect: Hitting X and healing a lot. Getting a headache 'cause the dungeons are long. Weird mockery of MMORPGs.

What not to expect: An actual MMORPG. Fun fighting system. Kingdom Hearts.

What's so different from this and other games of it's genre: It's not a MMORPG. It doesn't want to be a normal rpg. It's also an anime and manga. It wants to be something completely different from everything out there right now. Unfortunately it isn't really fun.

Ratings on:

Control: 3 - Crap. Hit X why don'tcha. Move the camera all the time just to see the enemy that is raping you.

Graphics: 8 - I like the fact that you can play in first-person mode, although it makes fighting enemies even harder.

Sound: 7 - Voice acting = acceptable. Music = pretty nice actually.

Style: 8 - A lot of new ideas. A lot of stuff that could have been done better though.

1st hour: 7 - This seems pretty cool so far.

5th hour: 6 - Ok, BlackRose's voice is terrible.

1st week: 4 - Not being played because of Zelda: Master's Quest

5th week: 5 - I can play a dungeon, but then I have to quit for the day. This game will take forever to beat.

#1 reason why I hate this game: The battle system

by Hawke