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~ .Hack// Infection~

Game Review:

This is a fantasy role-playing game wrapped in a modern-day mystery. You are a young player of "The World," the most popular online role-playing game on the planet. You and a friend are both attacked while playing the game. Your buddy is left in a real-life coma; you are left with a score to settle. Dive back into the game to find out how you were attacked, and most importantly, who in "The World" is responsible. Also includes a disc with 45 minutes of animation when purchased. Volume one of four (planned).

Reviews:

IGN:
Bandai's .hack (pronounced "dot-hack") is an example of just how far a really good concept can take you. As PlayStation 2 RPGs go, it's not the best-looking of games, the localization falls somewhat harshly upon the ears, and it doesn't have the cachet of a famous name to carry it like Final Fantasy or Xenosaga, but the idea behind it is fascinating, and Cyber Connect 2 (the talented Bandai development team responsible for Tail Concerto and Silent Bomber) has used that idea as the basis for all kinds of interesting gameplay and presentation elements.


The high concept, in this case, is that you're playing a game where you're playing a game. .hack is set in two worlds: first, the year 2009, where an online RPG called "The World" is the most popular game in history, and second, The World itself, where strange things are afoot in a fantasy realm populated by all manner of mazes, monsters, and shut-in geeks of the future. Thus, everything plays on two levels, the game world and the real world outside it. The game even presents itself to you via a dual-layered interface, beginning at a regular computer desktop (with e-mail, message boards, and news updates) before progressing into the more familiar RPG interface of The World. NPCs drop in and out of "character," acting like humans playing a game rather than ordinary RPG townsfolk. And as the game progresses, it becomes possible to bend the rules, as it were, manipulating the fabric of the game world beyond its original intentions.
Our erstwhile hero goes by the handle of Kite. He's new to the game, though, just being shown around by his more experienced friend Orca. Things go badly awry when a monster appears from nowhere and "kills" Orca -- normally not a problem, but after he's kicked from the game, his real body sinks into an inexplicable coma. Kite returns to the game to find out more about what happened, and gradually discovers that his friend is not alone, and more than a few players have encountered similar accidents. Soon, though, he acquires the ability to fight virus with virus, and encounters a whole new side of the game, where a few players are busy hacking things up to try and found out the truth behind the mysterious accidents.

As I say, there's solid execution here to back up all the neat ideas. .hack's combat system shows the developer's action roots -- there's no break between the field map and combat, and fights take place in real time. Monsters spawn when you run across a pre-set encounter point (these are hidden, but using some special items reveals them on the map), and after they appear, you can still move around the field as usual, attacking whenever bad guys are in range and selected by the automatic lock-on targeting. Battles get a little crowded when there are too many combatants involved (more than five or six), but they become more manageable as you get the hang of positioning and learn how to use supporting party members.

The latter is accomplished with "chat commands." These are presented like the canned chat snippets in Tribes, but in practical terms it's more like commanding a squad in Rainbow Six, since the other party members aren't really autonomous. While AI-controlled NPCs fight on their own, if you want them to perform a particular action, you just yell "Attack [such-and-such]," "Defend [such-and-such]," "Heal me!" and so on. The variety of shorthand commands is considerable -- I'd like to have this many one-shot directives in something like Tales of Destiny 2, to cut down on all the fiddling with menus.

Finding a place to go beat up monsters (which remains the most important goal in any online RPG, even in 2009) is easy, and involves a touch of random world generation. A new area is created by picking three words from three lists, each of which indirectly refers to a particular attribute of the area. For example, using the adjective "burning" might get you a desert or a volcano, something related to fire. "Putrid" could lean things in a swampy direction. Other words affect other attributes like the type of buildings, NPCs, and monsters scattered around. One has to be careful when finding a place to go level up, because it's easy to inadvertently pick an area that's much too strong for your level. Luckily, the game indicates what levels might be suitable for adventuring in an area before you enter it, so you can back out if it looks too dangerous.

Adventuring areas consist of both dungeons and the field above them. It's possible to play it safe and only kill monsters up on the surface, but the dungeons are where the superior treasures are hidden, even if they're guarded by more dangerous beasts. The trade-off is that the "gate out" command, which transports the party back to the hub town, is only available on the surface. As such, it's wise not to delve too deep, since it can be a long hike back up to the top.

Those hub towns vary in character and content according to which "server" you've chosen (forgive the occasional mangling of the lingo here, but I assume you know enough about the basic premise of the game to understand what I mean). Some have different shops and inhabitants, or cater to a different general level of players. Exploring them can be more useful than in some RPGs, because other players can give you the keywords to specific realms which may be important to the plot, or other useful information. It's also nice to just admire the scenery, since each town differs from the other substantially in terms of design.

As a rule, .hack's graphics are interesting more for their design than their execution (the engine isn't quite in the league of something like Final Fantasy X) but there are some talented artists on the job here, designing both characters and areas. The main cast comes courtesy the brush of Yoshiyuki Sadamoto, known to geekdom worldwide for his work on Evangelion and such, and there are some nicely inventive bits of background architecture filling both pre-set and random areas. You can tell the field maps are randomly generated, but the objects scattered about them -- ruins, towers, windmills, oases, and so on -- are quite nice to look at, particularly considering the breadth of different basic themes.

It looks as if .hack will be released in the United States in the same episodic fashion as Japan. Our preview version here is labeled .hack Infection Vol.1, to use the full title. Thus, we can look forward to further adventures after the October release of the first volume (three more, to be precise). So far, it looks like the series will be worth following -- the presentation takes full advantage of the basic gimmick, and even viewed independently of all the game-within-a-game frills, the combat and progression systems make for a fast and playable RPG experience. We'll try and update these impressions after we dig deeper into the game (and the other game), so enjoy the accompanying media and look forward to more soon.

GameSpy:
.hack, as a project, is extremely ambitious and refreshingly new. It weaves together the feel of an online RPG with the depth of story of an offline one; it uses an esteemed anime scenarist for the game's narrative and provides a separate DVD that tells its own, indirectly related tale for added texture. The game is chopped up into four volumes -- with one shipping every three months, a release style that mimics anime, not games. We've seen anime based on games and games based on anime, but we've never seen anything like .hack: games sold like -- and irrevocably intertwined with -- anime.


That's not to say you have to be a hardcore anime fan to enjoy .hack -- but it definitely helps. The game, after all, capitalizes on some of the top talents in the medium. Even if you don't recognize Yoshiyuki Sadamoto and Kazunori Ito by name, you've almost certainly heard of their career-defining titles: Neon Genesis Evangelion and Ghost in the Shell, respectively. Sadamoto's brilliantly designed characters bring Ito's intricate and personal conspiracy story to life, and that melding of great talent supports what could have otherwise been -- and in some ways is -- a fairly standard game.

Layer Section

.hack begins with something console gamers aren't used to -- a desktop, which mimics the setup of a Windows-style operating system called Altimit. Instead of a cinema giving character backstory, the first thing you'll do in .hack is check your e-mail. The main character of the game is not Kite; the main character of the game is the 14-year-old Japanese kid who controls Kite in The World, an extremely popular massively multiplayer online RPG circa 2010. When playing .hack, you always have to remember there's another layer below the usual fantasy trappings.

Ito's story explores the blurring of computer-generated worlds and reality -- a theme that has been cropping up more and more in both Japan and the U.S., as fans of works like The Matrix, serial experiments lain, eXistenZ, and Ghost in the Shell can attest. A boy begins his first online role-playing experience at the behest of his friend Yasuhiko -- known as Orca in The World. The two sight a mysterious girl being chased by a strange, robotic enemy.

Soon his friend's character is crucified and Data Drained -- or rewritten -- by that enemy. The result is that his pal ends up in a coma and the boy keeps playing the game to find out why. Thanks to his encounter with the girl, he gains the ability to Data Drain enemy characters himself, and decides to get to the bottom of the mystery behind the ethereal girl in white and try to save Yasuhiko by playing The World for himself. He can't do it alone, though, and the characters you meet in the game are the key to your quest.

This simulation of two overlapping realities is reinforced by clever, well-translated dialogue, which is available with both English and Japanese speech -- an excellent addition that further reinforces the game's pervasive anime feel. Additionally, you can browse mail and forum posts, and characters make reference to real-life situations. It's an insidious and intriguing track for the game to take, and instead of feeling like just one more RPG, .hack simulates the sort of compelling world-blurring adventure that I wish I could be having when I play an online game -- in addition to the usual endless questing for items and experience, which .hack has plenty of.

Online Another World

Some of .hack's best features are subtle; that means it's hard to recognize why the game is good. I've thought long and hard about it -- people would constantly walk up to me and ask, "So how is this?" and I'd reply, "I'm really digging it." After watching me play for a few minutes, though, they'd usually walk away unimpressed. At first, I couldn't think of a concrete reason that explains my enjoyment besides "The story is really interesting." It definitely is, but it's also really sparse and introductory. 90% of the time you'll be dungeon-crawling, not interacting with characters. The qualities that really elevate .hack can be separated into two elements: presentation and seamlessness. .hack never truly convinced me I was playing an online game, but I got nearly as addicted.
The reason is that the story integrates so well with the faux-online theme that it drives you to continue playing almost as addictively as the real social interaction of a legitimate online game does. But even more so, the integration of the e-mail, news, and anime elements -- which all refer you to one another -- is what holds the game together. The fake forums, hastily scrawled e-mails, and even the chats about Gardenia's favorite food (octopus) all support and guide the main narrative of the game, which has the emotional impact of a real-world struggle because you know that Kite's real-world player is deeply worried about his friend Yasuhiko, who's lying in a hospital.

~ .Hack//Outbreak~

Game Description:

The .Hack saga continues with Part 3. The strange cyberspace reality known as The World continues to deteriorate and the virus known as OUTBREAK is now disturbing reality itself! As the outlaw cyber-surfer Kite you will search for answers to this apocalyptic mystery. Go back into the contaminated The World and fight bigger battles with new skills and weaponry. Encounter deadly monsters and aliens. Lead a team of heroes including the new Terajima Ryoko. Based on the Japanese animated TV series, .Hack: Outbreak features all the action, attitude and story fans have grown to love!

Reviews:

IGN:
Seven months after the first .hack initially appeared on the PlayStation 2 and four months removed from the sequel, the teams at Bandai and CyberConnect2 have returned once again for yet another installment. Delayed by just over a month because of adjustments made by the translation team to some of the game's religious iconography, .hack//OUTBREAK (Part 3) is now officially here. Serving as the introduction to the second half of a four-part series, this newest edition is definitely the darkest of the bunch and continues the franchise's tradition of being an offline RPG set in an online world. Kicking the butts of our protagonists and setting up some of the worst situations possible for its characters, OUTBREAK is not only most cinematic and plot-centric episode so far, it's also the most disheartening. But for those of us who finished the previous chapter in our battle with Magus at the SIGN Net Slums, it's pretty much what we've come to expect. Of course, if newbies happen to stumble onto this in search of a quick RPG fix, they should take heed of this warning -- it isn't meant for them. As despite the player's ability to start the adventure regardless of whether or not they finished MUTATION, the game is simply too far along for casual players to get anything out of it. Although, from a storytelling standpoint Part 3 is definitely the strongest in the series so far. And as The Empire Strikes Back proved to Star Wars fans more than 20 years ago, you need to knock your heroes down before you can pick them back up again.
Gameplay
As Bandai has pretty much established by now, .hack isn't going to change very drastically between releases. As at its core, OUTBREAK is still very much the same title that its two predecessors were: the battle engine, structure, and interface is identical to INFECTION (as well as MUTATION) and the ideals of data draining, gate hacking, and NPC trading remain completely unchanged. But that doesn't mean that Part 3 isn't without its additions or alterations -- they're just not as major as your typical sequel. Besides, the .hack series has always had a solid foundation work with in the first place. That said, OUTBREAK's most immediate improvement is a smarter A.I. for your companions. Slightly upgraded in the last game but even further enhanced this time around, your party members react more realistically during battle. Instead of blindly using skills, healing one another, or using weapon-supported attacks exclusively based on orders, members will actually fill their time between instructions by performing more intelligent maneuvers. If you order BlackRose to attack a Metal Emperor, for instance, she'll be far more inclined to heal herself if she's in the "Red Status" regardless if you told her to or not. Though she won't be doing this all the time and can still be caught unaware with a Triple Crush deathblow, the fact remains that she's smarter than she was before; and along with her supporting cast is becoming much a better expert at adaptation. It's definitely step in the right direction. Interestingly enough, CyberConnect has also created smarter opponents and battlefields as well. Reaching levels that go as high as 70, the creatures in Part 3 are absolutely relentless, aggressive, and bloodthirsty. Potential targets finally do more than scatter recklessly and actually try to flank you for better efficiency -- while rocks and other overworld obstacles are now entirely solid and impenetrable. This eliminates the days of "invisible damage" suffered by friend and foe alike during skirmishes near landmarks. Other new additions to OUTBREAK match the type of extras found in .hack//MUTATION. Up-to-the-minute scrolls, Summoner magic, weapons, equipment, and other such goodies have been added to your arsenal in an effort to help power up your character, and the added Root Town of Fort Auf ensures that you'll have plenty of new NPCs to meet, trades to make, and Grunties to raise. Not to mention the fact that the fresh Ryu Book bonuses let you customize your "desktop" further and the new Sigma server provides plenty of difficult challenges and sidequests. And while we're dancing around the subject of Grunties, they too have been given an extra function. Much as they learned how to race for items and bonuses in MUTATION, everyone's favorite pig creature can now partake in what's known as the "Grunty Search." An option that allows your pet to be called to the battlefield like a bloodhound, Grunty Search is a great way to seek out hidden enemy portals, locate key items, and find various other things outside the dungeon entrance. It won't make a huge difference if you're a frequent explorer or user of Fairy Orbs, but it's a nice little benefit for those of us who decided to partake in the Grunty mini-game. Players who are looking for more additions than what's listed above, however, will probably be disappointed. As the new characters that have been added to the lineup play just like the other members of their classes. Email and message board systems are still only used as nothing more plot devices, and the time needed to find and complete everything is a meager 20-25 hours. Though it must be said that out of all the .hack titles released so far, this is certainly the most challenging one.

Graphics
With the slight changes that have been made to the gameplay engine, we entertained the possibility that there could have been some improvements to the visuals too. But that just isn't the case. As low-res textures and the infamous PS2 jaggies are still very much what you can expect. The colors used for the environments bleed together for a somewhat muddy look as well and the camera has to be continuously adjusted for the best possible view. But those issues don't necessarily make .hack an ugly game. The character designs are still some of the best of 2003 and the cinematic cut scenes are slickly represented. Details for the characters themselves fare much better than the environments and offer a healthy dose of polygonal realism -- or at least, as much realism as a offline-online RPG is supposed to have. Particle effects, magic spells, and the interface are equally solid.
Sound
There aren't many, but .hack//OUTBREAK does boast a couple of new songs to accompany its already-established soundtrack. Relying on bits of music from the previous two games, it sounds nearly identical to MUTATION and INFECTION. On its own, it's a more than acceptable collection of less than upbeat sounds, but in the context of the earlier titles it may prove a little repetitive over the long haul. On a more promising note, the English voice acting in OUTBREAK has hit an all-new level of quality. Due to the sullen nature of the plot, most of the talent is a lot more subdued and helps convey their emotion rather convincingly. For the curious, the Japanese track is still the better of the two and the DPL2 recordings sound great if you have a receiver.
Closing Comments
While it's true that the .hack series is already showing its age due to the frequency of its follow-ups, this third edition is still a quality RPG. Despite the fact that expectations and criticisms continue to mount as time goes on, OUTBREAK manages to accomplish everything it sets out to do: which is to simply entertain its fans and make a lot of money while doing so. Moreover, the franchise is meant to be an episodic chronicle anyway -- not a series of stand-alone sequels ala Xenosaga. So truthfully, it's an unrealistic expectation to anticipate something entirely new and innovative every couple of months; and anyone who goes into it searching for such a scenario is just setting themselves up for disappointment. For those of us who have accepted the collection for what it is, however, and have allowed ourselves to be drawn into its phony online world, .hack//OUTBREAK can provide plenty of thrills and spills for 20 to 25 hours. It may not be the most ideal way to spend your fifty bucks with so many other role-playing candidates out there, but if you know what you're getting yourself into it's definitely worth it. Fans only, please.
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GameSpy:
The .hack saga has been chugging along for the better part of 2003 at this point. Besides the games, of which Outbreak is the third, there's a TV series and a manga. In that time, this multimedia, highly-profitable, and totally addictive property has become exceedingly popular. I don't know about you, though, but I'm starting to feel like a bit of a sucker. I really love the .hack universe. I've enjoyed the games, I've bought the DVDs, and I've started collecting the comics. Hell, I'm just happy there isn't .hack//BREAKFAST cereal. The story continues to simmer nicely if unexcitingly in Outbreak, but it's finally and truly dawned on me that we are paying Bandai $200 for one game. Yeah, I knew that going in, but the extreme lack of improvements from volume to volume is going from merely irritating to downright exploitative of the fans.
Harsh Words
Yeah, those are harsh words. The truth which is becoming apparent, however, is that the game costs four times as much money, but offers less in the way of new content than many $50 one-shot RPGs. We've been subjected to the same few mediocre dungeons (and their repetitive tunes) since the first game back in February. The game mechanics haven't really changed or deepened -- it's just gotten tougher. The game's pace hasn't quickened, either. The developers only introduce one new major location per installment ... and we pay four times as much for this as Xenosaga? I really like .hack, but you can only push me so far before I begin to get irritated. When the original game arrived and launched this bizarre experiment in serial gaming, it was exciting new territory. But completely counter to intuition, instead of offering more diversity, this approach seems to have offered less. Whether it's that there wasn't enough time or enough budget to implement changes between volumes, it's clear that new types of content was at the bottom of the list of changes Bandai wanted made from installment to installment, with miniscule changes (Grunty races!) in evidence.
The Other Extreme
Kite and BlackRose share a moment together. This is all disappointing. But let's shift gears to the other extreme: the story is deepening pleasantly, even if it's still frustratingly revealed only in brief nuggets. The World is still breaking down; Helba is now being blamed for the comatose players even as their numbers increase and the cyber-reality starts to fray at the seams. But Kite is finding it easier to recruit allies to his cause -- even loners like Balmung are beginning to see that all is not well with CC Corp.'s cover-ups and shady machinations. Meanwhile more anomalies propagate through the system. Presentation and characterization are spot-on, as usual. The story definitely becomes richer in this episode of the game, and the gameplay -- while mighty repetitive, is undeniably fun. The battle system fails to reveal any nuances; it's more or less tapped out by this point, to be blunt. However, extremely challenging enemies and lots of solo missions give the game an edge that keeps it from becoming boring. Yes, I still find myself drawn back to the game despite my resistance.

My patience has about reached its limit with the A.I. of the other two characters, though -- it was adequate when the game was in its formative stages, but with plenty of tricky and powerful enemies it's just not cutting it. Characters will notice an enemy can't take damage from regular physical attacks -- and then keep swinging their swords at it until you tell them what to do, which they then largely ignore. Weak mages stand around and get pummeled unless instructed to run away, and in the heat of battle commanding these morons is a pain; the fiction is that they're other, real human players of The World, but it's a fiction that's impossible to believe.
Onward
Separate they are deadly, but together they are unstoppable.
I'm still enjoying .hack. I love the story, I love the characters. I even still like the gameplay, repetitive as it may be. I'm becoming frustrated, though, by the lack of upgrades and improvements from chapter to chapter. With each volume taking less than twenty hours, .hack will probably end up offering less gameplay in four volumes than Sony's Dark Cloud 2 packed on one disc. The developers may have bitten off more than they can chew; the serial format is proving to be more of a minus than a plus as .hack rolls towards its (admittedly, fascinating) conclusion.