Uplink: Hacker Elite

"Novel idea put into operation very nicely. Cheap to pick up and fun to play. Worth a look !"

FOREWORD

I happened upon this title purely by chance - I found it tucked away on one of the back shelves at my local second-hand video games store, and remembered in the back of my mind that my brother had mentioned it to me aaaaaages beforehand, so I picked it up and played it.

Did it hack my life ? Or did it become roadkill on the information highway ? Read on ...

OVERVIEW AND OBJECTIVE OF THE GAME

You play the part of a hacker, earning your crust by undertaking missions for high-flying corporations that need to get (often unsavoury) things done quickly and efficiently.

Your day-to-day tasks might include cracking login passwords, hacking into a corporate rival's computer system and downloading key data, and then wiping out all electronic evidence that you were ever there, before sending the data off to your principal.

With the cash you earn, you can upgrade your hardware and software systems, thus enabling you to undertake ever-increasingly more complex and intricate work.

GRAPHICS - 5/10

This is a largely text-driven game that does not require a complex graphic interface. The game itself functions as if it were just another piece of software on your computer - all you do is interact with the game as if you were using your computer, so you will run programs, access world maps and pick where you want to route your signal from and to (to try and flummox those people who would love nothing more to track you down), copy and paste data, etc., etc.

The graphics are very functional, and look nice - they just don't need to be any more eye-poppingly amazing than that ;)

SOUND - 5/10

As with the graphics, the sounds are not this game's best selling-point, it must be says. A large array of very simple clicks, pops, button pushes, whoops and other simple windows-style sounds are about all you need.

CONTROLS - 6/10

Whilst I did find it periodically rather irritating trying to do things in a hurry (like hacking into a school to edit a student's academic grades whilst copying a file off their network that looked interesting and keeping an eye on how close I was to getting reverse-traced) with such a fiddly set of controls (sometimes I would click with the mouse and it would flick to a different screen than the one I so desperately wanted to stay on, or I wouldn't click a button just right and it would cause me to try and fire up another piece of software to the one I wanted), generally-speaking the controls on Uplink are easy to get used to and, once you have them down pat, easy enough to repeat.

You'll look like a professional hacker in NO time !!

PLOT - 8/10

Quite an interesting plot to be honest. Definitely NOT your mainstream type of game - it's very UN-arcadey to play (the moral issues of hacking into private corporate networks, banks, the stock exchange, schools, etc. do rear their head from time to time) - and the freedom you have to pick the missions you want to undertake places it right up there with such great games as Frontier: Elite 2 in terms of how the plot progresses.

You perform better, you earn more cash, you advance in rank and respect, you get more complex missions, rinse and repeat - that's basically the plot development.

However, it is the fact that you are cast into the role of a miscreant that makes it all the more appealing. This game COULD have been as dull as my average day at work, but being able to assume the role of a nefarious and sinister hacker has a MASSIVE appeal, which bolsters the plot considerably.

GAMEPLAY - 8/10

It's actually a really quite deceptively fun game to play actually. Once you've gotten over the initial pitfalls of being immediately reverse-traced by somebody, or failing to complete your hack in the timeframe you have available, thus leaving digital footprints that can lead to your later arrest, you wind up building up a healthy respect for the intricacies of data hacking.

How close it is to real-life I cannot say, but the game maintains the FEEL of real-life about it, as it's such a common interface that you use to commit these crimes, you might as well just be sitting at home on your PC or laptop doing it.

There is a certain gleeful satisfaction to completing a task professionally, efficiently, and well within the timeframe, leaving your victims baffled and bereft of the data you have taken, which fuels your ego to take on bigger and more complicated missions until, ultimately, you WILL come a cropper ... but then you get to learn from your mistakes and start out again.

I was a bit miffed that there isn't a better save function within the game to be honest - if you get caught that's it - you're stuffed - but aside from that, and the general lack of astounding graphics and sound, it's a really fun little game to play.

REPLAY VALUE - 8/10

Given that there are very few titles that venture anywhere near this type of genre or on this level, I believe the replay value of this title is CONSISTENTLY high. You will find yourself eyeing it up as it sits on your shelf and then saying "oh go on then ... but just for a half hour", only to find 3-4 hours later you're still at it, hacking with the best of them !

VALUE FOR MONEY - 9/10

You can download the game from Introversion's web-site for a tenner (that's pounds, not dollars), so it's very cheap for the level of enjoyment it will give you.

OVERALL - 7/10 (This is NOT an average)

It's a fun little game that doesn't cost much, and will rope you into hours of enjoyment trying to hack the planet. Buy or rent yourself a copy of hackers and play that in the background for MAXIMUM hackage ;)

MAIN GOOD POINTS

* Simple interface in terms of graphics and sound enables you to focus your attention on the subject matter at hand.
* Satisfying mission-completion buzz.
* Cheap to buy.
* Novel plot and play mechanics.

MAIN BAD POINTS

* Simple interface in terms of graphics and sound means very little to catch the eye - you have to become immersed in it to really get anything out of it.
* Annoying in the extreme if you get really far and are then collared for a stupid mistake you've made - you have to go waaaaaaay back again :(

SO SHOULD YOU GET IT ?

Yeah ! I don't see why not - it's very cheap now, as I say, and it's not a clone of anything else I've ever played - it's unique and intriguing and, if you take a little time to get into it, really good fun to play !!

Reviewer's Score: 7/10, Originally Posted: 08/07/07