.hack//Infection is the first in a series of 4 RPG's that follow on from the Anime series .hack//SIGN. You play as a person that has just finished his registration of the largest MMORPG in the world, simply called "The World". As well as diving straight into "The World", you are able to check your mail and fiddle around with the desktop settings, and to check a message board occupied by the other players in "The World".
"Welcome to the Real World"
The .hack World is one that is meant to be viewed from many different angles. The free DVD that you get with .hack//Infection contains interviews and previews of .hack//SIGN and the official OAV, .hack//Liminality, which tells the story outside "The World" and the odd things happening to certain players. This links in with the Out of World feeling you get with the ALTIMIT operating system that you use to log into "The World"
This isn't an MMORPG! There's no n00bs!
Logging in, you meet up with your best mate, who is a reasonably well known player. However, in showing you the ropes, your pal gets mashed into a pulp by a very powerful monster using a strange technique. Your friend falls into a coma, you are given a mysterious book, and so the game begins proper.
The playing field outside the Root (Main) town, is made up of random keywords that generate a field, weather, monsters, their elements and a multi-level dungeon. Certain words will affect certain aspects of the random generation ("Bursting" usually wields low level monsters). At the bottom of every dungeon is a treasure chest that has a nice item or piece of equipment in, like Phantasy Star Online without the net connection.
I don't associate with hackers!
With the book that you've gotten, your character changes in appearance and you become a rouge player, armed with the same powers that the virus that has infected "The World". This gives you the ability to Data Drain, where you use your viral powers to rewrite, de-level and itemize the data you've gained. Enemies where the virus has moved to an advanced stage have glitched up HP figures and are therefore invulnerable. Using Data Drain allows you to defeat them. This power does come at a cost, you yourself have been infected, and if Data Drain is used too much, your character will corrupt and you get Game Over. Thankfully you can reduce this counter by defeating enemies without Data Drain.
MMORPGS Have Storylines?
The Story is fairly linear, you are given keywords by characters, emails and board posts, and these usually lead you to eerie corrupted areas with a dungeon inhabited by a creature infected with the virus. This does mean that gameplay is highly repetitive, all the other areas are similar (All 1000+ of them) as they contain a field with monsters, a dungeon with different coloured monsters and treasure, which is your only method of making money. The Characters you fight with do have their own personalities and will annoy you (just as real players do) for healing or resurrects but they help you advance the storyline and will provide needed combat support through a simple menu system of commands that you shout at them, and unlike real players, they will follow them 100% of the time.
"Are you some kind of Newbie?"
As with Final Fantasy X, only the main characters are given voices, and most in game chat between your party is handled with speech bubbles, which are also used to convey your orders to your party members. The graphics manage to convey the feeling of a game world, the areas are pretty bland and may have a few objects sticking out of the ground, nothing really special. The dungeons are typically dungeon like, bland and grey. The corrupted areas are similar, but have random numbers floating around and tears in the landscape with visible code underneath. Somehow, this simple change in visuals does make these areas seem more creepy, but nothing RPG gamers have seen before.
To be continued...
It should be remembered that .hack//Infection is only part 1 of 4, and directly following the story will only yield a maximum of 20 hours. As with all multi-part games, finishing the game will leave you with a sense of emptiness, as the story has not finished, and you realize you have to fork out more money for the next part of the series (.hack//Mutation). However, the multi-part nature allows improvements to be made between the individual games.
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