Review: .hack: Infection
Why bother with real life? There's a whole, big online World out there. So big, in fact, that Bandai had to spread it out over four volumes.
It's always endearing to see a company try something different with RPGs, and .hack ("dot hack") could not be more different if it tried. Infection is the first volume of a four-game set (the second one's due in a few months), each of which comes with a half-hour anime DVD set in the same universe but covering different characters. It's enough to make your head spin, really. Fortunately for us plebian gamers, though, the first volume mostly succeeds?mostly?in setting the stage for what should be a very exciting series.
The game takes place in The World, a fictional online game that (to put it bluntly) looks like a medieval Phantasy Star Online with blurrier graphics. The World is more than merely addictive?it's apparently putting its players, including your friend Orca, into real-life comas. As a rogue Twin Blade named Kite, you've put it upon yourself to break into The World's nether regions and investigate what the game's programmers are really up to.
A typical World server consists of a base town (where you buy items and trade stuff with other players) and a set of dungeon fields, each of which has a name like "Raging Passionate Melody" or "Detestable Golden Messenger." You enter fields by choosing three words from an overall list, and the three words put together dictate the general shape of the field (elemental attribute, monster difficulty, and so on). This essentially means that the game has a near-infinite amount of areas to explore.
Despite the online RPG fa?ade, the plot advances in traditional offline RPG-style: Nothing happens unless you make it happen by completing certain tasks in certain fields (whose names are given to you by the other characters). You'll also need to check your e-mail and read The World's message board to keep up on current events and gain hints on what to do next. Outside of plot-based events, though, you're free to tap in your own field names and see what happens?the worst that can happen is death, after all.
If you've played any Phantasy Star Online at all, you'll be right at home with the game's basic structure and battle system. The dungeons are divided into discrete, algorithmically generated rooms, just like in PSO; the battles are in real-time, just like in PSO; and it's easy to die horribly in a matter of seconds if you're not careful, just like in PSO. (At least there aren't any cheaters or stupid people. Although Piros can be weird sometimes.) The differences are slim?there's no combo-slash system like in PSO, and you can "data drain" weakened enemies to get special items and virus cores needed to enter certain areas.
The result of all this is a very simple battle system. You'll defeat most enemies simply by slashing away at them, and magic is mostly used to keep your party alive and free of status ailments. One noticeable trait is the part that attributes play?the game treats basic RPG attributes very seriously, to the point where a fire-based boss can go from near impossible to dead simple with the help of some anti-fire magic. It's advised you pay attention to this during battle?it will save you from a lot of needless level raising.
.hack has some heavy hitters from the anime industry working on the graphics, and Cyber Connect 2 has taken great pains to make sure the game World looks very close to the anime world. The models all look very nice and move smoothly (Kite's "I haven't been moved in a while" animation is simply adorable), and some of the larger enemies wouldn't be out of place prowling the fields of Final Fantasy and other graphic nirvanas. The big drawback here is in the rest of the graphics?the buildings and environments. For the most part, they're very basic, and the textures on them are blurrier than your grandma's home movies, presumably to avoid overtaxing the dungeon generation system. While it all looks like an online game, there's no reason why it had to look like a year-old PS2 title in the process.
Partly because this is the first of four volumes, and partly because this is a pseudo-online RPG we're talking about, .hack: Infection never really gets off the ground plot-wise. Trading with NPCs in town for better weapons is a great idea (and vital to get all the really good stuff), but since you only have control over Kite himself, it's hard to see the point in collecting items he can't equip. The story is charmingly written and occasionally laugh-out-loud amusing, but it's almost inconsequential compared to the amount of time spent in the battlefield. You never completely fall for the "online" illusion, but there's admittedly something very fascinating about going on a quest with a level-19 sorceress and receiving mail from her later asking what your favorite food is.
It's obvious that Bandai and CC2 really enjoyed developing this game. Despite its simple graphics and gameplay, and despite the fact that it's over in 15 to 20 hours, the sheer thoroughness of .hack's game world is very surprising. While it may not stay interesting through Volumes 2 and 3, .hack is a breezy and enchanting little RPG that most gamers won't have any problem losing themselves in. In a way, though, it's kind of a shame Bandai finished this before the Network Adapter came out. The PS2 could really use a well-designed PSO-style online RPG right about now.
![Screen Update: Sudden Strike 3: Arms for Victory [PC]](/screens/111246/183768-1-1.jpg)
![Screen Update: SOCOM: Confrontation [PS3]](/screens/131225/183708-1-1.jpg)
![Screen Update: Top Spin 3 [Xbox 360]](/screens/140562/183748-1-1.jpg)
![Screen Update: X-Blades [PC]](/screens/141241/183731-1-1.jpg)
