Okay, here's the part where I peel back the typical reviewer's supposed anonymity and objectivity to reveal some personal bias. I have spent a fair amount of time tinkering with *nix, command-line editing, and even some secure network protocols like SSH. Enough to know what I don't know... So my problem with
Hacker Evolution: Untold is that it offers a simulation of something that isn't all that difficult to have "for real." Not that hacking servers and stealing money is something I've ever done, or that most people do on a daily basis. To the extent that
Hacker Evolution: Untold lets players simulate the more difficult or illegal aspects of hacking, it is a great success. Where it doesn't do enough is in breaking out of the mold of just "screens in screens" to provide something that will actually raise your pulse and take you away from your drab home office or dorm room.
The kind of thing that is missing from Hacker Evolution: Untold is being done now in many console RPGs and Action/Adventure games. Think about the hacking mini-games inserted into a game like Mass Effect as an example. Using your noggin in the heat of some battle, or while watching a ticking time-bomb count down, is more engaging than what is on offer in Hacker Evolution: Untold. The other bias I'll admit is a deep fondness for text-based adventures such as those from the Infocom stable back in the '80s. Hacker Evolution: Untold seems like more a throwback and upgrade to that style of gaming than anything current and cutting-edge in the console world. If the braininess of this game were combined with the visceral punch of something like Mass Effect or any of the more one-dimensional action titles out on consoles, we'd really have something to crow about.
The play style in Hacker Evolution: Untold involves accessing remote servers or devices, analyzing their weaknesses, and then finding ways to exploit those weaknesses to serve your ends. The story behind the game is well thought out, kind of a hacker's armchair version of the kind of "A.I. apocalypse" featured in the Terminator saga. Instead of flexing your Linda Hamiltons, you'll just move those little digits around the keyboard and take out one challenge after another. The best moments are when mission objectives are interlaced and complex enough to make you feel the urgency and anxiety you would feel watching a hacker fighting the clock in some Hollywood summer movie. The worst moments are when the game drags and you feel like you could have as much fun firing up the Console app on your Mac and reading man pages...
