Chatting on the Shadowrun HK thread got me thinking - what are the best hacking mini-games out there?

Off the top of my head it seems pretty slim pickings - Shadowrun on the Snes was just minesweeper, Bioshock was just Pipe Dream, Shadowrun Returns was just the regular game in wireframe. I think Shadowrun Hong Kong is ok, although it's a stealth game with a bit of Simon and Mastermind thrown in.

For my money it's probably Shadowrun on the Mega Drive (Genesis), because it changed the playstyle of the regular game while matching its aesthetic (90s VR!) and didn't just rip-off an old game. Deus Ex: Human Revolution was pretty good too, because it actually required some strategy.

Thoughts?

Hacking in System Shock was pretty sweet and confusing.

There was "James Bond Jr" 2D Action game for NES, you had to hack computers to turn off rockets. I was stuck with one of rockets, because game was Nintendo Hard (made for NES, go figure).

How about those lovely hacking mini games in Alpha Protocol? The only time you have to BE in the Matrix to stand any chance.

I've yet to see an actually satisfying hacking minigame. They're normally something so totally different from the main game that they don't actually feel like hacking, they just feel like a minigame...
... or they're so similar to the main game that they don't feel like hacking, they just feel like a reskin of the main game.

The hacking minigame in Cyberia actually felt like hacking, though, I must admit. But it wasn't satisfying either.

Deus ex: Human Revolution has a nice hacking minigame.

The only developer who made minigames I found tolerable was Cinemaware.

I kind of liked Fallout 3 and Fallout: NV's approach to hacking. Disliked Oblivions lock-picking....

Real life hacking.

Watch_Dogs -> Press button to hack xP

I actually liked the hacking game in Mass Effect 2. Probably because it looks like a puzzle of Visual Studio screenshots... The cyberspace in SS is really cool, but I hesitate to call it "minigame".

Sounds like Fallout 3 and New Vegas

That's it, yes, Fallout 3/NV hacking. I play far too many games ;o)

Neo, they are converging on your location, get out of there!

I find the term "Nintendo Hard" to be rather strange, particularly since Nintendo's games (except for a few of the early games) are certainly not hard. In fact, the original Super Mario Bros. is relatively easy compared to many of the games produced by other companies. (Of course, I never beat it before All-Stars came out even then.)

Personally, I think a better way to do a hacking "mini-game" might be to do it the way Arbitrary Code Execution (ACE) tricks work in some games; get the right items in your inventory with the right quantities in the right order and trick the game into executing them. If I were to do it for a hacking mini-game, I would only require common items and maybe some key item that exists to prevent completing the game without it.