Posted July 15, 2015
So i've started up the game and been playing for... 2 days or so? So i'll give my overall opinions of the game. I'm almost done completing the Arunner set of missions, but due to how slow this thing is i might not bother with the ARC missions.
So the game has a simple & clean UI, although the font is a little hard to read if you raise the resolution beyond 800x600 (and i'm running on 1280x720). But i think i've gotten used to it.
Awesome music! I already have a thread commenting about how i listened to this years ago long before finding this game.
Difficulty, well it's not difficult, although if you don't read the modlink guides/tutorials you won't have a clue what to do on some of the missions. My biggest problem was dealing with a LAN, before finally figuring out how some of the tools worked. In most cases as long as the tracer hasn't started, you can take your time and do a good job. I've sifted through 20 bank accounts and transferred and cleared logs before clearing the last log at NIC. On the other hand one LAN mission where i'm suppose to steal files (70Gigaquads worth) had 1 jump point so by the time i log in (due to voice verification) and the admin already is halfway to me and i could get maybe 1-2 files before i get kicked off. That's an annoying situation to be in... :(
The missions and their semi-randomness reminds me of ShadowRun for the Genesis, where you could keep going to the Johnsons and get another mission to keep you busy until you had enough money or had the equipment/skills to do tougher jobs.
So some gripes...
1) You HAVE to have your cursor over the textboxes, not click them, just hovering, that lets you type into the boxes. Quite annoying when there's say only 1 box for a password and you need to get in quickly.
2) Textboxes that have a hint on them 'enter the acct no' don't clear when you click on them, so you have to manually hit backspace and hold it until the field is clear before you can enter the info.
3) The console is slightly annoying, mostly it's not well explained, you only have 6 commands you could tell it, and if any command finishes before you finish typing your current command it's either cut off, or becomes partial garbage. The fact you can delete the path can screw with any commands you give, naturally afterwards it resets so it's not quite so big a deal.
4) no scratchpad/PDA
Overall the game is rather simple... A little TOO simple. #4 above could add a lot if you had one, say you glanced over a bank's current accounts and could save the information of the numbers, and who owned them, as well as the password to use for later instead of manually writing it down on paper and then typing it in afterwards?
One thing i'd have liked to see is a pre-typed command set you could execute without manually retyping them, like for crashing a computer... It's mostly tedius.
Another thing perhaps is making/installing your own scripts on computers. The only one i can think of is for interNIC where a script would look at my IP address, and then quietly replace the log as it was being made for bounces to another address, say... 99.99.99.99? Or at a bank to notify me if someone's account had more than 500k in it via annonymous email?
Buying a private file server would be nice as well, so you could store a backup of important files. Perhaps the most important (expensive) files are the voice analyzer saves, the LAN programs and Bypass programs (all at level 5), then again after stealing 1 million only the voice data is hard to replace and requires new recordings (which might be a problem if they go to jail). Along with a file server, while you're not connected to anyone having a sync system where you could load/unload copies of files on the fly could be useful, perhaps sets depending on the missions...
Defrag with another level could sort your programs to something logical: Programs, voice data, other; Then by name or size (largest to smallest). The names of the voice data are probably the largest annoyance to sift through.
Also regarding files, a marker on them for priority or if you should be allowed to email them could be nice, otherwise you can get a really really really long list, long enough you can't send a file. In the screenshot i have the revelation virus to forward but can't because i can't physically select the file! [tiny](ignore the 'To' box, restarted the program several times while changing settings on resolution so i could take the screenshot)[/tiny]
I'd have loved to have a compression/decompression programs set up to level 10 or whatever that shrinks files by 1gigaquad per compression (so a 10Gigaquad file compressed with level 5 compression becomes a 5Gigaquad file...). On missions where you are transferring 60Gigaquads+ this could be useful, rather than making multiple attempts/jumps, or requiring the file server gateway.
The International StockMarket... you can only buy/sell 10 shares at a time which is annoying... needs a 100/1000 option as well, perhaps buy/sell max as well; Although overall it's a tiny part of the game that's easily ignored as it doesn't really seem to offer much beyond a way to earn a few extra credits if you're savvy or want to gamble.
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Finally the uplink directory. This is more a peeve than an in-game effect, but most of the dat files are just zip files renamed (with no compression). the data.dat once decoded just contains lists of names used in the game's random generation and doesn't contain anything you could mod to any real extent to add to the game or change it's behavior. As for world.dat? Delete it, it's wasted space and isn't touched by the game. when decoded it's a mp3 file, and is used for extras for people who want a challenge to decode the uplink bible that was on the bonus CD.
---
So my opinion: It could have been better. If you can look past the gripes and issues, enjoy the game, if not then you might play it for a few hours and have the feel of being a cyber criminal or hacker (for better or worse). Expect it to be tedious, and expect to get caught early on in your first couple play-throughs. And if you're like me, expect to get bored after a while...
So the game has a simple & clean UI, although the font is a little hard to read if you raise the resolution beyond 800x600 (and i'm running on 1280x720). But i think i've gotten used to it.
Awesome music! I already have a thread commenting about how i listened to this years ago long before finding this game.
Difficulty, well it's not difficult, although if you don't read the modlink guides/tutorials you won't have a clue what to do on some of the missions. My biggest problem was dealing with a LAN, before finally figuring out how some of the tools worked. In most cases as long as the tracer hasn't started, you can take your time and do a good job. I've sifted through 20 bank accounts and transferred and cleared logs before clearing the last log at NIC. On the other hand one LAN mission where i'm suppose to steal files (70Gigaquads worth) had 1 jump point so by the time i log in (due to voice verification) and the admin already is halfway to me and i could get maybe 1-2 files before i get kicked off. That's an annoying situation to be in... :(
The missions and their semi-randomness reminds me of ShadowRun for the Genesis, where you could keep going to the Johnsons and get another mission to keep you busy until you had enough money or had the equipment/skills to do tougher jobs.
So some gripes...
1) You HAVE to have your cursor over the textboxes, not click them, just hovering, that lets you type into the boxes. Quite annoying when there's say only 1 box for a password and you need to get in quickly.
2) Textboxes that have a hint on them 'enter the acct no' don't clear when you click on them, so you have to manually hit backspace and hold it until the field is clear before you can enter the info.
3) The console is slightly annoying, mostly it's not well explained, you only have 6 commands you could tell it, and if any command finishes before you finish typing your current command it's either cut off, or becomes partial garbage. The fact you can delete the path can screw with any commands you give, naturally afterwards it resets so it's not quite so big a deal.
4) no scratchpad/PDA
Overall the game is rather simple... A little TOO simple. #4 above could add a lot if you had one, say you glanced over a bank's current accounts and could save the information of the numbers, and who owned them, as well as the password to use for later instead of manually writing it down on paper and then typing it in afterwards?
One thing i'd have liked to see is a pre-typed command set you could execute without manually retyping them, like for crashing a computer... It's mostly tedius.
Another thing perhaps is making/installing your own scripts on computers. The only one i can think of is for interNIC where a script would look at my IP address, and then quietly replace the log as it was being made for bounces to another address, say... 99.99.99.99? Or at a bank to notify me if someone's account had more than 500k in it via annonymous email?
Buying a private file server would be nice as well, so you could store a backup of important files. Perhaps the most important (expensive) files are the voice analyzer saves, the LAN programs and Bypass programs (all at level 5), then again after stealing 1 million only the voice data is hard to replace and requires new recordings (which might be a problem if they go to jail). Along with a file server, while you're not connected to anyone having a sync system where you could load/unload copies of files on the fly could be useful, perhaps sets depending on the missions...
Defrag with another level could sort your programs to something logical: Programs, voice data, other; Then by name or size (largest to smallest). The names of the voice data are probably the largest annoyance to sift through.
Also regarding files, a marker on them for priority or if you should be allowed to email them could be nice, otherwise you can get a really really really long list, long enough you can't send a file. In the screenshot i have the revelation virus to forward but can't because i can't physically select the file! [tiny](ignore the 'To' box, restarted the program several times while changing settings on resolution so i could take the screenshot)[/tiny]
I'd have loved to have a compression/decompression programs set up to level 10 or whatever that shrinks files by 1gigaquad per compression (so a 10Gigaquad file compressed with level 5 compression becomes a 5Gigaquad file...). On missions where you are transferring 60Gigaquads+ this could be useful, rather than making multiple attempts/jumps, or requiring the file server gateway.
The International StockMarket... you can only buy/sell 10 shares at a time which is annoying... needs a 100/1000 option as well, perhaps buy/sell max as well; Although overall it's a tiny part of the game that's easily ignored as it doesn't really seem to offer much beyond a way to earn a few extra credits if you're savvy or want to gamble.
---
Finally the uplink directory. This is more a peeve than an in-game effect, but most of the dat files are just zip files renamed (with no compression). the data.dat once decoded just contains lists of names used in the game's random generation and doesn't contain anything you could mod to any real extent to add to the game or change it's behavior. As for world.dat? Delete it, it's wasted space and isn't touched by the game. when decoded it's a mp3 file, and is used for extras for people who want a challenge to decode the uplink bible that was on the bonus CD.
---
So my opinion: It could have been better. If you can look past the gripes and issues, enjoy the game, if not then you might play it for a few hours and have the feel of being a cyber criminal or hacker (for better or worse). Expect it to be tedious, and expect to get caught early on in your first couple play-throughs. And if you're like me, expect to get bored after a while...
