.hack: Infection: A poor attempt at a MMORPG
knuest
20% score
The concept behind this game is that you are a kid and you play an MMORPG by connecting to "The World", except there is no real-life network connection involved. It is kind of like playing an MMORPG offline. For the most part, to advance in the game, you must follow the linear path that has been given to you. You can veer off that path to travel to uncharted places and increase your skills, but you do not advance in the main scheme of the game. The game play is good. It is a real-time battle system like is found in MMORPG games. This is in contrast to the turn-based system that is so well known to the Final Fantasy franchise. This helps the fun factor of the game. The structure of the game, however, does not. Also, dungeons of the different worlds are all structured the same. There are a handful of different textures that are applied to the walls of the dungeons, but other than that, the monotony gets old very fast. The thing that is the worst about the dungeons is the complete lack of save points. A player could spendtwo hours in a dungeon, die near the end, and loss all the experience and items gained. This happens quite often and is a huge turnoff to the game. After this happens once or twice, the player is ready to put this game away. Thanks to the code system of the portal in "The World", there are virtually an unlimited number of different places to visit. Unfortunately they all look the same and few have something special to offer. What is worse is that there are four parts to this entire story! If you want to know how the story ends, you must go through all four of these excruciating games to find out. To add insult to injury, BAN-DIA is releasing .Hack//G.U. which is an entirely new independent game of its own. If you want to see the concept of an offline MMORPG in action, rent this game. Otherwise, steer clear of this Final Fantasy/World of Warcraft wannabe. ~Kevin Nuest
