Short review of the best hacker-simulation
When noone thought it was possible, Uplink succeeded in one of the most hypocritical genres, 'Hacking', and found a working balance between fun and authenticity that would keep players playing.
Uplink manages to take out the worst amount of dullness and reptitivity that you may find in a real hackers life, but the mistake it makes is to remove the complexity as well. The missions are simple and straightforward, too straightforward, as the approach for each and every mission is laid out beforehand.
There's no real "searching for the weak link", no tricking the target system all by yourself, which is also what makes hacking interesting. The game focuses a lot on the 'paranoia' aspect of hacking, and credits to that, but when you've completed a mission, you don't really feel like you did the job, you didn't figure out some cool workaround, you simply did what you did all the other times.
The game took a step in the right direction with LAN-systems, where you have to find your way to the target computer through a web of security measures, but even this gets old after a while. I guess almost anything you could come up with would, and this is why you shouldn't expect more than a fun, casual game from this.
The graphics are adequate, and this isn't what you should judge a hacking game by. But a bit more style would have been a nice addition.
The sound is great, nothing to come after here.
Overall, this game is what you can realistically expect it to be. While it could be better, this is the best bet on a game in the hacking genre you'll see for now. A solid 4/5 from me, and a definite recommendation to try it out.
