psycho_gamer's Full Review: . Hack: Infection PS2 for PlayStation 2
.hack//MUTATION marks the second game in a 4 part series of games developed by Cyber Connect 2 and published by Bandai. It continues the experiment by the game developer to see what happens when they make an offline game that simulates an online game. A risky venture to be sure. Even riskier was splitting up the game into 4 different installments, all to be released within 1 year, with the first game, .hack//INFECTION, being released just 3 months before the second chapter. That's a lot to ask gamers to invest in just to complete the story and will undoubtedly turn many gamers who are on the fence about the series away.
The Story
For those who are interested in the series though, .hack//MUTATION continues the story started in the first game exactly where the first game left off. In .hack//INFECTION, we learned about The World which is a hugely popular online role playing game in the future. Millions of gamers around the world are playing this game, making it the most successful game in the history of games. Neat huh? Well, hold on, you need more drama then that to make a good game, and luckily, there is tons of drama, paranoia and plot twists in .hack, it makes Melrose Place look like Sesame Street.
Turns out, as it is, that gamers around the world are unexplainably falling into a coma and some are even dying while playing the game, The World and in the first game, one of your buddies fell victim to this unexplained phenomena and lapsed into a coma while playing the game. Your task, should you choose to accept it, and you will, is to get to the bottom of the mystery and find out why people are getting hurt while playing a simple video game.
Sadly, unless you played the first game in the series, you would never know any of that, as .hack//MUTATION throws the player straight into the action with no back story or explanation of what is happening at all. This isn't such a big deal, as it is obvious the developers intended the player to have started the series with Part 1, as it should be, by the way. The option to import your INFECTION saved game data to the second one and start off with all the items you collected and experience gained is evidence of this. But still, this is a problem for many people who started with Part 2 and quickly became hopelessly lost and died rather quickly.
MUTATION will continue the story along and offer a bunch more details about the goings on in the .hack universe then the first one did, which left you with more questions then answers. Thankfully, most of these questions are answered in part 2, but unfortunately, a whole host of new questions arise. I guess that's what part 3 is for.
Game Play
The game play in .hack//MUTATION plays exactly like the first one did. There is not really anything new at all, which isn't necessarily a bad thing, just a little disappointing.
Battles are played out in real time once again. Sadly, the clunky menu interface used for battles makes its return, unchanged. Even though the battles are real time, you are forced to pause the game, bring up the battle menu, scroll all over the place looking for that one spell you need to win, all of which is awkward. A quick battle menu would be perfection, ahem, developers, I'm talking to you. All of the magic spells make a return as well as a few new and more powerful spells.
All the enemies are super charged in this installment compared to part 1. You will notice quite a difficulty increase with the first enemy you encounter. Which keeps the game somewhat fresh and offers more of a challenge to those players who were near unbeatable at the end of part 1.
The game is played out through game servers, which are basically root towns you can go to and talk to other simulated players and buy weapons, gear and play a few mini games. In part 1, there were 3 servers or root towns to choose from. All three make their return in part 2 along with 1 brand new one, which offers even more of a variety of dungeons you can visit and people you can meet.
The amount and variety of collectible and usable items in part 2 is also greatly increased. There are a whole host of cool and powerful new weapons and armor to be found, which can offer quite a challenge to even the most seasoned of .hack players to get them all.
The game will take longer to complete than the pathetically short INFECTION (which took on average 12 hours to beat). This time around, to complete the story portion and do all the extra mini games and side quests, will take the average gamer about 20 hours. Still short, but better than part 1. As with the first game, players will be able to import their saved game data from part 2 to .hack//OUTBREAK (part 3) when it is released in October. This again is a nice feature as it makes you feel less ripped off after spending all your time leveling up and collecting items to not have the story end and have the dreaded "to be continued" on your screen after the final boss.
Graphics
The graphics in .hack//MUTATION are identical to that of INFECTION. Nothing has changed at all, which is not a bad thing once again, but a little disappointing. The characters are all well animated and look good as do the enemies. There is a nice variety to all the enemies as well. The magic spells you unleash are impressive enough and add a nice touch to the game.
The dungeons on the other hand, look decent enough, but again, as with the first game, they all look the same. You will spend countless hours in what looks to be the same place, but in actuality is many different dungeons. A little more variety in this department would have been nice.
The camera is serviceable. It has its moments of controller throwing frustration while trying to maneuver it to see the enemy your supposed to kill, but for the most part it does a decent enough job.
Sound
The sound is decent, good music that doesn't stand out or get in the way of the game. Most of the time, it does a good job of setting the tone for the game.
The story is once again fleshed out through cut scenes, which are all well done and voice acted (though somewhat overvoice acted). Some of the text loses its punch during the translation process, but overall, the cheese factor, while there, isn't too high.
Bonuses
Once again, as with the first game, a 30 minute anime DVD is packed in with the game. Entitled, .hack//Liminality, it tells the happenings of the .hack universe in the real world, not the game world like the game. Boy, that sounds confusing, and it is. But the DVD quality again is superb and the story it tells is great and offers some much needed insight into the .hack story.
Overall
Overall, if you played .hack//INFECTION and liked it, you will like part 2. It's the same game in almost all respects and it just continues the story which was started in part 1. If you didn't like .hack//INFECTION or think that ultimately paying $200 for a series of games is a huge money making ploy by the evil developers, than run away from .hack//MUTATION. Run Forrest, run, before your eyes start to bleed.
In the end, .hack//MUTATION is a fine RPG and is better, as far as the story goes, then .hack//INFECTION. It's game play, though flawed at times, is still fun and addictive and that, in the end is all that matters.
It's the year 2010, and the most popular game ever is the World, a massive action/RPG game that connects people around the planet. When the newbie nam...More at Amazon Marketplace
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