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30 of 32 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Problems, Problems, April 12, 2003
One of the problems about reviewing this game is that it is hard to decide what it is that you are reviewing. Is it the total concept of game, film, manga, and TV series? Or one fourth of a game? Or any of the above. The reason this is particularly perplexing is that of all of the above, the game it the only thing that falls a bit short of expectations. It isn't at all bad, just 'ordinary.'While formed from the interesting concept of a virtual gaming world gone psychotic, what .hack//Infection really is a dungeon based adventure game comprised of hack-and-slash travels through levels to get treasure. The classic RPG with a bit of a twist, it starts when Kite, a new player, is introduced to 'The World' by his friend Orca. On their first outing to a dungeon, Orca is attacked by a mutated monster and permanently loses consciousness. It is up to Kite, and the friends he makes to try to find out what is really going on. Script is pretty minimal, especially when compared to the story lines of FFX or Suikoden III. Essentially, e-mails or board postings trigger events and supply the code names of playing fields and dungeons. Kite assembles a team of three and goes to each location for information. A fair amount of time is spent leveling up in order to be strong enough to accomplish the next task. To facilitate this, the player can compose his own keywords or even have a playing field generated for him at random. There is room for considerable variation, but the fields aren't really all that imaginative. Despite a pretty face, the game engine is dated, and the game interface is a bit inconsistent. The same key doesn't always to the same thing. And it can take a lot of controller actions to run a real time battle. All in all, the game is entertaining, but not compelling. Character design is excellent though. Hopefully, future parts will extend playing capabilities. The accompanying film DVD is called .hack//Liminality (volume 1). It is the story of Mai Minase, whose boyfriend is demonstrating 'The World' to her when they are attacked. He too loses consciousness for the duration. She meets Junichiro Tokuoka, who seems to have had something to do with the game originally, and is now investigating why people are permanently losing consciousness when they play. I wish I could take more time in this review to discuss this DVD, because it is excellent. An interesting plot, nicely drawn with interesting characters. I can see buying the games just to get the film DVD's. Overall, the game is the weakest part of the .hack package. But I don't want to give the impression that it is bad. It simply doesn't live up to the overwhelming hype so far. I found it quite playable as a traditional dungeons oriented game. With three more chapters to go this could change in a flash, and I am too curious not to continue. I think you will find this true for yourself as well.
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