.hack//Infection

Genre: MMORPG
Platform: PS2
Allegiance: Bandai
Vintage: 2003
Rating: T
Intelligence Agency Report by: Katelin
The year is 2010 and you are invited to play the best selling MMORPG of all time ‘The World’. You enter ‘The World’ as the newbie player Kite, but soon you find that ‘The World’ is more than just a simple video game when your close friend Orca is left in a coma after your first quest. Now you must journey into the depths of ‘The World’ in order to find out the truth behind the mysterious events that unfold around you.

Weapons Expert Report by: Katelin 
Story/Premise
Gameplay
Impact
Visual
Audio
9.00
7.00
8.50
7.50
9.00
Overall 8.00
(not an average)
Version Reviewed: Playstation 2

One of the few true “role playing games” in many years for a console system, .hack//INFECTION is a fast paced simulated MMORPG (Massive Multiplayer Online Role Playing Game) where you control a dual blade named Kite, on a quest to find truth in a virtual world. As a player in an MMORPG you will find it to your advantage to make friends and work together with other players in order to excel in ‘The World’. Each player character has an unique personality and play style. Each player will act differently depending to your actions, battle commands, and their character’s own needs. 

 

The game play is very simple and intuitive. Once you jump into the game, with or without previous MMORPG experience you will be able to pick up how to play, and how to equip your character from the very beginning. Travel and combat are quick thanks to Chaos Gates in the root towns of each server. They allow you to use custom keywords to create different types of play fields and dungeons. Not only are the battles in these zones exciting, but the down time between fights is far less of a problem than in games like EverQuest where you must spend considerable time recovering after even some rather mild battles. 

 

The only true down side is in the amount of story you can play through. As the first disc in a four disc series, the story line is unfinished and short lived. While there is a near infinite number of areas to explore and tons of items to locate, the story portion of the game can be cleared in under a day easily by some of the more hard core players. 

Where many true MMORPGs fall short on action and flexibility for causal players, .hack//INFECTION doesn’t. In fact it’s the perfect game for those who love the feel of MMORPGs, but cannot afford the time you have to invest, or dislike dealing with other real players. I would recommend this game to anyone who loves role playing games of any kind as long as they don’t mind the idea of only being able to play through one-fourth of the complete story.