Hacknet

Wazzup, have you ever wanted to be a leet haxor and backdoor the mainframe by overclocking the firewall? Well, now you can with the hacking simulator Hacknet! (Not to be confused with Nethack.)

In all seriousness, Hacknet is a pretty nifty puzzle game that recreates the feeling of a hacker in a Hollywood movie. It's awesome.

The game begins with a mysterious message from a person known as Bit telling you that they're dead and a sweet suite of hacking tools. Score! You then go on a series of hacking missions, and... that's the game!

Hacknet is played through an in-game terminal. There's a graphic interface to help you jump from computer to computer and navigate through files and folders, but the hacking takes place through the command prompt. Hacking through the command line preserves the feeling of being a legit hacker, while the graphic interface saves you from awkward command prompt file navigation.

The main gameplay begins with analyzing a computer's security to discover the ports connecting the computer to the network. Hacking into a computer requires opening a predetermined number of those ports with your various hacking tools.

There's a variety of missions in the game, and several obstacles will pop up as you progress. I could go into more detail or give some examples, but one of the major joys of the game is experiencing and being surprised by the game's developments for yourself. Once you get used to the game and figure out some tips and tricks, the basic hacking loop can admittedly get a bit repetitive. But it's that comforting, familiar gameplay loop that makes the variations so engaging, and the different security settings on each computer means no two hacks are exactly the same. If all the missions were special, none of them would be.

The graphics are sleek and modern, further leaning into the futuristic hacker vibe. You have a certain amount of control over the theme and skin of the game, so you can customize it to a look that suits you.

Even if the interface doesn't do it for you, the electro-trance soundtrack is certain to get you in the mood. The music will get you hyped up as you analyze the target's defenses, surge as you put your plan into action, and then mellow out when you get the payload and can finally exhale. It's trance music, so it's designed to be played on repeat for extended periods of time and never gets grating. It also means that the music mostly just fades into the background, setting the mood for your own personal hacker movie.

There are two main flaws in Hacknet. The first, as already discussed, is the repetitive nature of some missions, but this is a necessary evil to make the special missions actually feel special. The other flaw is the lack of interactivity outside of hacking.

You get missions and communicate with other hackers through email, but you can only receive emails, not send them. Sometimes the person who gives you the mission will tell you to let them know if you find anything interesting or encounter any issues, but... you can't. When you finish a mission you report it by clicking the "Reply" button in your email, but you don't get to actually type out a response, or even see the message that your character supposedly sent. As soon as you hit "Reply," you'll immediately receive another email from the person who gave you the mission congratulating you on a job well done, and that's it.

In the DLC, you communicate in a chatroom rather than email, and this just compounds the issue. It's a chatroom you literally can't chat in. The issue isn't the lack of interactivity itself, but that the lack of interactivity in the in-game emails and chatroom breaks the immersion. When you're bouncing from computer to computer, hacking networks and stealing files, you might begin to feel like you're really a hacker, but the email system and chatroom are immediate reminders that this is nothing more than a game. I understand that implementing a communication system would've been way too complicated, but I think presenting the missions should have been presented in a context where the lack of interaction wasn't immersion-breaking.

Despite these flaws, the game is solid. It does what it wants to do, with style and flair. It's obvious a lot of effort was put into Hacknet; if you take the time to explore the computers you hack into beyond the files you need for the missions, you'll find tons of extra little details. Each computer has data on it that gives you a glimpse into its owner. While the computers obviously have way fewer files than a real computer would have, those extraneous files still go a long way towards establishing a world beyond the computers you're hacking into. If there's one complaint, it's that a lot of computers have excerpts from the bash quote database, and near the end of the game there are some repeats. But this is a pretty minor issue. (So minor, I didn't even bring it up in the paragraphs where I discussed Hacknet's flaws!)

Don't expect too much from the overarching plot. Hacknet is one of those games that opens with a mysterious message from a stranger and involves interacting with the game world through an electronic terminal. This time, you get a message from a person called Bit, who tells you that they're already dead. I've seen Hacknet described as a "murder mystery"... but it's not. As you progress through the game you'll find traces and records of Bit here and there, but there aren't any "clues" and Bit's fate is just handed to you on a silver platter near the end. That's not to say the plot is bad, as it ends up doing a perfectly fine job providing context for the gameplay, but you don't get to ever really investigate or solve Bit's murder. Don't go in expecting something from the plot that it won't give you.

The last thing to mention is the DLC, Labyrinths. It's awesome. If you get Hacknet, get Labyrinths. Labyrinths adds an extra series of missions that can be played at any point after the game's intro sequence. Labyrinths is best played early, since the challenges are more interesting if you aren't already a master hacker, and Labyrinths gives you a few programs that will be useful when you get back to the main game. This means you can't get Hacknet and say you'll get Labyrinths if you like the base game; if you do that, you'll miss the optimal timing! So just trust me, get Labyrinths off the bat, and play it early in the game. If there's one thing wrong with the DLC, it's that it makes the main game feel like a step down when you return to it.

Bottom line: Hacknet is a sweet hacking puzzle game. Unless that sounds abysmally boring to you, get it, along with the DLC.

>cd log
>rm *
>forkbomb