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Unique, suspenseful, and exciting

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 27 / 27
Date: May 16, 2003
Author: Amazon User

Unique, suspenseful, and exciting.

Ahhh, Uplink. Another one of those games that most people have never heard of. And if you haven't heard of it, and you are looking for an exciting and unique simulation, then you have been missing out. Uplink: Hacker Elite isn't just the only game of its kind. It is also an excellent game.

The game has a basic premise. You are a freelance hacker in the year 2010, free to commit all sorts of cyber crimes however you would like. It's kind of like Grand Theft Auto in cyberspace. It is executed very well. The simulation never gets "out of character", so to speak. The start game screen isn't even a typical start game screen - it's a "login" screen onto the game's virtual network.

What this game does a great job of doing is giving you a feeling of mischief that comes from poking your nose into places it is not supposed to be. You accept jobs off of a bulletin board, sabotaging corporate data, breaking into banks, and doing other assorted dirty deeds. You break into secure systems by hacking passwords, disabling firewalls, and other methods, and then work as fast as you can before you are traced. It's very exciting, and it gives you a devious pleasure when you successfully sabotage a company's files.

"Uplink: Hacker Elite" has all sorts of different things to explore. Did you get caught and get yourself a criminal record? Hack into the criminal database and erase it! Are you going to destroy a corporate database? Buy the stock of the company's competitor and make some money off of it. You have to either experiment and figure this stuff out for yourself, or use a walkthrough from the internet. The difficulty level of the game is insane, and it gives you almost no hints.

This game is certainly not for everyone. You will probably either love it or hate it. It requires lots of brainpower, experimentation and planning, and it can get extremely frustrating. This game is very unforgiving, and does not allow you to reload a saved game if you get caught (but there are ways around that). However, you won't find anything else like it out there, and it's very well done. If stealing files from a corporation and then framing someone else for the crime sounds like fun to you, then "Uplink: Hacker Elite" is the game for you.

A tedious process made fun.

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 10 / 10
Date: March 19, 2003
Author: Amazon User

The game basically gives you missions. Once accepted, you're given a target and a basic outline of the goal. Maybe copy a file, delete one, or change some record. You set up a connection by clicking 'nodes' on a global map to make a complicated web of connections, giving you more time before you're traced. At one end of your connection maze is your computer, the other is the target. After connecting you see a username/password screen. Running a utility on this screen begins to break the password by trying various combinations of letters. This is when the action picks up.

The instant you perform a suspicious act it is detected by the system, which initiates a trace on your connection. A direct connection is discovered instantly, and you're hit with a hefty fine, or in worse cases, game over. Since the game saves constantly, game over is the end; you must start over at the beginning. The trace-tracker application beeps faster and faster as the trace nears your system... the password breaker finishes and you are granted access, but are quickly running out of time to do what you came for. You start the file copy... beep-beep-beep, it gets faster... only a few seconds left...

And so, you see what I mean. The game has a good storyline behind it as well as a well-detailed fake-net to play in. You can do pretty much anything you want to anybody, though doing these things risks getting caught. Occasionally I find myself going off an a grudge against one of the competing hackers that attempted to trace me down, editing his criminal record and getting him imprisoned for 10-15 years on computer fraud and destruction of propery. *evil grin*

If you play too much, however, it's not all that hard to break the storyline, or one of the pending missions. MOre than once i've accepted a mission to destroy a computer, then another one (posted earlier) that asked me to retrieve a file from that system. The missions are NOT flexible, and must be accomplished to the letter.

The interface, while slick, still lacks many of the refinements that we're used to seeing in windows. Text-boxes can only be modified by deleting everything in them back to the point that you wish to change, then replacing everything after. Tables don't sort when you click a column header, and the whole thing is a little sluggish due to a lack of proper utilization of directX acceleration and code optimization. There's an adequate tutorial to get you started, but extensive research on the forums was the only way that I could begin to delve farther into the game without being caught. The game is full of exploitable situations too. One, for example, is a mission where you track down some poor guy that stole 800 thousand dollars from his company, noticing afterward that the illegal funds are still there. A little bank job and you've got enough money to buy every single piece of software and hardware upgrade in the game, making hacking very easy. There are systems that never change their passwords or trace you, just begging to be the starting point of all your hacks so you can easily pop in later and delete the logs... Still, it is a catchy game that I play nearly daily.

If you are even a little interested in hacking, and want a good thinking-man's game full of mystery and cloak & dagger, At the budget price, this game is for you. If you prefer action-packed shoot-em-ups and simple arcade-style games with little or no strategic thinking or instruction-reading required, then give it a miss.

Great Independant Game

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 8 / 8
Date: March 04, 2003
Author: Amazon User

The basic premise is that you are a freelance hacker working through the Uplink Corporation. Uplink specializes in providing secure gateways through which hackers do their dirty work. In the event the hacker is tracked the gateway is lost, but the hacker remains hidden. Your task is to make money by successfully completing hacks for various corporations with which you can upgrade your gateway to open up new hacking opportunities. Eventually a true plot emerges and you end up fighting on the frontlines in the battle for the future of the internet.

Being created by three bedroom programmers it lacks the high-end graphics and system killing effects of other games, but it is highly addictive and refreshingly original.

A must have for gamers

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 7 / 7
Date: June 26, 2004
Author: Amazon User

this game is basics simple and frustratingly hard. this combines timing, knowlegde, memory, and cunning. you hack banks, jails, companys, and people's homes and schools. this game is challenging and extreamly addictive. there is no way you can get tired of this game. there are so many places to hack you can never get them all

Really Cool!

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 7 / 7
Date: December 07, 2003
Author: Amazon User

This game is really, really cool! For starters, it's pretty easy to get used to. Secondly, it's fun. The game's nerve-racking tension gets higher and higher as your Trace Viewer (You'll have to buy that at the start of the game for virtual-money) bleeps and tells you that someone is 87% hacking you. Anyways, buy this game. It's fun and will keep you occupied for hours on end.

Innovation among imitators

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 8 / 9
Date: March 08, 2003
Author: Amazon User

The timer ticks down, a few seconds left. The trace is beeping like crazy. You type in a flurry of keys and quickly disconnect JUST before you are actively traced. You go back to one of the servers and delete your logs to hide the tracks. Welcome to the world of uplink. The game is amazingly innovative: you do missions, gaining money, power, prestige, and the almighty powerful computer. This game combines the money management aspects of Mechwarrior 2: mercenaries, with the suspense of a hacker movie.
When I first saw the review for this game it seemed appealing, but too good to be true. It wasn't until I downloaded that demo that I realized how cool this game is. Each hacking mission is either a race against time, or a way to showpony your skills. This is one of the few games that gave me an adrenaline rush when I first played it. The only other games that have given the adrenaline rush are counter-strike and doom. The game is constantly tense, filled with suspense.

The music for the game suits it very well. I choose to listen to the music rather than play my own. The various beeps, clicks, and dial-up sounds are great, and definitely add to the im-a-dangerous-hacker feel of the game. The game is very open ended. I am not a programmer, I am a gamer, and yet I love this game.

Never Thought A Hacking Game Would Be That Good!

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 6 / 6
Date: May 09, 2005
Author: Amazon User

This hacker simulation game is simply better than my imagination. You are first hired to do hacking tasks, taken by fairly good tutorial, and then moving on to the real world. you have to go through all kind of password cracking, firewall bypassing, Bouncing Connections, it even has its command line feature. You start gradually and have all the support material included as part of the game itself.

You really get the feeling you are in a hacking mode from the first look at the game cover. Even entering the serial number has never been so much fun where you have to go through a matrix of scrambeled numbers. Sound has a great taste as well... reminds me of the movie "Recruit".

If you are really into hacking, this game is the choice for you.

Makes you sweat

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 6 / 8
Date: February 29, 2004
Author: Amazon User

Nothing gets my blood flowing knowing that I have 10 seconds to wipe the logs on the computer and get out before the feds catch me. A great game in my opinion.

The only problem with it is that you need to be quite good to get far. The other problem is the STUPID verification that you have to do each time you start a new account. On the back of the CD label there is a Hexadecimal grid with numbers and the games says it wants what is in Row A Column 6. This primitive anti-piracy feature is reminiscent of the days of "Lost Vikings".

Other then that, if you can do well, you will get far. DO NOT MAKE THE MISTAKE OF THINKING THAT IS HACKING LOOKS LIKE. This is a crude representation.

A different kind of game

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 5 / 7
Date: August 06, 2003
Author: Amazon User

This game is probably best classified as a Hacking-Sim. As far as I can tell, it does a very good job of simulating the experience, even the tension of getting caught. As for advertising, computer game magazines have given it good reviews. Computer Gaming World gave it 4 out of 5 stars. ... I highly recommend you try the game.

You only think you are a gamer.... then you enter Uplink!!

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 4 / 5
Date: July 08, 2003
Author: Amazon User

You haven't played a game until you played Uplink: Hacker Elite! This game is so captivating and so cool - even non-gamers are drawn in (Like myself)...
Awesome game!!! Love it! A DEFINITE MUST BUY!!!!!
Don't believe me? Go to the website for a FREE DEMO version and you will love it!!! Way worth the money!!!... go ... for the demo....

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