I am an idiot sometimes. Now that we’ve gotten something obvious out of the way, let’s talk about a game I’ve been playing again for the last week, Hacknet. I’ve previously mentioned it in a review of NITE Team 4 a year ago, and during that review I also referenced this strange little game about hacking. That’s the thing about games, they tend to do “hacking” in two ways in recent years; Ok, three if you call Watch_Dogs anything close to hacking. Most of the time in games it will either be Pipe Mania/Pipe Dream which is the route of Bioshock‘s “hacking” mini-game. Alternately games will focus on clicking around the screen while a story happens (See Orwell).

To show or to simulate hacking is quite a hard thing, as seen in the 1995 movie Hackers. While Hackers had about as much to do with hacking as The Italian Job (2003) had to do with The Italian Job (1969), it would show hacking in that usual montage way movies do when they need to wave their hand and misdirect. With a game, it is very hard to wave your hand and misdirect without something else going on.

If you are focused on the action and what is happening, then a misdirect is difficult unless something draws your attention away. That’s why the one-handed magician with a temper never worked out, he spent half the time waving to the audience. That is the reason games often give you that satisfying little Pipe Dream puzzle. It tells you that you’ve done something when you’ve just had a hand waved in your face.

This brings me to Hacknet, one of the boldest games about hacking and also one of the worst at being a game. A game somewhat needs to be idiot-proof, and as I’ve proven time and time again, Hacknet is not idiot-proof. You’ll see this with Fallout New Vegas and The Outer Worlds, both games allow you to kill everyone but you still need to move forward in the story. Something else you’ll notice games do quite a lot is auto-saving, or not allowing you to make multiple save slots that you can access at any time. The reason many games allow you to save when you want, load any save, or alternately don’t allow you to kill everyone is that we’re all stupid humans. Coding, planning, and writing for the kill everyone option is a nightmare.

The one thing Hacknet does without all that coding, planning, and writing, is it allows you to effectively do the “kill everyone” run. It also saves when it feels like it and doesn’t allow you to load a previous save. The reason I said I am a stupid man is how many times I’ve broken Hacknet and needed to restart the entire game tutorial and all. This is why hacking games and mini-games aren’t as complex as real hacking, to give you a shred of it there needs to be several failsafe options. That, is something Hacknet doesn’t have.

As you can see in the image above, Hacknet is a terminal-based hacking game. Depending on the layout you are given, each piece of the terminal can shift. The middle is often your monitor that will show emails, and the back-end UI of computers, phones, and servers you are hacking. On the right, you might find the terminal command console, where you’ll type “cd up,” “dc,” and on occasion “sshqVJMWR 22” in a rush. On the left, you’ll find the notes, CPU usage, and all the programs using up the CPU at any given time. Under the server UI, there is a map of nodes all connecting to IP addresses you’ll be hacking or logging into.

If you know anything about computers other than checking the latest conspiracy theory post your uncle posts on Facebook, you’ll know what most of that means. Don’t worry, it’s not that complicated, as Hacknet does hold your hand a lot of the time. However, when it gives you enough freedom you may want that hand back. If you stick to every word, you’ll find it to be fine, it does what it is all supposed to. The problem is how much I want to go off on one and “rm *” (delete) everything, operating system, .txt files, and backups, everything. That’s not the best idea when you’re meant to download a file and upload it to the hacker cell’s server.

Arguably that’s a great thing, Hacknet pulls me right into this psychopath mentality destroying hundreds of lives as I get into their easy-to-hack phones and delete anniversary reminders. However, as much as the feeling of Hacknet is top-notch, it doesn’t prove to be the best when you are trying to advance through the story and you misread an email. This might be a case of dyslexia getting in the way of gaming, but major parts of the game require you to hang on every word in emails, notes, and files you’re tasked with finding. Sometimes that will also be in cases where you’re under pressure, meaning you’ll need to read fast or do a smash-and-grab job.

Picking Hacknet apart, it is a very simple game of moving files around without a mouse from one computer to another. It is a bit on the nose with the satirical comedy moments, as you hack into a southern fried chicken restaurant for a secret recipe. While it is simple, it also lacks a sense of freedom (or the illusion thereof) that one might hope for when it comes to a game with hacking.

Overall, I think Hacknet does a great job of giving the feeling of hacking, as someone who is all about the feeling of a game, that’s a very good thing. However, having to start from the very beginning every single god-forsaken time puts me off, not just a little either. Hacknet is an excellent lesson why the “kill everyone” option is not always the best one, though it doesn’t stop it being a fun game accomplishing what it needs.

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Hacknet

$9.99

8

Score

8.0/10

Pros

• The feeling of really "hacking."
• Fantastic visual design.
• Brilliant puzzle game.

Cons

• A lack of fail-safes.