Review- Hacknet
Hacknet is an immersive, terminal-based hacking simulator for PC. Dive down a rabbit hole as you follow the instructions of a recently deceased hacker, whose death may not have been the accident the media reports.
Btw, I know I said this is a ‘review’, but really, it’s just my impressions… deal with it.
What I like
Hacknet excels at making me feel like a real hacker. -A real person living in this world, doing hacker stuff. Particularly, some of the (I guess it counts as) dialogue. The way many of the messages read, does a really good job of coming off as authentic.
Beyond the writing, the visual aesthetics and soundtrack server to further enhance the feeling of hackerness within the player.
The gameplay is super chill, until you’re threatened with an ominous countdown signaling that you’re being traced. -At that point, my heartrate skyrockets and my mind starts tripping over itself as I scramble to complete my objective and dc (after deleting the logs, of course). [Note: I don’t hack well under pressure]
What I don’t like
The tutorial left out quite a bit of what I would consider basic knowledge. For example: it basically only shows how to navigate the terminals via mouse… I would have liked that it included the keyboard commands. -WhyNotBothLittleGirl.jpg
Personally, I don’t like having to constantly switch between kb and mouse (where it can be avoided). So, switching to the mouse to do things like check my mail, or find the IP of a server seems like something that should be accessible via command or kb shortcut (Tab + M to toggle server IPs (or something like that)).
What I’d change
When I was thinking about what I’d want to see changed in Hacknet I came up with a lot but, most of my ideas would be better applied to a sequel. So, here are a few ideas that could be applied to og Hacknet, if a remake were to ever happen…
Flesh out the tutorial a little, just expand it a bit to help cater to us noobs.
Add batch files, or at least the ability to input multiple commands at once. [exp: “rm * ; dc”]
Tabbing between terminal windows
A few hotkeys to improve QoL
Final thoughts
Hacknet is a fantastic game that most gamers should check out. Matt Trobbiani has done an amazing job at immersing the player in this virtual world and the pseudo hacking culture that inhabits it. — letting us wannabes feel like we could hack it (😉 ) as a true Hackerman.
I really hope that we get a Hacknet 2 at some point, I know I’ll definitely be playing!
Rating 8/10
Originally published at http://terabullone.wordpress.com on November 11, 2020.