Essentially, you’re connecting through Uplink to read the latest news on the work of your fellow hackers and to search electronic ‘job postings’ for which different companies are seeking Uplink agents, and for which they will pay, sometimes handsomely. The Corporation is a mysterious business through which remote, freelance agents can get work from other multi-national corporations Uplink provides the hacker with the connection and a gateway, through which the hacker cannot be directly traced in his wrongdoings. Your first job is going be to simply registering with the Uplink Corporation, to which your “computer gateway” automatically connects when you start the game. The presentation is one of high quality the level of immersion one feels when first starting out is uncanny. Uplink is, essentially, a computer interface, which I suppose is suitable, given the nature of the work. This is what I was asking for going in I now realize that this is not enough, in and of itself, to sustain long-term interest. It isn’t realistic – real hacking involves manipulating thousands of lines of tedious code. I thought Uplink was going to be an opportunity to feel powerful in a different way, more in tune with current technology I’ve punched and shot all the guards, now let’s break into these computers!Īnd really, that’s exactly what it is – an extremely stylish, incredibly Hollywood-like version of computer hacking. I’ve always enjoyed having action games like Final Fight to beat people up hand-to-hand, or Goldeneye to wield weaponry and gadgetry and make progress in a semi-stealthy manner. I have watched these films, and others, countless times, and, just as the action itself has always been exciting, so too are the abilities of the characters to make gains and alter lives by hacking computer systems it’s a new means of power and control that has worked its way into popular culture about as subtly as technology itself has. Tapping into bank accounts and social security files, accessing major mainframes, disabling important security systems, copying a NOC list of disavowed secret agents – these are the types of abilities that have found their way into the action hero archetype with the physical capability to kick the tar out of any potential challenger now comes a technological acumen that proves just as critical. What else do these films have? Technology, and the depiction of the hero or villain overcoming it with computer hacking savvy.
Action has its own genre in videogaming, just as it does in film. Recall the film Mission: Impossible, or Goldeneye (or probably a handful of other 007 films), or Enemy of the State, or, perhaps more directly, Hackers. I’m talking about the manipulation of technology in the context of the world we live in, as it is, right now. These are interesting, and have their place, but Uplink doesn’t take it quite this far. I’m not talking about the stuff of the cyberpunk genre, which is often just a subset of science fiction games like Shadowrun and Neuromancer do not fall into the realm of hacking that Uplink attempts to recreate, but of a paranoid dystopian vision of the future. The type of crime explored in Uplink is not quite so salient, and is more tilted to the focus of digital criminality and white-collar type crimes.
#Uplink hacker elite trace recent balance series#
There have long been games depicting crime, going all the way back to the Atari 2600, and the monumental Grand Theft Auto series is inarguably the one that has most recently brought the issue of game crime and violence into the limelight, with its mass-slaughter and rise through organized syndicates. There is a brilliant idea that inspires Uplink: Hacker Elite, and it largely rests at the intersection of the state of present day technology, and the timeless intrigue that surrounds crime and criminals, so deeply-rooted that it taps human nature. There have long been games depicting crime, going all the way back to the Atari 2600, and the monumental Grand Theft Auto series is inarguably the one that has most recently brought the issue of game crime and violence into the limelight." "There is a brilliant idea that inspires Uplink: Hacker Elite, and it largely rests at the intersection of the state of present day technology, and the timeless intrigue that surrounds crime and criminals, so deeply-rooted that it taps human nature.
0 kommentar(er)
