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.hack//G.U. Vol. 1: Rebirth
 (Pronounced Dot Hack)
Every gamer knows it is only a matter of time before some form of freaky technology becomes smarter and better at everything than mankind, and that is where we can all bend over and kiss our asses goodbye. There have been countless theories discussed not on if it will happen but how will it happen. .Hack is one of those theories in the form of “Japanamation”. .Hack is a game within a game that follows the adventures of a kid (Haseo) who buys a new MMORPG game called the World. He gets killed by a couple of “Player Killers” upon his first log-in and then goes crazy killing as many “Player Killers” as he can find. (Confused yet?…..well it gets better.) While on his PKKing journey he befriends a mysterious man named Ovan and the lovable cleric Shino and helps to begin a guild called the “Twilight Brigade”. The guild is created in the hopes of finding an item called the “Key of Twilight” which is said to grant wishes. One day Shino calls Haseo to meet her at an on-line game location; unfortunately, the meeting turns foul when Shino is found dead. Now, dying in most games is not a problem, however, in .hack, as people are getting killed in the game, their real world selves are falling into comas. (Remember this is a game within a game). Haseo finds out that the “Player Killer” responsible for putting Shino in a coma is an in-game character known as Tri-Edge, and searches everywhere in the game to find this character. He gets an e-mail from Ovan one day stating that Tri-Edge will be at a specific location, to where our hero then foolishly rushes. Haseo is defeated by Tri Edge and his character “data drained”, which causes his computer to reboot. When he logs back into the game he finds that his character has been reset to level one and all of his items are missing. Thus ends the “intro” to the game. The back-story of this game is crazy; there are a history of animation movies, a previous 4 game storyline, and also books and comics of .hack. The overall gist is that there are hackers who have brought the Internet and everything that is connected to it to its knees in the past. There are now several securities taken to insure that hackers cannot gain control of the system. Or so everyone thinks. Back to this game: Now that the hero is back down to level 1 this is where the game actually starts, with Haseo wanting to level up as quick as possible so that he can get revenge on Tri-Edge. Now although the buttons can be a little repetitive at times seeing as how mostly it involves mashing the x button to kill enemies, the game takes on the feel of a live action RPG game that will keep you captivated way past your bedtime. As you progress through the game, you will make other friends who are on-line at the same time as you are to form groups with and go hunting for items and treasure within the games areas. The areas are unending as they are formed with “keywords” at a warp gate. Depending on the keywords used (and there are TONS) the area that appears will change giving you thousands of possible areas to explore. This game has many other nice features to make it seem as real as possible; like e-mail options from your game friends, news and website blogs, and also an on-line card game where you create “decks” to battle on-line opponents, but unfortunately, the computer automatically battles the decks for you. Other pretty neat features are the wallpaper, background music, and movie selections that can be unlocked as you complete certain parts of the game. With in the movie selections, you can watch the first episode of the .hack/roots cartoon and in game cut scenes. There is a movie blog that unlocks through out the game that follows the investigate reporting on the kids that are in comas that is rather entertaining. There are also in game features that will keep you entertained well beyond the intended length of the game, such as steam bike races and item/character searches. I would highly recommend diddling you controllers to the beat of this game…..sure the story line is complicated, but once you figure everything out, the game will come together and have you missing hours of sleep…..and perhaps much needed quality time with your girlfriend (its “much needed” if you spend more time with your hands on your controller than you do on her….as sweetly defined by my very own girlfriend….love you honey). If you are really interested in the game, I would also tell you to play the first .hack game series as well. Our Rating:
 Review by JK-47
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