DESCRIPTION

Beginning with a simple Login: screen, Activision's mysterious Hacker gives you virtually no clues as to how to proceed. Once you've deciphered the login code and password, you gain access to what appears to be a wide-reaching spy network with remote-controlled robots that tunnel their way between major cities of the world. Simple graphics display a map of the underground network and the robots' current location. You command the robots to retrieve and deliver secret documents, and perform other seemingly menial tasks, all according to instructions being sent to your computer (which are certainly meant for someone else). Yet the big question is: whose bidding are you doing?

Though attempting to fully immerse players into the experience, Hacker stretches the limits of believability, but adequately fulfills fantasies of hacking into something big and secret, "WarGames"-style. While the modern day of the internet allows programmers to assume that everyone logging into their host systems will have display hardware capable of displaying any given image, this game sprang from the age of multiple systems — Apple II, IBM PC, Commodore 64, TRS-80 — which couldn't display each other's graphics. So if anything, Hacker now makes more sense with a few years under its belt. Which kind of makes one wonder what's up with all of those subterranean tunneling robots, doesn't it? ~ Earl Green, All Game Guide