Okay, it may be bad to start this review off like this but I’m mad. Playstation 2 has officially pissed me off. As you may or may not know, I recently did a review on Devil May Cry 2. Which to my disappointment was just that – a disappointment. The game was ridiculously easy and way, WAY too short. It took like 16 hours to beat the game.

This brings me to my first problem with .hack Part 1: Infection, it is incredibly short.
The premise of the game is that your main character is playing a MMPORPG (Massive Multiple Player Online Role Playing Game, i.e. like Everquest, Diablo, or Dungeons Siege) known as The World. After his (your) friend Orca is attacked while confined within The World, your character Kite is shocked to learn that Orca has fallen into a coma in real life also. Confused, intrigued, and bothered as to why such a thing has happened, Kite must travel back into The World and find out what really happened. From here it’s an interesting ride.

The whole mystery of what’s really happening is what drives you to play the “game within the game”. Throughout the game you come across a lot of interesting characters; and due to an underdeveloped storyline you face certain enemies for what may appear to be no reason at all. Once you get to the end… well, for those who has seen the Lord of The Rings: Fellowship of the Ring, the ending is very VERY much like that – ends abruptly and with those dreaded words “to be continued…”. What game do you know uses that for an ending. Please write to your favorite game developers and tell them you DO NOT want them to start such a terrible trend.

The game was beaten in approximately 10 hours, give or take a half an hour. Now, I’m a true RPGer (Role Playing Gamer). I’ve played the Final Fantasy line of games, which usually run for about 40+ hours. Here’s my definition of a good RPG: a game that takes a life of it’s own, where you get drawn into, where you actually relate and become the character(s). This game didn’t do that; I felt no connection of the characters. They were not drawn out and were bland as hell. I guess my expectations were too high, bad me.

Don’t get me wrong, the gameplay is interesting in the sense that like Kingdom Hearts, you have control of only one character and you basically command the AI (computer) to act a certain way. In example, you may need your characters to heal you or they while you hack and hack and hack at the creatures. So you tell them to apply “First Aid” to your team. It’s nice, awkward at first but nice.

The graphics are okay, by my standards. I’m still in awe at the graphics of better RPG’s like Final Fantasy X and Kingdom Hearts. The only bad thing is during certain “hacking” and “data draining” (these are skills that you acquire in the game) scenes, the game seems to skip, it may be a part of the animation but it’s kind of unnerving.
My only major beef with this game is how short it truly is. In other RPG’s you enjoy leveling up your characters, fighting and exploring to find hidden things. The shortness of this game may do one of two things to people: 1- either turn them off to the next game, or 2- have them craving for the next installment. Yes, I said the next installment, there are going to be 4 parts to this game. So maybe that explains why it is so short. Instead of putting out a 40+ hour game, they are going to put out 4-10 hour games, greedy bastards!

All in all, do what I didn’t do (but seem to tell others to do all the time) - rent or borrow it from a friend first. If you like it then buy it, but buyers beware to get the full story you are going to have to play all 4 parts of the game that’s $200. And I think that’s just a gyp!