ith muttonchops, eyepatch and surly glower, the swashbuckling and farcically named "Space" Hack looks as if three men (Elvis, Bruce Campbell and Meat Loaf) had a baby. Hack, a dour one-man battalion and ex-officer of the sci-wacky-fi Space Marines, survives an attack by a gravitational entity called the Black Nebula aboard the colony ship Maximus XV. In response to Earth overpopulation, ships like Maximus XV shuttle men, women and children through space in enormous biospheres designed for quick "drops" onto suitable planets to speed environmental assimilation.
When the uncanny and just plain weird Black Nebula unexpectedly swallows Maximus XV, the human survivors discover they are not alone. Scores of aliens also trapped within the Nebula quickly assault the colony ship, feeding as they encroach. Within the ship's numerous biospheres, Hack must singlehandedly zap, slash and clobber through 45 futuristic levels, battling more than 80 types of aliens, completing quests and rescuing hapless survivors along the way.
As Hack, players use the mouse to click-move, pan the camera or click-attack insectile aliens with names like "Scissorhands," "Toaster" and, auspiciously, "Cappo di Tutti Cappi" ("the boss of all bosses"). Hack must periodically return to a "hub" safe zone, where players can outfit him with better armor, weapons, health and energy mods, pick up new quests (or complete existing ones), or just take a breather from the furious action down every sluiceway and corridor.
Following a traditional leveling schema fueled by battle-accrued experience, basic skills such as strength and intelligence can be tweaked as desired, complementing secondary attributes like life, energy and fighting prowess. Currency comes as energy cells dropped by aliens (or exchanged in trade for found gear), and these cells also function to power energy weapons or high-tech items like battle holograms, teleporters and enemy scanners. Fully 3-D, the isometric view can be panned with keyboard or mouse wheel 360 degrees (though not zoomed), and a stamina bar measures the length of time Hack can sprint in lieu of walking. Space Hack supports solo play only.
Space Diablo on a shoestring
Popular as Doom, Blizzard's Diablo is practically an adjective in the gaming lexicon, the very word these days to describe a game that's deliberately "simplistic" and "repetitive." Don't mistake that for a slam—so are games like checkers, solitaire and Tetris. Designed to spec, they're addictive because of their purity, not in spite of it. Space Hack is more or less another solid, unblushing Diablo clone that's a hoot to play in small bits yet misses a golden opportunity to be to Diablo what Sam Raimi's Army of Darkness is to the entire fantasy-horror film genre.
Despite a promising albeit abrupt intro, and occasionally yo-yo in-game text like "We cannot let the aliens eat our people with impunity!", Space Hack fails to capitalize on its cult-hack-and-slash promise. As a mindless trudge through organic and viscous environs, semi-intelligent and sometimes insanely challenging alien hordes, Space Hack slams home the goods, but sadly with none of the personality ostensibly screaming to be released from the plot's cornball trappings.
Instead, what you get for a relative steal at 20 bucks are several dozen hours of polished insect-bashing and trophy-collecting. The aliens are creatively named, and the environments are varied enough to keep your eyes tracking long after the game mechanics fizzle to tedium. This sort of game seems priced to match its design goals exactly, and if you're not above the notion of wandering into noisy, tense, interminably messy fracas with "Chisels," "Stingers" and "Alien Ovums" and clearing huge levels only to advance and repeat all over again, Space Hack is tough to beat.
If there's a sequel (and there should be—this one's grist practically howls for it), please let it include a strong shot of irreverence in the tradition of Douglas Adams or Spider Robinson or Crank!. Meat Loaf with an eyepatch and plasma rifle against enough bugs to make Heinlein seem stingy? Come on, guys, let this stuff breathe!
When it comes to hack-and-slash, I'm as susceptible as anyone—love to mock 'em, can't help but play 'em.
—Matt
Science Fiction Weekly
Copyright © 1998-2006, Science Fiction Weekly (TM). All rights reserved. Reproduction in any medium strictly prohibited. Maintained by scifiweekly@scifi.com.
