Hacktag Preview

Are you an expert at stealth games? How about your best friend? Team up with a partner in Hacktag and steal data from major corporations. Your success depends on your partner's wits and skill as much as your own! Win together or lose together, and race the clock for a spot on the leaderboards! Hacktag was released on steam June 1st, 2017, and is currently in early access.

Hacktag Preview.

INTRODUCTION

Hacktag is a cooperative, two-player cooperative stealth game where you and your partner work together to infiltrate corporations and steal valuable data without getting caught. Both players are required to work together to complete the mission as quickly as possible. There is no single player mode – every puzzle must be solved with a partner.
 
Developed by Piece of Cakestudios, this game was released for PC on June 1st, 2017. You can purchase it on Steam for $14.99 during early access.

GAMEPLAY

Me and my fellow reviewer Joshua played this game together, and although we had the option for voice communication, we opted out in order to better simulate a typical experience between two online players.
 
Every game of Hacktag requires two players: a stealth agent and a hacker. The stealth agent moves around the building in person, while the hacker moves around the network of the building. The objective of each game is to hack all the computers in the level without getting caught, and to do it as quickly as possible. Each player is dependent on the other for mutual success – either both players win, or both players lose.
 
Each player’s mobility is limited around the building. Certain doors are locked to the stealth agent that only the hacker can unlock, and some networks require tampering from the stealth agent so that the hacker can continue through the level freely. Some doors require simultaneous action from both players (such as cutting the same wire or deciphering a simple code).

Hacktag Preview. Disabling a camera for the stealth agent.
Additionally, each player has guards to avoid. The stealth agent avoids detection from physical guards roaming around the building, and the hacker avoids patrolling antivirus software on the network. Each player’s guards cannot detect the other – the firewall will never detect the stealth agent, and guards will not catch the hacker on the network. A strong presence of one player’s type of guard means the other player will be able to move more freely in that area.
 
In some cases, guards block the way entirely, or need distraction if they have already caught sight of the player they are meant to chase. Hackers can ring telephones nearby to draw guards away and shut off security cameras, and stealth agents can disable scanners and antivirus. Security measures cannot be completely shut off, only temporarily, so timing is important when navigating through heavily watched areas.
 
Stealth is key to the game. None of the guards can be outran or attacked, so players must rely entirely on their strategy and wit to beat each level.

PERSONAL THOUGHTS ABOUT GAMEPLAY

Contrary to intuition, direct communication between players is almost entirely unnecessary. Oftentimes the message is implied just by the other character’s movement or position. Because of this, anybody with a basic understanding of the game will know what needs to be done to win. This is largely due to the game’s current lack of complexity.
 
Only three levels are available to play for the moment. For an Early Access game this is enough to try out the game and see if you like it, but it brings up concerns for the future. How many maps will the full release have? Three will definitely not be enough to hold player interest. One possible solution could be randomly generated maps, and another (possibly easier) solution would be to give players the ability to create their own maps and share them. In either case, puzzle games like this will only last as long as there is a consistent source of new maps to play and solve. Speed running the same maps over and over will only entertain so many people for so long.
 
Luckily, it seems as if the developers plan on implementing a procedural generation system for the maps, and promise to release new maps weekly, which they note in the early access section on their Steam page.
 
Some instances of glitches or bugs still exist. In one instance, the stealth agent guards did not move at all, didn’t respond to ringing phones, and oftentimes stared straight into corners of rooms. In another, a guard’s line of sight seemed to cover the entrance to the starting room. After finding no other options, I left the room and found that I was not detected; the line of sight was not what it appeared to be on my screen.

Hacktag Preview. A guard blocks my only exit. 
The game is very obviously a port from console systems, or was designed for console systems in the first place. In either case, it was poorly adapted to the PC. Many instances of “press the A” key (or other controller button) still exist, and some features of the UI do not work as intended. In game, most controls work fine, so the game is still playable. It was still annoying to try and figure out some of the UI controls for character customization and the friends list, though, and some features did not work entirely.
 
One bug that ended our gameplay experience was when Joshua was trapped by the guards. To release a teammate, there is a small test involved where you spam the R key until a meter is filled, all set to a ticking clock. After mashing the R key and filling the meter completely, we watched as Joshua was not released and the timer ticked down to zero and ended the mission in failure. Even before that, there was another instance where the prompt to even begin mashing the R key simply did not appear, and we ended up with the same result. It was about this time that me and Joshua decided to set the game aside.

GRAPHICS

Hacktag’s graphics are reminiscent of a comic-book art style, which gives it a light-hearted feel. All the characters themselves are animals, which further contributes to the comical nature of the game in general. However, Every character is designed and dressed seriously for the positions they are meant to fill. In terms of aesthetic, I can’t really lock down what kind of feeling the developers were going for.

Hacktag Preview. Character customization. 
Characters and environment alike feel complete and detailed. There are a variety of different characters and cosmetics to choose from, some of which are unlockable. I have a weakness for cosmetics in various games, but as nice as the customization variety was, I didn’t seem to find anything that I fell in love with – which is of course just personal bias, so judge for yourself. Even then, I didn’t find myself able to get a good look at my character during gameplay, so it seemed fairly moot anyways.
 
The stages themselves don't stick out much. They don't look bad by any means, but each one is built using the same colors and themes, making no one level stick out. In our minds, they all blended together and were only defined by the challenges they held.

AUDIO

If you have a weakness for Jazz, you may enjoy Hacktag’s soundtrack. For the moment, it is limited to the menu theme and the same in-game music between each level, so it is somewhat sparse. Even so, it adds positively to the 007 feel of the game in general. The intensity of the music will also increase if guards are suspicious or chasing you, which increases your adrenaline (or anxiety) when you get seen or detected (think Metal Gear Solid but jazzier). A larger variety of music would be an improvement, but should by no means be a top priority

CONCLUSION

As it stands now, Hacktag represents a good demo of what the game is like, but doesn’t come across as a completely finished game – which is pretty much what anyone should expect from an early access game.The largest improvement to the game is simply going to be content – including maps, cosmetics, new items and devices to interact with, different game modes, and so on.
 
Luckily, Piece of Cake studios already has plenty of new content in the works. They’ve posted a publicly accessible Trello, where you can follow along on their development plan for the game. Here you can also find more promised content and their current progress on it. If they do follow through and deliver on most of what they’ve listed, it will end up being quite an impressive game.
 
When it comes down to deciding if Hacktag is for you, ask yourself, do you like the idea of a cooperative stealth game? Do you have fifteen dollars to burn? If yes to both of these, you have two choices: either invest in the game now and start submitting suggestions on what you would like to see in the future (through steam or otherwise), or follow the development of the game through the Trello I’ve linked and see how things progress. The game remains at fifteen dollars until it’s full release, so you have some time to decide, but the price will increase after that point.
 
As always, thanks for reading.
 
Jason

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