Day 15:

=>Is a rank 1 hacker
=>Muscle 50-some thousand c from contracts
=>Buy a bunch of upgrades
=>Steal an admin's voice.
=>Hack Apollo International Bank
=>Run Proxy and Monitor Bypasses
=>Hack into administrative account --no tracing--
=>Steal every account profile in the database. --no tracing--
=>Proceed to empty all accounts, net roughly 1.2 million credits --no tracing--
=>Live high and large
=>Gateway siezed because I forgot to delete logs. Save is destroyed.

10/10 would fail again

Set in the "future" of 2010 (Yep, that old) you play as an Uplink Agent. It starts with you "connecting" to the Uplink Servers to create your new hacker identity. After a fake-but-believable-ish "boot up" you are directly connected to your remote proxy gateway, and ready for some plausibly deniable crime. This isn't real hacking, but the way the game presents itself you don't need too much imagination or suspend too much disbelief to leave an exciting doubt in the back of your mind. Easily the most immersive game I have ever experienced.

The game is completely open-ended and very complex, but approachable (There is even an in-game IRC that connects you to a real-life Uplink chatroom to talk to others in the game, if someone happens to be on it at the time.). It gives you an optional, basic tutorial risk-free on one of the Uplink Corporation's testing servers, and there are further tutorials on Uplink's main server, but after that you are left to your own ingenuity. That's a common, repeating theme of this game. Experiment, have some fun. You hacked into the social security database for your last job, what about doing it again to mark yourself as "deceased" to really become a ghost, or hack the criminal records database and put a warrant for arrest out on a server admin that made things difficult for you. In fact, the only way to "beat" this game, is to "break" it. You won't find any "questlines" or the like until you are experienced enough think a bit outside your usual targets...

One of the few games that makes missions non-linear, simply because these aren't missions, they are contracts. A deal between you and an anonymous individual working on behalf of a random company. You can go ahead and tell your employer "Nope, not in the mood, have someone else do it." after you accept the contract... for half the pay up front! (Although, good luck getting another job if your reputation is too spotty!) Perhaps someone paid you to give the guy an A, and on a whim (and after your paycheck), you put his "D-" right back. What about this investigation of corporate corruption? You have it all tied up, got your pay and everyone is happy. But you still have access to the thief's account, and for a short window of time, it's still filled to the brim with your employer's siphoned money.
Backstab at your leisure(and peril), none of it's scripted.

On the negative side, if you look at the screenshots, that's pretty much how the game looks. You can install themes to change up the color scheme if the sharp black+blue hurts your eyes, or you just want to tell people who come over that you are hacking the matrix. Throughout the game there are very few graphic representations, and when there are the best you could hope for is an animated picture (usually just static images, though). It would be easy to dismiss these issues as "part of the experience" but that's just a cheesy way of dodging "Its a really old game, you will have to deal with terrible graphics". Admittedly, though, it IS easy to overlook the visuals, simply because its what you expect to see on some TV hacker's monitor.

Gameplay-wise, once you know how to do it, and get personaly experinced with it, you can get all the money you ever want within a few hours from starting and there is little replay value until you leave long enough to forget how to play. This is problematic and game lenght ties in directly to how good you are at it. You could beat the game in an hour and a half if you know what you are doing.
Don't spoil it for yourself and look up how to start the ending! You will have more fun figuring it out for yourself!

Being a very old game, it also has interface problems. No scroll-wheel support being the worst offender, the necessity to have your mouse hovering over any information box you are trying to type in is a close second. Its a pain, and something to be aware of, but it doesn't get in the way of enjoying the game once you are used to it (Using the tab button is an easy fix to the second one).

At the end of the day, Its certainly worth the 10$, but should you still be on the fence about it, it goes on sale for crazy low prices. Just whatever you do: make SURE you don't miss out on this game!

Uplink sets itself up like a modified computer desktop, and casts you as a wannabe hacker. From your terminal you'll receive missions, install new software, and try to sneak undetected into the digital infrastructures of some made up mega-corps.If you want to get in and out undetected you'll need to bounce your connection around the world, crack passwords with decryption programs, and delete any trace you've left of your time stealing business secrets and changing personal information.The game hides its mechanics behind a veil of realism. There's no pause button, and plenty of typing, emails to read, and bank accounts to create and manage.In fact, if you turn off the techno soundtrack it's easy to pretend you really are a movie hacker, diving through firewalls as you try and pull off the perfect digital heist from the comfort of your tablet.The game punishes mistakes with swift retribution, and the fictional company that you're working for is quick to disavow your actions and kick you back to the bottom of the pile if you're caught poking your nose somewhere it doesn't belong.Watching a trace creep ever closer to your location can turn even the simplest of hacks into a frantic race against time. The problem is that those moments of real tension are few and far between, and more often than not you'll complete a job without batting an eyelid. Things get repetitive, too, and while you'll unlock new hacking methods as you progress the back doors you use to sneak into systems are always basically the same.Uplink is clearly a labour of love, and if you enjoyed the original you'll feel the same about this version, but newcomers will likely find the slow pace and esoteric style a little off-putting.

The GTA of hacking, the best hacker sim out there!

I think I could probably rob a bank right now. Very addictive. Easy to learn, hard to master

Uplink is a surprisingly fun game that you can play over and over again. The learning curve is pretty steep and will require some online research in order to understand and play the game properly. The text is also hard to read and strains the eyes over time. This is probably due to that fact that it is a 13 year old game and isn't properly optimized for HD monitors. Anyways, outside of that, it is a very well thought out game that actually becomes a little addicting. The storyline has a few different endings and you can decide to play along or ignore them all together. The HUD and music are extremely dated which adds to the whole experience in such a great way. For the age of the game though, I think that $10 is a little too expensive. It is most definitely worth a buy if you can find it on sale.

8/10

Classic game. Was really happy this made it's way to steam after such a long time floating around on the web. Most people, if you're used to console commands, shouldn't have an issue using the more "advanced" features of this game. Pretty straight forward/fast. Not much else to say really. If you're looking for a masterpiece of graphics, look elsewhere.

This game is truly a benchmark in the hacking genre making it smile while still keeping the complex side. It has a story you can choose to follow or just ignore but the most amazing thing is that this game can keep you entertained for hours even when you have no more story nor computer upgrades to get.

Although this version is not fully moddable like the off-steam version I can forgive that because it is still a game that i'd play over and over again.

(7/10) - Benchmark game wth outstanding gameplay but dated with no new updates nor supported by dev mods.

gameplay = 5/10 + Benchmark = 5/10 - dated = 1/10 - dev mods not supported = -2/10 = (7/1)

hands down my favorite game of all time. hacking like it's an 80s movie

A little complecated to begin with but a pretty nice game over al, once you pick up the basics you can pretty much just run with it, looking forward to playing more in the future!

This is a really great hacking game, by the makers of Defcon and Prison Architect. Great tension and ideas. You take contracts for stealing, sabotaging or deleting data in rival companies of the contract givers.
Hacking quickly while trying to escape opposition tracers from getting back to you generates a nice tension.
Buy this game!

I bought this instead of Watch_Dogs,
I regret nothing.

It's a retro hacker game that is pure gold. It's not so realistic, altough it gives you hours of fun and excitement.

The game is basically ''Accept contract. Hack. Disconnect. Get your payment''


In Uplink your an agent that hacks other companies or persons by accepting contracts.
For me the game is an addictive thriller where you test your nerves to win or lose all progress.

Very original game and a timeless classic.

This game has awesome atmosphere. From launching to gameplay. All elements made as in real hacking utility bundle, even game profiles (decorative username/password form and profiles list near). In this game you also will not have enough time, always. Very addictive game with unusual gameplay and superrealistic interface!

Thank you Uplink. I finally learned how to download a car.

You know those movies where the heros hack into some super secret computer and explain using some random techno-babble and what you see on the screen doesn't look right at all? That's this game. You get to be the OP hacker who hacks anyone on a whim. Don't go in expecting to do any of that magic "break the password with a button press" Watch_Dogs ♥♥♥♥. No, you've got to start the program first, then the admins start tracing you, so you've got to delay them, but you can only delay so much.

I've played this over and over and have found it to be so much fun. The intial game involves slinging programs at everything that moves, crossing your fingers and hoping that you haven't left yourself vulnerable, the later part of the game involves more roguelike elements where you traverse networks and puzzle out their architecture. This really is the only game of its kind, and I hope that someone will release an updated, more in-depth version with perhaps more features that make this game more visually entertaining as well. But if you want a hacking sim without the programming, then this honestly is the game for you.

Hacked into The Global Criminal Database

Jailed myself with horrendous entries such as walking with only shorts, drinking spoiled milk , and taking my medicinal weed,

i have no regrets

10/11 would jail myself again

Have you set the Anonymous logo as your desktop background?
Do you still marathon all the episodes of Reboot on occasion?
Do you turn off all the lights and wear a Guy Fawkes mask when you browse Reddit?
Have you ever wanted to be the hacker 4 c h a n ?

THEN GET THIS GAME!!!

This is be best 1337 H4X0R simulator you will ever find. It's realistic enough and uses enough real-life terms to make you feel as if you could totally hack someone's computer if you went out and bought the right software, totally bro, I mean you already did it in Uplink.

Bad side is that it's one of those games where it's possible to miss the trigger for the storyline, and if that happens, the story just kinda goes on without you....

Also, sometimes the game kind of just expects you to know stuff - like where and which logs to delete so you don't get caught by the feds for a job you completed 3 days ago......

Also the game can get really repetative really quickly.....

But then you hack into a LAN system and you have to bypass the Proxy and brute-force crack the password so you can trace throught the system to unlock the file server locks and hack into the mainframe database! <- I didn't even make any of that up, you actually do that in this game.

Get dis.