I've always enjoyed the Hacker Evolution series, and to me they keep getting better and more challenging every game. IMMERSION is no different, though it is still in Early Access. The biggest (and most obvious) change is that of the dials in which you control your firewall, tasks, and upload/download speed, preferably with your mouse wheel. The devs are constantly updating, with balancing aspects and new commands to help you complete the mission. As of this review, they just balanced out the firewall decay, so it's a bit better, though you still have to keep your eye on it which is the biggest challenge. I highly enjoy the challenge of the game, though it's going to get even better with every update.

I completed this game in literally five minutes (and that included a CTD-induced restart). There is less content than a demo would normally offer.

The developer seems to be very active and eager to take suggestions from players. However, there is currently very little content, so unless you want to go along with the ride from virtually the start of the project, I suggest you wait six months before looking at this game.

The game also seems to have a very strong fanboy base. On the upside, that means that at least some people have found the previous games to be excellent (despite their mediocre ratings). On the downside, that means that this game's rating may be superficially high for the time being.

On to the actual review...

Note: I have played many hacking games before, starting with Uplink in 2001 and most recently HackNet. I have not played any previous Hacker Evolution games.


More detailed review below:


This game has literally five minutes of gameplay -- one minute if you know what to do -- and all of it is shown in the 1:18 minutes long video and screenshots on the Steam store page. The game seems to be level based, and the game currently has one level. When you complete the level, you are taken back to the main menu and your only option is to start a new game.

The options menu is completely empty, and there is no saving or loading. During my five minutes of gameplay, I also experienced a CTD.

The developers even say so themselves in the Early Access description:

What is the current state of the Early Access version?

“There is a small playable level which gives you a good overview of how the final game will look and play.”

The game has a fairly standard setup with a CLI (command-line interface) where you type commands. When you start the game, you are prompted to type 'help' to see available commands, of which there aren't that many available. Your objective is to retrieve a file, even though you are not told from where or why you should retrieve the file. The game seems to be 'roguelike', in that failure means you start over. There is no saving or loading.

In order to download the file, you must gain access to one of two available servers. This is done using a balancing minigame, where you must balance your CPU, firewall and network resources using dials in the lower-right corner. These resources seem to deplete your firewall depending on how they are set up. They don't add any real depth to the game, however, as there is a single setup that works best at all times, making any tweaking pointless. The same minigame-ish setup is used both for gaining access and to download the file.

And that's pretty much all there is to it at this time.


Pros:
- Good music
- The interface looks nice

Cons:
- Virtually no content(!!!)
- Unstable
- Empty options menu
- No story, no purpose, no nothing
- Unsure about balancing mechanic
- Bad GUI / UX (no tab completion, no mouse click adjustment of balance wheels)

If it actually had any content, a decent story and great gameplay, this game could be good. As it currently stands, it is barely an empty shell (no pun intended) with virtually no content.

Immersion is the correct way to put this game because it is an extremely realisitic and IMMERSIVE hacking game. Although in Early Access, this game really makes you feel like kind of like what I imagine a high tech hacker would feel like.

As updates continue, the game becomes better and better. If you were a fan of the originals, be sure to get this, because exosphen studios has taken this to the next level!

Love the first looks of this alpha.. (31 July
UPDATE / July 31 hei.0.018.alpha)
If you are looking for a finished game then you better wait until the game reaches that stage.

For exosyphen studios fans... Robert made an awesome framework again! :-) Really wonder how this game will be at the end. So far looking good!

Well, its been a while to wait, but developing a new engine and new features takes a lot of time, and testing, and people complain about lack of content.. Well I guess they don't get the concept of 'early access' - that being, you get to see the development of the game (bugs and all) , you get the chance to offer suggestions, improvements, ideas and so on, which are actually listened (and replied) to by the developer.

While content was small to begin with, I spent a good 40+ minutes trying to figure out how to solve the first mission, which involved some really fine balancing of components in your 'system', maxing the download rate when downloading, increasing the cpu power while decrypting (and keeping a fine eye on it so the system doesn't become toast).. but now there's at least 1 patch per day released, so you can really get a feel for what is going on in Roberts mind while he's in dev mode.

Early access is indeed a gamble, some succeed, others fail, and i have been burned by some, however, unlike the ones i was burned by, i know that the dev will actually strive to satisfy the fans of the game genre, so this tile, i don't really consider a gamble, rather its a rare glimpse at what is actually involved in designing, and launching a game successfully.

Personally I enjoyed it, its definitely an evolution from the previous hacker titles, while still retaining the style, the music fits the theme well (much like the other titles) and the new ui is pretty intuitive too, so I'm looking forward to seeing what comes next, and once the framework is nailed, the levels will come pretty quickly i think, as the method for making them looks pretty simple and painless.. allowing for a lot of scope with extra missions etc..

It's an alpha for sure, but I own all the previous games in the series which have been great. I look forward to more updates for this game as well.

Early Access review

I recommend this game because I know what is Hacker Evolution. If you never played HE before you should start with the first one, If you enjoy it, then you should come back here and play Immersion. The new console looks great. Although it has only one level at the moment, the dev is working daily to add new content. The first level gives you an overview of how to game will finally look and play. I recommend this game to people who like complex games. Support the game in Early Access, the dev reply to all the e-mails personally and is listening to feedback.

It’s definitely an alpha build currently but I am excited to see what’s in stall for us. Given Roberts dedication to customer satisfaction and passion towards his games I expect we will see this develop into something enjoyable yet still challenging within a decent time frame.

VERY early access. Would not recommend on buying it's current state unless you REALLY want to support the company. Like others have said, it's all over in about 5 boring minutes...

This is a very early alpha build of this game. Knowing what the other games turned into adds to my expectations of what this game could be.

For early addresses the game works well and I had no issues getting it installed and running on my Linux computers.

I'm not a fan of the current (8/1/2016) way to manage the three circles on the lower right side. It's awful.... But in sure they will fine a way to handle it.

Pick it up and see what you think.