Hacker II: The Doomsday Papers
Hacker II: The Doomsday Papers | |
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Single player |
Hacker II: The Doomsday Papers is
Plot
Hacker II is more difficult and involved than the first game. In Hacker II, the player is actually recruited based upon their (assumed) success with the activities in the original game. Once again, they are tasked with controlling a robot, this time to infiltrate a secure facility in order to retrieve documents known only as "The Doomsday Papers" from a well guarded vault to ensure the security of the United States.
Eventually, as they escape with the papers, the player is confronted by agents of the United States who reveal that they have actually been working for a former Magma employee, who wanted the papers in revenge for what had happened to the company the player had presumably exposed in the first game. The building that the player had unwittingly broken into was a government facility. The player then has to go back into the facility as part of a gambit to expose the Magma agent, avoiding the same security that had threatened the player before.
Gameplay
![](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/f/ff/Hacker_II_The_Doomsday_Papers_Atari_ST_screenshot.png/220px-Hacker_II_The_Doomsday_Papers_Atari_ST_screenshot.png)
Gameplay is considerably changed from the previous game, and the packaging notably includes a "manual" describing the function of a four-way monitor system provided to the player. It is hooked into the camera security network of the facility the player is asked to infiltrate. A handful of robots are available, hidden in the facility, in case some are lost. By using the
Discovery by the guards must be avoided at all costs because once alerted, they will call in a huge machine that resembles a large plate hung from what looks like a metal frame on wheels. This machine pursues the player's defenseless robot and attempt to crush it with the plate. The player can try to avoid the drone, although it is relentless in its pursuit and is much faster than the player's robot. If all the player's robots are destroyed, the game is over. Things that can set off the alarms include being seen by the patrolling guard who has constant line of sight in the corridors, having one of the cameras see the robot, incorrectly disabling the vault security or failing to sync a bypassed camera feed with actual time giving evidence there is tampering going on.
The game also featured escalating problems as part of the player's interface begins to fail, the in-game map starts to lose progress of the player's robot, monitored security cameras, the guard and eventually the map itself as the player defeated the system, eventually to get into the vault the player may well be forced to control the robot blindly relying on maps that should have been made by the player.
There are no saves available in the game, as in the first title.
Reception
Reviews
- Isaac Asimov's Science Fiction Magazine v11 n5 (1987 05)[5]
- Jeux & Stratégie #42[6]
- Jeux & Stratégie HS #3[7]
References
- ^ a b Hague, James. "The Giant List of Classic Game Programmers".
- ^ Randall, Neil (November 1986). "Hacker II: The Doomsday Papers". Compute!. p. 67. Retrieved 9 November 2013.
- ^ Williams, Gregg (December 1986). "Hacker II" (PDF). Computer Gaming World. No. 33. p. 18. Retrieved 23 April 2016.
- ^ Dunnington, Benn; Brown, Mark R.; Malcolm, Tom (January–February 1987). "64/128 Gallery". Info. pp. 14–21.
- ^ "Asimov's v11n05 (1987 05)".
- ^ "Jeux & stratégie 42". December 1986.
- ^ "Jeux & stratégie HS 3". 1986.
External links
- Hacker II: The Doomsday Papers at MobyGames
- Hacker II: The Doomsday Papers at Lemon 64
- Hacker II: The Doomsday Papers at SpectrumComputing.co.uk
- The MS-DOS version of Hacker II: The Doomsday Papers can be played for free in the browser at the Internet Archive