Can I just say that this is the day that I have been looking for. A day in which I can reference 1995's cult classic film, Hackers, and not feel like a complete and total cine-junkie weirdo. I promise you, that I will be using so many quotes from that movie in my review of LuGus Studio's Midnight Protocol, that I just don't know what to do with myself. Which, I might add, if you have never seen that movie, I suggest you find a copy somewhere on the internet on whatever streaming service that it's on, and you go watch that movie. When I saw Midnight Protocol pop up on G.ROUND, I instantly was intrigued by how it referenced itself. It was an instant mental connection. Something so simplistic, creating so much need for me to play was kind of unfathomable. I didn't know I wanted to play something like this until it was presented in front of me on a silver platter. Believe me, when I tell you this, a silver platter is exactly how this game was served to me.
Your character's name is Data, a hacker who was sent to prison after his real information was hijacked and released upon the world. Once you get out of the big house, you immediately get back on your "deck" and go off looking for a person, whose call sign is Kraken, to get revenge on what he has done to you. Together with your friends Clover and Snail, your goal is to "boot up or shut up" (reference #2) to trap this person. Midnight Protocol gives you the actual FEEL of being a hacker. The game's controls revolve solely around keyboard inputs and commands to navigate numerous networks by gathering data, using your resourceful friends, hacking data, and more to build up money and your reputation to unlock more missions to progress this cyber drama.
The money you "acquire" from draining financial institutions from your hacks, can net you some pretty interesting programs to use for future break-ins. Whereas the sniffer program will give you the ability to see if there are any ICE programs ahead of you before you move, the sledgehammer or dagger programs can be used to bust open these ICE programs to get you past them. Or you can just use the tunnel software to bypass it completely to get to the next node that you are looking for. This game provides you multiple avenues to gather and complete the objectives, while also giving you the feeling of being locked into this world of espionage and dark network dealings. In the demo, the game is turn-based, which I will a little bit more on that in a bit, each turn giving you two actions that you can do before you have to end your turn. They provide you with a help command that will tell you what you can or cannot do on your turn, in case you forget a large number of options, all of which allowing you to get better, stronger, and more efficient. Reaching a point where you're just telling your targets "if you mess with the best, you die like all the rest"(reference #3).
Even though this demo is turn-based, there was a clear option of being real-time that was locked up. This feature had me enthralled with thoughts and possibilities. How would the real-time function? How in-depth and hard would it be? I feel like it would be a system in which only the best could go through. This also gave me the not-so-subtle idea of online play. I'm not sure if LuGus Studio had thought about this, but could you imagine an online play in which two to four players were able to create their own networks using in-game purchasable nodes, setup their ICE and other protective programs, and going head to head to see who can take out the other players networks, navigating till you get to their access nodes to download their data for the win? All of this being in real-time or turn-based? Just something to think about if you guys haven't? Midnight Protocol, in my opinion, could very well open up doorways to a different type of gameplay that I think the gaming industry is just in need of, just off of this thought alone.
Midnight Protocol unlocked a vast amount of thinking for me. It gave me the feeling of sitting on my rig and being Crash Override trying to expose the corrupt evil corporation's plans. Every detail, from sending out emails, surfing the web to find information, collecting web addresses it reminded me that "hacking is more than just a crime, it's a survival trait" (reference #4). So if you ever felt like a "samurai or keyboard cowboy" (reference #5) and think "all of those other people out there who have no idea are cattle" (reference #6), or if you just believe "there is no right or wrong, only fun and boring" (reference #7). Heck if you just think that "your only crime is curiosity"(reference #8) then Midnight Protocol is the way to go. Its simple, unique but still highly skilled gameplay coupled with cyber-style music and terminal transitions and graphics was perfect and just what you need to "hack the planet, man! Hack the Planet!" (reference #9).
You can add Midnight Protocol on your steam wishlist as well as play the demo over there or on G.ROUND.
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