.hack//G.U. Volume 1: Rebirth

[Ultrawolf]

Booted it up last night and I have to say I'm pretty impressed visually. They've changed the combat system up to make it more actiony so far as I can tell. Takes a little getting used to, but overall it's pretty cool so far. One of the things I loved about the old games was the desktop/messageboards/email/news system. It made it feel like you were on a computer browsing the internet outside of the game, they took it a step further in this one and actually have fake news clips you can watch. One of the message boards is an Art forum where you can download wallpaper of people's art. It's pretty awesome and some of the posts are hilarious.

Storywise I'm very interested already from my brief experiences so far. If there's one thing I loved about the .hack games, it was their impressive storyline. You play as Haseo, as PKK (Player Killer Killer), sort of like a MMO Vigilante I guess you could say. The World (the name of the fake MMO) looks like it has been revamped after the Twilight Incident (the original .hack games), but all is not well. Haseo seems to be on a quest to avenge/find his friend Shino and it looks like people are falling into comas again. Meanwhile there's a mysterious Player Killer named Tri-Edge running around who looks mysteriously like the protaganist from the first games. Dun Dun Dun...

Will update with more detailed impressions as I get farther in the game.