Posted by boyo on Jul 9, 2010 14:25 (Jul 9, 2010 14:25)
There’s been many an iconic start-up screen in the history of gaming. Sonic’s waggling finger, or the collection of characters from Mario’s world in Mario All Stars for example. But none make an initial impression like the “LOGON” screen from that classic title Hacker.
Unlike most games which we’re happy to give you a detailed run down of how they work in an included instruction manual, Hacker threw us all right into the deep end with that initial screen. There was explanation. No detailed run down of the game mechanics, and how to ultimately ‘win’. Instead we were greeted by a blue background, with a simple LOGON question.
Hacker itself was the culmination of nine months of hard work for Steve Cartwright, nowadays of Glu Mobile, where he’s been involved with the development of that Xbox Live smash hit Zuma. Despite having developed previous gaming titles on the Atari 2600, such as Barnstorming and Plaque Attack, Hacker was Cartwright’s first ‘computer’ title, and didn’t start out anything close to what was finally displayed as the final product.
“The game was initially an underground mail delivery simulation,” says Cartwright. “Then it evolved into an “International mystery theme” where a remote controlled robot travelled the globe exchanging items to piece together a plot.” But with Activision’s finger on the pulse of what would be commercially viable in the hectic video gaming market, the title of “Hacker” was decided upon. As Cartwright remembers, “Computer “hacking” was the big news that year…and so he (the Producer) convinced Activision to reluctantly use the title ‘Hacker’.” With the recent release of the film “Wargames” bringing in the big bucks at the box office, Activision’s aims to sell a title to those who became infected with the hacking bug, and how ‘cool’ it seemed is obvious. Although Cartwright is eager to deny any kind of influence by the film “I believe the code had been completed by the time that movie came out. The related themes were just a coincidence of timing based on current events,” he says.
The blurb on the back of the Hacker box said all you needed to know. You’ve been spent a long night working the electronic bulletin boards, but as you eventually decide to log off for the evening, you accidentally enter a wrong phone number, only to be greeted by an ominous blue screen, displaying a mere two words, “LOGON PLEASE”.
Immediately you’re hooked. You’ve no idea what computer system you’ve hacked. It could be an FBI database, or it could just be a fellow computer owner a few streets away. As you progress, you eventually take control of a small robot, which you control remotely, as you exchange items with spies all around the world in order to piece together the plot you’ve found yourself involved with. Your ultimate goal to gain all the individual shreds of a secret document, containing the secret plans of Magma Ltd’s ultimate goal of world domination.
Activision as a company was going through various hardships at the time as Cartwright remembers. “Activision had gone from a $600 million a year in sales… to about $20 million. 50% of the employees were laid off. All salaries were cut in half. I was actually teaching engineering classes part time at night to supplement my income."
And hence a mere 9 months after first setting out on his first computer based project, Hacker was ready to be shown to the public. Due to time constraints, and Cartwright’s lack of time with the Commodore 64 in a development sense before embarking on the project that ultimately became known as Hacker, features were left out.
I have to say that I never really got into this one. Remember seeing the ads and thought it was a great idea, a bit like "Wargames" the film, but once the initial novelty had worn off (managed to log on!) and the game got well underway the appeal didn't last particularly long for me. Nice concept though.
I remember this on the Atari 8-bit, that lousy password at the start prevented me from playing it, I can't remember what it was...anwser on a post card please?
so I moved to Hacker 2 instead..and great game under-rated
Jul 21, 2010 20:27:05 (
Jul 21, 2010 20:27
)
