I’ve found a new profession with DROP – System Breach by developer Etherfield and publisher MicroProse Software, and I am now a hacker!!! No, but in all seriousness, hacking is not what it’s cut out to be. It’s fun watching people doing it in movies, and scary when you’ve been hacked yourself. But playing the role of a hacker in this video game feels less exciting than watching it in the movies, maybe a little more realistic though (I actually don’t know a single thing about hacking).
For starters, the person you play as doesn’t get a name. Like at all. No nickname, regular name, code name, nothing. The player gets User *insert numbers here*, and that’s what you go by for the rest of the game. It makes sense in hindsight, I think, as it would be harder to figure/name specific hackers, but I think it would be fun if you got to make your own name. If you could, then ignore this whole section because the beginning was a tad bit confusing. By this I mean, the game recommends you play with a controller, which I currently do not have at the time of this review, and the keyboard controls are a bit confusing. The controls are set up as though you’re typing, with K being up and L being back. There are different options like shift for up and backspace for back, but the orientation of it on my keyboard is weird for me. I’m very used to most of the controls being on one side of the keyboard, namely where ‘WASD’ are, but that isn’t the case here. I’m also unsure if you are able to change the controls, but from what I could see you cannot. I mean after a while you get used to it, but it was a bit of a struggle for me at the very beginning.
As for actual gameplay, the game is a bit repetitive. The developers add new elements to the game like Logs, Ram, Firewall, etc., but it’s all still the same at the end of the day. I tried to make it fun for myself by adding more challenges than the game gave, like restricting the time limit further, completing unnecessary parts of a mission just because I could, or purposely increasing my alert level, but even after all that, the game wasn’t clicking with me. The little emails I get congratulating me or telling me I could get and make more money weren’t really that encouraging either. Especially the whole money thing, because at the end of the day I still really didn’t make that much considering how expensive the upgrades are. I will say the UI is pretty easy to navigate and understand, and there isn’t much at all on the home game screen. It’s a very simplistic game and easy to follow and understand even if it’s the first game you’ve ever played (probably even easier if you don’t have muscle memory from previous games). I think my favorite part of DROP – System Breach was the sound effects for the emails. For some strange reason, it was very really satisfying to listen to every time. You could say it scratched the right itch in my brain.
Some things I think would be really cool to add are animations or visible effects from your hacking efforts. For example, I’d install spyware into a director’s system but wouldn’t see anything happen. I think being able to see something like that or at least read a short “this is what happened after you hacked into the system” would be a cool addition. A lot of the time it felt like I was just hacking to hack, and that isn’t always the most fulfilling experience in a game. Also, for animations, I don’t mean anything grand. I’m just imagining seeing someone at a computer and zooming into the screen whenever you accept a new mission. It makes the game a little bit more immersive, and perhaps there can be different animations for increased levels of difficulty for missions. The last thing I would add is the ability to customize your controls. It probably isn’t needed if you’re playing on a controller, but I would’ve liked to on my keyboard. Either way, controller or keyboard, I think it’s always just nice to have for players. All that being said, I do not think I am fit for the life of a hacker, at least in a video-game.
DROP – System Breach is available for $9.99 for PC via Steam.
Related: Reviews by Maryanne Fadonougbo
"I've enjoyed gaming since I was little, playing games like Pokémon, Rayman, and Naruto every day. Besides that though, I've always had a love for writing. Now I am combining the two for the best of both worlds! My ultimate goal is to do narrative design for video games."
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