Hi, I wrote an article about hacking in games for a website that never used it. It's a little rough, missing many entries but have had it sitting on my HDD for over a year and just want to put it out there. Anyway, here it is in its entirety:
Hacking: an abridged and brief video game retrospective
Here we are now in the year 2016, where a hack has matured past its early associations with esoteric knowledge of terminals to mean a nifty way to fold a bed sheet or organize your cables. Though in this retrospective we'll be looking at something closer to circumvention or disruption of security and foes.
Hollywood, in their representation of hacking have gone from your microwave set and forget one click options to some god-knows-what virtual rubric’s cube. Video games, similarly, have treated it as something that can be completed by simply clicking a terminal to a virtual heist and everything else that is as far removed from actual hacking as you can think of. As you would expect, hacking is either part of the multiple-approach to problem solving that makes your life a little easier, a little quirky aside or a core component needed to complete a mission. And as you've probably discovered yourselves, the term has grown to extend far beyond your simple terminal. I’ve included these iterations to include other interfaces/machines/equipment and whatnot that require bypassing and/or manipulation in a number of unique ways. Below is by no means an exhaustive list, I did miss a few sequels here and there, and hacking games that I just didn't know about (or was too lazy to include). This list looks more at the hacking mechanic than the game and story it's wrapped in, as a way to see how hacking has changed over the 30+ years it has been a feature in games, and to serve as a compilation rather than a critique. So, let us concern ourselves with this enigmatic process as it appears in video games.
System 15000 1984 A.V.SNoted as being the first game to simulate hacking, this game was likely not incidental, coming not long after Ferris Bueller played a game of global thermonuclear war with a bored supercomputer. You receive a letter asking you to help a mutual friend recover funds by hacking into the system. This was a command based game and after using the number and access code supplied you head off on your quest to dial into databases and bulletin boards where more logins and numbers are obtained. System 15000 refers to the hacking software at your disposal. It wasn’t the most intuitive game, not unlike games of the time, it seems there was some guesswork as much as logic to your plight.
Hacker 1985 ActivisionPossibly the second earliest game to utilize hacking. Interestingly, information regarding how to play was sparse (non-existant), and so after booting up the game and facing a login screen, you were essentially hacking from the get go. Forget about password crackers, your only tools were your wits and a bit of luck (if you can call that a tool). And not to be left stranded, if you couldn't guess the initial logon password with the hint provided, you were eventually given access due to a computer malfunction.
Neuromancer 1988 InterplayTaking place in a future Japan we all want to see, cyberspace was a large part of this game, loosely based on the book of the same name. Your deck is your ticket into cyberspace. Plot wise your cyberspace buddies have done a disappearning act and you want to get to the bottom of it. Hacking had you bypass enter quasi 3D cyberspace and go head to head with Intrustion Countermeasure Electronics (ICE – which would be found later in System Shock) to gain access to those juicy databases by using a variety of software at your disposal. Potentially the first game to include upgradable hardware and software, of which is ubiquitous now. Passwords were acquired in the real world by approaching women in bars. “I wanna buy some info, babe” would do the trick. You can also hack into bank accounts for money to upgrade software - and buy back your limbs.
Shadowrun (Genesis/Megadrive) 1993 Beam SoftwareYou’ve got hacking and then you’ve got Shadowrun. Before we were forced to swallow the red pill, a few years earlier we were going on matrix runs in Shadowrun as a Decker. Gaining access to these networks required entering the password or running permutations using your cyberdeck. This was just the initial stage as you then went up against ICs protecting the nodes within. ICs could be a minor inconvenience or a big threat to the utilities you carried in your cyberdeck. These utilities could be used for thorough hacking of networks. You could analyse the programs and download data, like any real hacker would. Shadowrun turned hacking into a tense and ultimately rewarding battle, which was just as well as it was a core mechanic. Your cyberdeck was a serious piece of equipment, with stats that affected cyberspace performance, memory, storage and load/IO speed; and then there were the attributes, with masking (how well you remained undetected in the matrix and success when running Deception) arguably the most important.
System Shock 1994 Looking Glass TechnologiesIn System shock you are the hacker. Find your way to the nearest cyberjack and you'll be telerported into full 360 degree cyberspace, a bit like Descent. Inside you often needed to destroy the ICE and break through the shields protecting a data cube or access to another area. This meant shooting it with your pulse software and sometimes using a decoy to distract it. Within this vector hell you could also collect upgrades and tidbits left behind by crew members. There was also the door hacking component in the physical world. This meant rearranging wires on either side of a fuse box thing to their optimum position which would raise the energy high enough to open the doors. There was no consequence besides not getting the damn door open and you really just fumbled around with the wires for as long as it took.
Fallout 1997 Interplay EntertainmentIn Fallout you could access terminals if your Science skill was high enough. You could even gain backdoor access by beating the computer in a game of Blackjack… well not actually "play" play. Hacking could help you bypass force fields. However, as with the open ended nature of how you completed tasks, this wasn't compulsory.
System Shock 2 1999 Irrational Games, Looking Glass StudiosTo hack you need at least some hacking skill and it does use nanites (currency). The interface is a grid of nodes of which are either green (good) or red (bad). Illuminating 3 green squares in a row is a successful hack. You are given a percentage of the likelihood of changing a node green. There are also ICE nodes, which if you fail to hack, prevents any more hacking attempts and can alert security. Naturally, increasing your hacking skill and using hack software increases your chance of a successful hack.
Deus Ex 2000 Ion StormHere you could upgrade you hacking skills, but it pretty much came down to pressing a key when near a computer and waiting. With that said, hacking was a good investment here, often saving you the trouble of bloodier/more roundabout means. While the hacking aspect itself was simple, the spoils had far reaches, like having turrets take out guards and what not. Some terminals were a quick in and out affair before an alarm was sounded.
Uplink 2001 Introversion SoftwareHacking is your bread and butter in the year 2010. You can perform jobs for competing companies or do your own thing. Interesting was the idea of covering your trails by deleting your logs left on the network hacked, to prevent being traced. Prior to hacking you establish bounce routes through other servers by selecting them on the world map, giving you ample hack time. Because once you initialize hacking, the tracing would start, so the game became a race against the clock. If the trace reached you, you were booted from the system or given a nice little mark against your criminal record. More machines and machines where you have say an account or admin access give you longer time. It’s a matter of selecting the right tool for the job, which usually involves having a sufficient version of a software, and a decent enough Gateway (the system you use) adjusting CPU usage to perform action, like download files quicker and letting it play out. And remember, never connect directly to your target server. There are also tongue in cheek references to our favourite hacking movies like Sneakers and Hackers. As what I assume happens in the real world, as a hacker, you get a neuromancer rating that tells where your morals lie as a hacker. Anarchy against companies is seen as good, while being a snitch like tracing another hacker are bad. Missions involved a whole lot of activity like changing details of a file, destroying databases, transferring money and framing people for crimes. This game set a precedent for future hacking sims.
Sly Cooper 2002 Sucker Punch ProductionsOnly one glorious moment of hacking in the first game which is probably the most arcade like hacking of any game and thus most suitable for the next Hollywood film. Here it’s basically a twin stick shooter where you need to shoot enemies block things and collect pieces of code before you’re cut off by the firewall. In Sly 2 and subsequent games, hacking once again meant controlling some vehicle and shooting obstacles in a similar virtual environment.
Enter the Matrix 2003 Shiny EntertainmentYou can get by without having to use the hacking system (unless you wanted to unlock 2 player mode), which is odd considering how prominent it was in the movie. You hack a DOS like interface (that has a strange Blackberry touch pad on the bottom – welcome to 2003) in pristine green and black. As with DOS you started off in the root directory, here A: and using commands like HELP DIR, you get clues as to how to navigate your way around. There were a couple of folders that had a few executables and the option to input cheat codes - remember when they were a thing? Accessing the other drives and folders had different goodies and puzzles to solve. You can even get the phone numbers to Morpheus and Trinity (I suppose they didn’t slap enough money in Keanus face).
EVE Online 2003 CCP GamesAfter finding data or relic sites with your data probe you can use your hacking or archaeology module to target the structure of interest, you’re taken to a UI with nodes. You explore adjacent nodes with the aim of destroying the systems core using a virus to damage the coherence of the defense subsystems. You start clicking through the adjacent nodes until you hit a roadblock in the form of a firewall which you will most likely need to attack. Weighing your own coherence and strength against that of the firewall, you can ascertain your chances of eliminating them. There are also subsystems within that can help or hinder your progress. Destroying the system is a successful hack, and releases goodies from cargo into space for you to collect.
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