Anonymous Hacker Simulator Review (PC)

Aside from that one time that I “accidentally” guessed the password for my younger brother’s Club Penguin account, there haven’t been that many other instances where I’ve had the opportunity to “flex” my hacking abilities. There was, however, a time where I had to guess a four-digit lock combination in Splinter Cell: Double Agent, and another where I had to defuse a bomb by “hacking” the center console and then cut a wire or six. To cut a long story short, I failed several of those tests, which ultimately resulted in civilians either dying, or prominent landmarks going up in balls of flames. And so, when I went on to review Anonymous Hacker Simulator, I knew for certain that one thing would happen, for better or for worse: I’d find a way to make things go wrong. In my mind, I was not the saving grace that innocent people needed.

It’s been a fair while since I first whipped open the laptop and bashed out a few lines of code, and so, to some extent, I do have an idea of how certain things gel together in Sicarius’ hack-centric sim. With that said, I wouldn’t quite go as far as to grant myself the title of ‘hacking guru’, much less a wizard in the art of computer science, for that matter. Am I all the wiser, having spent a boatload of hours tapping keys and channeling my way into various devices? Perhaps. Even still, if there’s one thing I’ve come to learn since enrolling in the job, it’s this: I am not cut out for this line of work.

A Love Letter to Hollywood Clichés

There’s this old running gag in movies that essentially depicts a computer genius mindlessly smashing a few keys and somehow finding a way to the root of an internal network of nodes and configurations. For the record, this is what I imagined I’d be doing over the course of the campaign in Anonymous Hacker Simulator: hitting several keys thrice over, and managing to punch a major hole in the framework of some elusive code. As it turned out, though, there was a bit more to it than that; I didn’t have the knowledge or mental bandwidth to come to grips with it, but it was oddly accommodating of my lack of expertise in the field. And honestly, that’s what drew me to persevere, even when I knew that the odds of succeeding in my mission were slim to non-existent.

To put you in the picture, Anonymous Hacker Simulator slots you into the boots of—you guessed it—a hacker, whose sole purpose is to expose the secrets of an underground organization—a firm that’s ultimately aiming to exploit private data and conjure up a way to conduct mass surveillance without the consent of its involuntary users. As said hacker, your primary objective is to work through several cases, and figure out a way to manipulate the system, and locate a back door into the seemingly sinister and “somewhat” impenetrable code. Much easier said than done, of course, seeing as a huge portion of these firewalls build themselves around complex structures and mounds upon mounds of numerals, letters, and abstract symbols.

Keystrokes & Commands

The good news is that you don’t, in fact, need to be an elite computing engineer in order to crack a good portion of the puzzles that Anonymous Hacker Simulator has in its cabinet of technical curveballs. Suffice it to say that, if you don’t know your typical keystrokes from your bog-standard mouse wheel, then you’re probably going to struggle to make heads or tails of a lot of the finer details here; however, thanks to there being a rather forgiving series of basic tutorials, even the most convoluted of conclusions can be a little less daunting and beyond the realm of possibility. Phew.

The goals in Anonymous Hacker Simulator aren’t all that complex, provided that you know exactly how certain things in certain areas work. For example, the words Harvester, Airocrack, and Burp tend to pop up every so often—commands that you either need to learn as you knuckle in on set objectives, or exploit in order to obtain better keystrokes and other tricks in the bag. Granted, a lot of these terms tend to become a little more digestible when mixed with some generic trial-and-error gameplay, of which I found myself a victim of several—and I mean several times over during the course of the ascension from backstreet techie to full-fledged Anonymous hacker.

Just Tweet It

Hacking in Anonymous Hacker Simulator isn’t squashed down into simply splicing files and adjusting a couple of numbers on a bank statement; on the contrary, the range of objectives is surprisingly hefty—so much, that I was often taken aback by some of the requests that my peers had me participating in. Case in point, one tasks sees you hacking into the social media profile of Elan Mask (a bit on the nose, but sure)—the owner of Tweeter (and “destroyer of short-sellers”, apparently), whereas another invites you to clone the credit card details of a corporate tyrant.

Needless to say that, despite a lot of the tools being relatively similar, a lot of these tasks are clearly designed to emulate a lot of real-life components in the traditional hacker’s toolkit. And, whilst I can’t speak volumes for what a “traditional” hacker would normally do in such situations, I can say, from the outside looking in, it does manage to deliver a pretty convincing presentation, and not to mention a deeper insight into the fundamentals of hacking and its impact on corporate and independent infrastructure. Again, I’m speaking from the perspective of an outsider here, so while I can’t exactly speak on behalf of the hacking community in its entirety, I can say with minor respect that, you know, from what I’ve seen — it looks right. Refer back to the comment regarding Club Penguin.

Well, It’s a Sim, Alright

Being a simulation game at heart, Anonymous Hacker Simulator does provide a generous selection of tools, software, and all-around upgrades to sink your teeth into. Naturally, you begin your journey with little more than the basics—a few keystrokes and the ability to make short work of quick and relatively painless jobs that don’t involve too much effort to solve. From there (again, being a simulation game at its core), it’s merely the case of earning cash from requests, and obtaining better equipment, applications, and technical skills, with which you can then adopt in future exploits across the web.

For the most part, Anonymous Hacker Simulator does perform remarkably well — at least to a technical degree, anyway. Graphically, it isn’t anything overly fancy; it does stand tall against some alternate forms of modern simulations, but it doesn’t exactly break the fourth wall, either. Indeed, it doesn’t generate a life-like image of an office setting — but that’s a minor issue in comparison to a lot of its higher qualities, of which there are plenty to sift through, thankfully.

Verdict

If you wanted to take a peek behind that all-important iron curtain of cyber security, and more importantly, into the intricacies of a world driven by suspiciously complex texts and scrolls of mind-boggling code, then you’ll no doubt find yourself absorbed by a good amount of what Anonymous Hacker Simulator has to offer. Is it a compelling representation of the art? It’s hard to tell, doubly so given the fact that I, for one, don’t tread too lightly in waters that generate more technical jargon than hand-holding ripples.

Don’t get me wrong, there are a few issues with the design here—the barebones visual effects and rugged lighting, being two of the standout downfalls. Sure enough, the bulk of the experience flows all rather smoothly, and it isn’t bogged down by any major technical issues, but I’d also be lying if I said that I was wowed by the overall presentation, too.

It’s a weird one to call, to be honest; on one hand, I’m all for the idea of seeing the other side of a world that’s largely under wraps, but on the other, I’m not entirely sure if it’s enough of a talking point to receive a full-fledged video game adaptation. Given the fact that I Am Bread is, disgracefully, a thing, though, I’m willing to let bygones be bygones and give credit where it’s due.