In the mid 90's is when I first started playing online games, I played a game called Gemstone III. The game was kind of like Zork where there's nothing but words and you have to type commands like "climb stairs" or type in "north" to move north. These were called MUD's or Multi User Dungeons. Gemstone III happened to be one of the more advanced games and you can still play it, but it's upgraded to Gemstone IV.

I bring this game up because it really reminds me of the game I've been playing for the last two almost 3 weeks. The game I'm talking about is called Slavehack.

The concept for this game is pretty simple, you are a hacker and your job is to set out and and slave PC's aka put viruses on them so they make you money. In this case money is in the form of Euros. Now the interface for the game is pretty nice, literally it sets you up with a desktop with little icon's that you can double click to open.


You can move the icon's to where you want.

I really love how the interface looks like your on a mac.

The Icon's that you will use most are Logs, Internet, Slaves, Software and Processes. Some of the not so used but are still useful to know about are the My Computer, Hardware, Forums, Finances and the Rules Icon's. Each of these icon's opens up a window where you can interact somehow with the game.

I'll go over in general what each one of these do.

The Logs icon is the Log File for your PC everything you do shows up here, its good to keep it clear so that no one knows what you've done or where you've been.


Much of everything you do takes "real" time in seconds minutes and hours.

The Internet icon is the way you access other People's PC's and or NPC Computers.

The Slaves icon is a list of computers that you have cracked the password for and have active or inactive viruses on.


NPC PC's reset so you have to collect your cash often.

The Software page shows you all of the programs that you currently have on your PC as well as your way to access your external hard drive. You get new programs from accessing other computers and downloading them from those PC's in the Internet window.

The processes icon allows you to see all of the processes you have going at the moment. There are two different types of processes your Internet downloads or uploads or the processes that your computers processor are handling.

The My Computer icon allows you to see your player rank, how much spam mail you have sent out, your IP address, your PC's password, where you can do an IP reset and see all of the running program versions that you have active. That really sounds like a lot of information but you don't use it as often as you would think.

With the Hardware icon you can upgrade the hardware of your PC. You can upgrade 4 different parts of your PC the Processor, your Internet speed, your hard drive space and your external hard drive.

I often visit the Forums page and like to read what people say there. There is a lot of good advice there but when I first started the forums it looked like people were speaking a bunch of gibberish. As you play a bit more you start to understand what people are talking about.

With the Finances icon it gives you access to your bank account and allows you to reset your banks password and lets you see your account(s) balance. When you check this and there's no money when there "should" be money in there, you know your accounts been hacked. Likely someone saw you make a transfer, saw you log into the bank or saw your account on your log.

The last of the important icons is the Rules. This is the place to go when you don't know if you are following the rules or not. The rules are pretty simple get to know them.

The remaining icon's are pretty self explanatory. Email is a type of message system which I don't really suggest getting. Its just another way for people to get your IP. Highscores, Options, Support and Logout are as self explanatory as it gets. Either way you should at least check them out so you know what they do.

I would say that the game is really fun but as you get further in it feels like you sort of become a hermit and just try to hoard as many slaves as you can get for as long as you can keep them. Fortunately you can perhaps after you've already got millions of Euros stored up and decided to take a risk you can go ahead and start DDoSing PC's. This requires you put a DDoS virus on multiple machine's then set those machine's to attack a certain IP. This hurts the PC's software and hardware and makes it so they have to purchase hardware again as well as find the software again. There's even a place in the forums that people can Brag about who they DDoS'd.

As of right now I currently have the best software (That I'm aware of) out there. So I've been spamming viruses on multiple machine's and making some cash. I have a friend who plays the game with me and we are working on getting a GS or Group Server where we can backup our big files so we have access to them when we need them.


Here's an example of the Internet window when you open it.

I really suggest not trusting many people in game as some of them are there to steal from you through "Social Engineering" (Tricking you into giving them something). The funny thing about the social engineering is that its part of the game. I suggest just going with your instincts and if it sounds too good to be true it likely is.

All and all I rate this as one of my favorite games to play when there's nothing else really going on. I do admit I can get stuck on the game for hours at a time doing nothing but installing viruses and trying to not get caught.

I hope to see you in SH! Look for me on the Forums as Serene.

Game Website: Slavehack

This week I'm going to be reposting an older review I did. This ones from the game Mabinogi.

March 2008
So I've been playing this game for the better part of a week. The very first day I played I was hooked.

There's was only one problem with the game and that was that the camera kept forcing me to look north. Fortunately there was an easy fix for this problem which was simply pressing the Z key.

I was really hesitant on posting about this game until I was completely sure about it. Now that I have been able to play the game for a while I'm sure It needs a post here.

The game starts with a Character generation like most MMO games. One of the first things I noticed was that you could choose your age. The scale here was that the younger you picked the more difficult the game is to play. So I automatically picked the youngest age I could. Call me daring but I like living on the edge sometimes.


When you finish Character creation you are taken to what looks like a platform in the middle of white nothingness. A beautiful woman comes floating down and starts to talk to you.

She then proceeds to transport you to the beautiful world of Erinn.

Starting out you are asked to help out the villagers around you. They then throw a few quests at you. One of the most unique things about this game is they sometimes just throw random quest's at you. From what I can tell as you do Part time work for the people in the town your status in the town increases and they give you new quest's to meet everyone in the town.

The first quest that you get from an NPC is to kill some foxes.

This is fun and easy but the best part is holding the control button to target the fox nearest to you. After you are taught a skill the NPC gives you a card for a beginner dungeon.

The beginning combat system is like a big game of Roshambo Or more commonly known as Rock, Paper, Scissors. You have 3-4 skills that you can use that you need to anticipate the monsters move. You do have a skill which tells you what move your opponent is making so its not tough to figure out.

There's the Smash skill which is good Against the Defense skill. The defense skill is good against a normal attack. Then there's the counter attack skill which is good against a normal attack and the smash skill. Fortunately you can see which skill the monster is prepping.

There's also magic but this early into the game its not a main function. From what I've seen it can be really powerful though.

Every dungeon you go into is completely unique. The best part is you drop an item and that takes you and your party into the dungeon. Now random people who drop the same item can also join your dungeon as well. This adds a really nice dynamic to the game.

The beginner dungeon is pretty much a solo thing this time around though. The dungeons reminded me of an easier version of Zelda dungeons. You fight some monsters and they drop a key so that you can advance to the next part of the dungeon. This dungeon was pretty small but I imagine that as you advance they get more complex. I did notice as you enter it said I was on level 1 of the dungeon. Which means they can be multi level.

At the end of each dungeon you have a boss. In this dungeon it had a Giant Spider.

After Defeating the spider you are allowed to go to the treasure room grab the loot and teleport back out to the dungeons entrance. Altogether it was a great dungeon experience. What was very nice were the little traps and such throughout its interior. As an example there were some rooms where there's a bunch of poles and you need to pick the right one or monsters spawn.

After the dungeon I noticed my stamina started getting a little bit black and the max stamina was going down. What I didn't realize was that you need to eat to keep your stamina up! What was actually even more amazing than that was that the food that you eat makes you fatter or skinnier in the game. This is a concept that most games don't go into. Your character actually changing by something that you do in game. (Besides armor and equipment which by the way changes as well when you put it on in this game.)

Another nifty little thing I learned is that your character ages. So I don't have to be a little shrimp forever hehe. Also learned that as you age you get more AP or ability points to get new skills.

I also noticed that my health was starting to get blacken out and my total health was lower. As you adventure a bit more they teach you the rest skill. Turns out that you can't adventure forever. You need to sit down take a rest and let that puppy restore so you have full health again.

The best part about resting It gives you time to setup a campfire and interact with people. One of the more unique things about the game is that people can compose their own music on the games website and bring it to the game and play it for people. Its really funny to hear Linkin Park played on a Lute. It really sets an atmosphere for the game. It also lets you notice the little graphic easter egg's in the game like when people laugh their mouth changes.

Building a campfire also lets everyone resting share food. It's only about half as filling as normal but everyone can share and everyone benefits. Plus while resting near a fire your health restores faster.

Now that I conquered a dungeon, met a few people and learned to setup a campfire I decided to try out a few part time jobs.

When you go to a part time job you need to be prepared to do what the task entails. Any prep work you can do is a bonus. Some jobs are simple delivery's. Some of the other jobs require you harvest crops and make some flower which is a bit more complicated. You can on the other hand take a look at what they want you to do before you accept the job. It helps but you have to be careful though because they only hand out so many jobs to people per day. Plus there's a time limit which you have to get the job done.

Day's go by pretty fast in the game so don't worry too much if you mess up.

My first attempt at a part time job was helping out by sheering some wool from some sheep. You equip a gathering knife (which was really inexpensive at the blacksmith's shop) and sheer the wool from a few sheep. It was pretty simple task, just click on the sheep and it starts gathering the wool. When you return with the wool requested, you are rewarded with a couple choices. Most rewards consist of Experience and money but some choices have more money than experience and vice versa. Sometimes they also offer items and experience.

Another unique thing is that the more you talk to the NPC's and do work for them the more they start to like you. If you constantly go to NPC's and fail to complete your part time jobs their opinion of you changes more to the negative side.

For your work you are rewarded ultimately with a title. Though you have to do a lot of work for them before getting the title. The titles actually give you bonuses to some attributes as well as to health stamina and mana.

There are skills for just about anything you want to do in the game from Fishing to making clothes and even cooking your own meals. There's also modifying weapons and armor which I haven't even gotten into yet.

My experience in Mabinogi I must say has been an amazing experience.

I'm currently playing on the Mari Server You can find me there as Seriene.

Game Website: Mabinogi