/skipscene, ftw

If you've ever played Kingdom Hearts 2, you know the most powerful command in the game is [Skip Scene]. The plot absolutely sucks. The same can be said for volume 1 of the new .hack series, G.U. Voice actors are awful, dialog is terrible and slow, and you have no option to speed through the conversation, just skip to it.

Not only am I spending my Sunday night at home alone playing video games, but I'm playing a game where I'm controlling a character that's playing a game. The .hack games take place inside a fake MMO, where the characters are far too into the game. In this one, there's a character (which looks like the main guy from the first .hack series, I never saw the ending of that so it might be him) that goes around killing other characters and by doing so, put their real life selves into a coma.

...

And the main character of this game stated that he thinks if he can find and kill the other character, that the people will come out of their real life coma.

... right ...

So you skip anytime people start talking. The game does a good job of keeping track of what you're supposed to do, almost like they're anticipating the plot to be unwatchable. Once you're past all that, the same is pretty fun. You gain levels quickly, the random world generation allows for near infinite places to fight monsters, and the computer controlled characters are actually useful in combat.

The last .hack series of games went by really quickly if you stuck just to the plot, but it's hard to not start exploring the random dungeons to collect l33ter lewts. But also like the other series, you're better off renting. Since the video game series will go on for probably 3 more games, you know each game will be short and with a predetermined level cap. Or get it from Game Stop and beat it in a week, to return it for full value.