I've tried out the Uplink demo a couple of times now, and I must say I'm surprised. Unfortunately, I'm unpleasantly surprised.
Either someone messed up when releasing this demo, or the game itself is very poorly done. I haven't tried the PC version of this game, so I don't know if it's the mac port or the game itself that is bad, but I think there are a lot of things wrong with it.
But first, let's list the good things I thought about Uplink:
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Interesting game idea. I really liked it.
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The graphics are nice. The world map could be a little less blurred, but the rest looks good.
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The music fits in with the game.
And, now - on to the bad stuff:
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The registration animation is nice and all, but when you've disabled the button animations, it just looks strange.
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The demo is too short.
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Instead of the demo cutting the player out from further gaming, it would be nice if the email where your uplink rating is increased specified "We would like to increase your Uplink rating, but since you are using the demo, we won't." or something to that effect.
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The interface is sluggish. Especially in the world map, when you've logged into the InterNIC server and copied those links. Which you can do even before doing the test mission.
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The world map is missing an entire continent.
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It would be good if you could disable drawing the names of machines on the world map, and instead have the name of the machine appear in the information box that appears when you have the mouse over a machine.
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It would be good if the world map would highlight target machines. That would make them much easier to find.
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The world map would benefit from having some sort of search feature, so that you can locate target machines without having to first dial into them.
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In the world map, next to the save and load buttons, there is a zoom tool. This tool covers whatever the text is that appears when you save or load, making the text unreadable.
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If you save a bunch of connections, and load them later when one of the machines have been hidden, all the machine names start moving around like crazy.
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The load/save function for connections on the world map is a nifty thing. But it could really do with a couple of different load/save slots.
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When you zoom the world map, you can't click on the machines because the indicator is not where you are supposed to click.
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Why do links to machines have to be automatically hidden after you complete a mission at that machine?
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It would be nice if lists were sorted when you clicked on a column header. Especially the links list.
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When you click on a button in the main menu (after you log into a server) but change your mind and move the mouse over another button before you release, the game acts as if the other button was pushed. This is not consistant with how the graphics act when you do this.
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Sometimes when you click on a menu item in the main menu of a machine, you are presented with a username/password box, but no way to go back to the main menu without disconnecting from the machine first. A good example is the InterNIC server.
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Unless every program has some strange sort of threading, when you have a machine with more than one processor slot, a single process cannot eat up 100% CPU.
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It would be good if you didn't have to hold the mouse over text boxes where you want to type.
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It would be a good thing to be able to close bank accounts that are empty and has no loans.
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The description box in the software upgrades market should probably have a scroll bar, so that even people with low resolutions can read the entire description.
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The HUD_MapShowTrace tool description says "Replaces the Trace Tracker." when in fact it doesn't.
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What's the point of having a version column in the software upgrades market if the text in it is always "v1.0"?
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It is too easy to hit the abandon button on missions by mistake.
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What's the point of having a "game options" submenu to the options menu, if it is empty?
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Why isn't the mac mouse cursor hidden when the software mouse is enabled?
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It would be nice if you could drop the IP probe on a link, rather than have to manually type the IP number.
I realise, of course, that some of these things are design choices made by the original developers of the game, and that those things won't likely change. But I thought I'd mention them anyway as things that I think are wrong.
I sincerely hope that someone messed up in the release of the demo, because if the problems with this demo is an indication of the full game, I'm surprised that Ambrosia got involved in porting it. I thought better of you, Ambrosia.
Don't get me wrong: overall, I liked the game idea. There are just a lot of things wrong with the implementation.
But enough of what I think about it, what do the rest of you out there think?
'glove
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Compilers - the ultimate god games.
(edit) I wish there was a preview feature on this board. (/edit)
(This message has been edited by Kidglove II (edited 05-11-2003).)
