Hacker Evolution

I would like the idea of a hacking-simulator game -- even when the superficially-realistic mechanics are in most cases simplified to the point of "crack" and "decrypt" commands. There's something magical about playing a game whose only input is a text console, and not having to imagine caves, or ogres, or whatever. It's a computer, and my enemies are other computers. It's perfect.

But I lost patience with Hacker Evolution pretty quickly, and not because of its shallow reflection of real server tools, or even because of its just-adequate-for-an-indie lack of polish. It's because, although the game promises an extensive hardware upgrade path - faster CPUs for better decryption, stronger firewalls for better trace blocking, etc. - the economy doesn't support it. Your trace level (think: inverse health points) carries over from mission to mission, and you'll need to spend most of your money just bribing your traces down in order to continue on. I made the mistake of saving up for a high-powered CPU to make sure my hacks outran the traces, but just the passive trace hits from pinging and logging into servers add up to an unavoidable nuisance.

I'm more than willing to try out its sequel, in the hopes that this balance has been tweaked to be more favorable to "character" growth. But with the trace-level-stick practically mashing the hardware-upgrade-carrot into oblivion, I don't really see the point.

Progress: Gave Up -- Got to level 2?