.hack//G.U. vol. 1//Rebirth - exclusive hands on

Haseo doesn't just want revenge on all of the Player Killers in the world. He's looking for a specific enemy - Tri-Edge, who took down Shino, one of his best in-game friends. If rumors are to be believed, she ended up in a coma in real life, too - which echoes the events of the original games. One day, Haseo tracks down the silent, wild-eyed Tri-Edge. Long time .hackers will be surprised to see that he looks just like a demented version of Kite, the original story's hero. Haseo is shocked when Tri-Edge effortlessly parries all of his attacks. Left defenseless, he can merely watch as Tri-Edge lifts his arm and light begins to surround it, a wild light that stabs and infects Haseo... who loses both his connection to The World and consciousness.

Haseo wakes up and turns his computer on... only to find that thing has been formatted. All emails are lost; his character in The World has been reduced to level 1 - down from 133. This is where the game really begins. As Haseo, you begin a quest to find out what happened to him, what happened to Shino, and what Tri-Edge really is.

Once you get over the hump of the initial plot, there's plenty of digging to do. Like a computer, when you boot up .hack//G.U., you're greeted with a desktop and options like email and browser. You can read news or forum discussions - the difference here being that it's all fictional and relates to the world of 2017 or the story within the fake online game The World.

It all interlocks cleverly; details about society, like the "outdoor introverts" who constantly play The World on portable computers, add to the richness of the game's story. The forum posts lend a sense of reality to the fake online game; you can pore over them for hints into where you should go next. You can even reply to emails you receive. It's not a totally convincing illusion, but it's an elegant one. It all helps fill in a lot of gaps in the story without awkwardly shoehorning the info into the game itself.